James O’Keefe on Government Power — Corruption — Arrogance

James O’Keefe exposes Department of Justice corruption in the Louisiana U.S. Attorney Office and the DOJ Civil Rights Division Regarding Landrieu, Danziger Bridge and other cases.

Project Veritas Action investigates the U.S. Department of Justice and their Civil Rights Division that has been involved in “grotesque” prosecutorial misconduct in cases against law enforcement. The same division, and even the attorney involved in past misconduct, is now investigating the cases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

VO #1: Was Senator Mary Landrieu’s connections to the U. S. Attorney’s office the reason I was so aggressively prosecuted five years ago?

(pause)

In light of new revelations…Ethical Conduct Complaints have been filed with the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board. The complaints were filed against former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jan Mann, Salvatore Perricone and the former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District James B. Letten. An ethics complaint was also filed with the Justice Department against Karla Dobinski.

Letten: Listen to me, pay attention to me, listen to me, listen to me you hobbits. You are less than I can ever tell you.

VO #2: This is Former U. S. Attorney James Letten on the sidewalk in front of the Tulane University law School where he is an assistant Dean.

Letten: blah blah blah…(throws book at James)

VO #3: This wasn’t the first time Jim Letten has thrown the book at me. On January 25th, 2010, I was arrested with three colleagues by the FBI and
charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony. A charge that was well beyond the facts of the case.

Mike Madigan: It seemed to be an enormous overreaction to what happened. And relatively soon within the first couple of days, the prosecutors knew that this was not any terrorist activity and they knew that it was a politically related mater having to do with Senator Landrieu.

O’Keefe: We actually showed our real drivers licenses, each and every one of us./// I walked up to Senator Landrieu’s door, it was open, anyone could walk in, it was business hours. And I sat down on the couch. And then I said, and this was in the original FBI affidavit, I said to the secretary, I said, “I’m waiting for somebody.”

Letten: I didn’t prosecute your case asshole. I recused. I recused from your case…

VO #4: Letten did recuse himself but left the prosecution of the case to his number two Jan Mann. Mann’s personal connections to Mary Landrieu were well known, going back to when the two went to school together. My attorney, Mike Madigan believed that Letten’s entire office should have recused itself, primarily because of relationships and personal connections with Senator Landrieu.

Madigan: We looked at what remained as the leadership at that point in time and we learned quickly on that Senator Landrieu’s brother, who I believe the name was Maurice, was part of the leadership of that office with Jan Mann.

VO #5: Madigan wrote a strong letter to the Justice Department asking for the case to be moved to another jurisdiction but that didn’t happen. Jan Mann continued to press the case, in spite of the outrageousness of the charges.

Madigan: We thought it was a very large overreach to be using that statute in the first place particularly in light of the fact that it was obviously designed for terrorist activity and I think the prosecutors knew pretty soon on that that was not the case.

VO #6: The facts of the case were pretty straightforward if slightly ridiculous. In January of 2010, Senator Landrieu’s support of Obamacare led Louisiana voters to flood her office with complaints. The plan was to make an undercover video.

O’Keefe: United States Senator Mary Landrieu had said her phones were jammed. We thought it would be revelatory and ironic and funny and youtube worthy if we caught her staffers on tape making derogatory comments about the tea party. “Oh, let’s just shut those phones down so those tea party people can’t get through to us.”

VO #7: Two of the participants were wearing hard hats and reflective vests purchased that morning at a hardware store.

O’Keefe: We looked absurd, we looked like the Village People. In fact, they were dressed so absurdly that one of the secretaries laughed and said they obviously aren’t telephone repair people.

VO #8: No one was fooled and someone called the FBI. All four of those arrested faced felony charges…that Mike Madigan says, made no sense at all.
Mike Madigan: There was no criminal intent, there was no effort to commit a felony, no evidence whatsoever.

VO #9: But Assistant U. S. Attorney Jan Mann’s prosecution was relentless. And perhaps even unethical. Privileged…client-attorney emails were somehow released to the press just weeks after the arrest.

Madigan: The only place that that could have happened from was from the seizure of James computer by the government./// Well we thought it was extremely unprofessional, inappropriate if not criminal action.

VO #10: Madigan asked Mann to investigate the leaks but his letter went unanswered. It now seems pretty evident that there were a lot of unethical activities going on in the U.S Attorney’s office. Last year, five New Orleans police officers who had been convicted for a deadly shooting had their convictions overturned.

MSNBC News: In a 129 page ruling a federal judge overturned the convictions citing witness coercion, inconsistent testimony and a scandal in which at least three government attorneys were revealed to have posted comments about the case on line.

VO #11: They had anonymously posted prejudicial comments condemning the cops before and during the trial. The government attorneys were Jan Mann, Karla Dobinski and Salvatore Perricone.

O’Keefe: It also turns out that one of those U.S. Attorney’s was blogging about me.

VO #12: Salvatore Perricone used the screen name legacy U.S.A when commenting about my case. The day after my arrest he anonymously blogged, “sure they should be punished. Throw the book at them.”

legacyusa Jan 27, 2010 Of all the idiots we have in the Senate, why did they pick Mary. Besides, she’s hardly ever in that office, anyway. So why? Sure they should be punished. Throw the book at them. But why that office?

VO #13: On May 25th, 2010 the Mary Landrieu case ended.

O’Keefe: The government gave me three years of probation for a class b misdemeanor. It was very unusual. The case was handled unusually. Days before I was sentenced, a federal judge who usually doesn’t get involved in misdemeanor cases, made reference of an extremely serious crime I committed. He talked about acts of violence being committed.

Madigan: I have to say that in forty years of practice I’ve never seen a probation like that. It was extremely onerous, with regard to James. It made his life miserable basically requiring all kinds of things that I thought were totally unnecessary and that I have never seen before or since.

O’Keefe: I want people to know about this. I want them to know what happened here./// All of these people need to be brought to justice.

VO #14: Now, some five years on…it is time to set the record straight. Senator Landrieu needs to address these questions. And the prosecutors who handled my case, must answer for their possibly criminal or at least unethical actions.