Renowned political pot-stirrer and undercover investigation extraordinaire James O’Keefe is back at it again.
This time the self-proclaimed “Guerilla Journalist” who runs the non-profit journalistic enterprise Project Veritas revealed he’s been sneaking onto CNN’s internal conference calls for nearly two months.
O’Keefe’s undercover work produced a few audio recordings of CNN’s most intimate staff discussions.
In one leaked tape CNN Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel was recorded saying “News organizations have to be very careful and very responsible about not giving Trump too much of a platform on his not conceding.”
Here’s the recording:
LEAKED AUDIO FROM @CNN 9AM CALL: “News organizations have to be very careful & very responsible about not giving @realDonaldTrump too much of a platform on his not conceding…” – @JamieGangel #CNNTapes pic.twitter.com/LoCqh79pOG
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) December 2, 2020
The audio O’Keefe leaked got more interesting from there.
In another audio recording leaked by O’Keefe, he alleges Vice President of Global Programming Marcus Mabry said the following about Fox News host Tucker Carlson:
“Yeah. I was just going to say if you’re going to talk about the story, I think it’s unavoidable that you have to talk about the naked racism of Tucker Carlson.
Because that’s really what drove this anti-diversity push, you know, Trump watches Tucker Carlson’s show and then reacts.
And just as sort of the “White Supremacy Hour” they have on Fox News every night that I think it’s the…you can’t disconnect the two.”
CNN followed up O’Keefe’s claim by saying they incorrectly identified the man as Marcus Mabry and that it was actually CNN General Counsel David Vigilante. The network also said, “we’re certain you’ll want to correct the record and apologize to the Black executive for assuming he was the voice raising concerns over white supremacy.”
O’Keefe has since corrected the record.
Vigilante wasn’t the only CNN employee voicing concerns over its competitor’s influence on the President. The President of CNN Worldwide Jeff Zucker who hosts the conference calls said the following:
“What Donald Trump did last night, for anybody who watched Fox News, he was just airing all of the grievances he hears on Fox News every night and that’s all he did”
Here are the recordings as released by O’Keefe:
BREAKING: @CNN Vice President of Global Programming @MarcusMabry SLAMS @FoxNews @TuckerCarlson as Racist
“I think it’s unavoidable that you have to talk about the naked racism of Tucker Carlson…Sort of the “White Supremacy Hour” they have on Fox News every night…” #CNNTapes pic.twitter.com/y4MrkAzAb8
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) December 2, 2020
O’Keefe undercover sting of CNN ended with a grand finale.
He lived streamed his final call of the clandestine operation on CNN and interrupted the call with a question for Zucker:
“Hey Jeff Zucker, you there?”
“This is James O’Keefe. We’ve been listening to your CNN calls for basically two months recording everything.”
Just wanted to ask you some questions if you have a minute? Do you still feel you’re the most trusted name in news?
Because I have to say from what I’ve been hearing on these phone calls I don’t know about that. We have a lot of recordings that indicate that you’re not really that independent of a journalist.”
Zucker, who was clearly caught off guard, responded “Umm…thank you for your comments. So, everybody in light of that we will set up a new system and we’ll be back with you. We’ll do the rest of the calls a little bit later.” [VIDEO]
O’Keefe then promised to release the recordings.
CNN is treating the sting as a criminal matter and is referring it to law enforcement, according to The Wrap:
CNN said it is involving “law enforcement” after James O’Keefe, the founder of the right-wing group Project Veritas, crashed a morning editorial call with CNN President Jeff Zucker and said Project Veritas would be releasing tapes from previously recorded phone calls.
“Legal experts say this may be a felony. We’ve referred it to law enforcement,” the CNN PR account tweeted on Tuesday in response to a video of the call O’Keefe posted on Twitter.
Donald Trump Jr. called CNN hypocrites because the network “had no problem aggressively running with secretly recorded tapes of the First Lady non-stop for weeks, but has a serious problem when someone does the exact thing to them.”
The fireworks are likely to continue in the O’Keefe-CNN saga and we are here for it.