A super PAC operating on behalf of House Republican candidates is using a discredited video by right-wing provocateur James O'Keefe in its latest series of campaign ads launched on Tuesday.
In the spot released by the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), viewers are shown clips from O'Keefe's latest video, which claims to contain evidence of Democratic leaders and organizers deliberately stirring up violence at Donald Trump rallies.
The ad places particular focus on Democratic operative Robert Creamer, whose wife is Rep. Jan Schakowsky, R-Ill. On the night that Trump canceled a Chicago rally amid reports of violence, Schakowsky was at a protest holding a sign referring to Trump. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner as the "gang of hate."
Although Trump has seized on O'Keefe's video as proof that the Clinton campaign engages in dirty tricks — even bringing it up during the last presidential debate — astute political observers are skeptical of its veracity. O'Keefe's organization, Project Veritas, has already been proved to have deliberately edited videos attacking ACORN and NPR in order to create the impression of egregious misconduct.
O'Keefe rose to prominence in 2009 with an "investigation" into ACORN, which was edited to make it seem as if the nonprofit organization (which focused on advocating for low-income Americans) was involved in sex trafficking — an act of chicanery that ended with a court ordering O'Keefe to pay $100,000 to the ACORN employee he smeared.
The filmmaker, whose Project Veritas was given a $10,000 donation from the Trump Foundation in May 2015 — one month before Trump announced his presidential candidacy — could now face legal charges. According to Think Progress, O'Keefe may have secretly recorded conversations, violating "two-party consent" laws by which some states require all parties to be notified that calls are being recorded.
Watch the video below:
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