An American Lion

Over at Patterico’s Pontifications, some backflips and hedging seem to be the order of the day:

When I first read a news story about this yesterday, it sounded to me like O’Keefe and company were being accused of an attempt to wiretap or bug Landrieu’s phones. Indeed, that’s the way I characterized the Government’s claim in my post based on a news story. But now I have had a chance to review the affidavit. And it doesn’t say that.

The link to the affidavit is here. I challenge you to find me the language that accuses O’Keefe et al. of a “plot to bug” Landrieu’s office, or an “alleged wiretap scheme.”

It isn’t there.

Why does it have to be there? To specify that the act in question was an “alleged wiretap scheme” would require the investigating authority to go out of his lane. He’s not there for the big picture; he’s there to establish the facts of the case. If this case is referred to a prosecutor, the nature of the crime will be clarified for presentation at trial. One man’s alleged wiretap scheme could really be another man’s attempt at intercepting the communications of a United States Senator for political purposes. No one knows whether it was a wiretap, a tampering issue, or some other effort to intercept, monitor, or misdirect the communications of a United States Senator. At some point, the details will reveal what was going on. When you enter a property under false pretenses, what you were there for is sort of moot.

The possession of the equipment in question will answer a number of important questions. Specifically, I would like to see what they were caught with. If they were caught with no listening devices, that’s fine. It doesn’t mean they were innocent, that’s for certain. What was the make, model and description of the listening devices in question, as well as the cameras or any other device used? Were any of these devices of government design or manufacture and who paid for them? At least one of the individuals caught was part of an outreach program run by the Director of National Intelligence. How close were the ties between these individuals and the intelligence community?

If you really want to get into the scary aspects of this case, if ties between these individuals and the intelligence community are found to exist, it becomes far more serious than a “gotcha” case on health care. It becomes an abuse of power case with serious implications. Did any of the individuals in question hold any kind of current security clearance? Did any of them have access to intelligence products or to the information and research networks for the Department of Defense and the greater intelligence community as a whole?

What you will see is an allegation that three of the four men entered the office pretending to be telephone company employees. O’Keefe was allegedly holding his cell phone as if to record the other two on video. You know, the kind of undercover recording thing that he does.

Incorrect. The affidavit says otherwise.

Two individuals, Flanagan and Basel, dressed in telephone company uniforms, entered the office. Another man, James O’Keefe, was already there and was recording the act with his cell phone.

One witness allegedly saw one of the other two men “take the handset of the phone and manipulate it.” This is the main phone at the reception desk, presumably in full view of everyone. What does “manipulate” mean? I don’t know. Does it mean he simply picked the phone up? That would technically comport with one dictionary definition of “manipulate” — to “operate with … the hands.”

The language implies something more sinister, to be sure. Implies. If the man had tried to take the phone apart it would have been simple to say so.

Manipulate is a general term, and this is nitpicky bullshit at its finest. To manipulate a telephone handset is to do something other than put it to the ear and use it in a normal way. Or hold it sideways. Or make a kissy face at it and sneer while twirling it like a drunken hooker. Manipulate is a catchall term.

Then the affidavit has them asking for access to the telephone closet to perform repair work. It does not say they went into the closet. Were they simply waiting for someone to ask: “What repair work? There’s nothing wrong with the phones!”? I don’t know.

I do know this: the affidavit does not say one word about any of them possessing any listening devices. Not one.

We do not have an inventory of what was on their person in the way of tools, communication devices, listening devices, and other items. Requesting access to a telephone closet means exactly that—it means they had an intention of getting access to the larger communication network used by the offices in the building. No one has listed their tossed “pocket litter,” and that may be by design. Again, that’s outside of the lane of the investigating agent here and all of this evidence will likely be presented at a trial, if there is one.

Requesting access to a phone closet demonstrates a level of tradecraft well beyond that of a conservative activist in his twenties.

There is a story in which someone anonymous individual (isn’t that the type of person we’re supposed to be skeptical of?) claims that there was a listening device in the possession of one of the men, in a car blocks away:

An official close to the investigation said one of the four was arrested with a listening device in a car blocks from the senator’s offices. He spoke on condition of anonymity because that information was not included in official arresting documents.

If we are going to accept the word of Mr. Anonymous Leaker, then whatever “listening device” they had was blocks away. If they were trying to bug the offices, why would the bug be blocks away? It would be in the possession of the three other people inside the offices. And that, it seems to me, would be in the affidavit. Which it isn’t.

Again, we don’t know what equipment was picked up on the person or persons involved. In order for the individual arrested in the vehicle to have been taken into custody, there would have to be probable cause to do so. If the individual had a listening device of some type, crude or sophisticated, that would indicate culpability in the efforts of the two men dressed in phony telephone technician uniforms and with O’Keefe. Simply by being parked some distance from the facility would indicate a sophisticated device. Who paid for it? Who made it? Why all that effort?

As more of these details come out, certainly, some of the things we have been told so far could change. That’s part of the investigative process. I wouldn’t jump to conclusions about their guilt or their innocence, though. Especially with weak reasoning and nonsense like this.

It all sounds rather Clintonian to me…