For serious. Hat tip to commentor Egg Berry, and much applause for Wonketteers Matthew Phelan and Liz Farkas:
… Very independent citizen-journalist James O’Keefe and his equally self-funded co-star in the ACORN stings, Hannah Giles, got real paid shortly after finishing their videos in the early fall of 2009, according to depositions taken three weeks ago. The pair admitted under oath to signing contracts with (the now recently deceased) Andrew Breitbart and his business partner, attorney Larry Solov, for the sum total of $120,000. Pretty shocking, right? You could buy a fairly high-end sex boat with that kind of cash. Or, one could, anyway…
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Studious observers of the ACORN video controversies may recall that Vera was the ACORN employee who called local police to report on James O’Keefe’s and Hannah Giles’ pimp/boyfriend and prostitute characters just hours after speaking with them. Really abnormally obsessive observers might also recall that the full transcript of the hidden-camera video concludes with O’Keefe and Giles debating with each other over why exactly Vera is photographing their license plate from across the parking lot. The two would ultimately tell the media that Vera had agreed to help them smuggle underage prostitutes through Tijuana and that he wanted to solicit the services of Giles’ prostitute character.
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According to his recent testimony, O’Keefe ultimately received $65,000 for his “life rights” from Breitbart in $5000/month installments from September 2009 until September 2010 (terminating roughly around the time that O’Keefe’s failed sex boating of a CNN reporter started to make headlines). Giles, who testified the day after O’Keefe, was also supposed to receive $60,000 per year (or $5,000 per month) but was only compensated $32,000 over the course of ten months from December 2009 to September 2010. Breitbart had reduced her monthly salary to $3,000 beginning around April 2010 and terminated Giles that summer. (There may be a Lily Ledbetter Act lawsuit in Ms. Giles’s future.)…
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The new details brought out by the recent depositions have done much to complicate the carefully crafted public narrative of the videos’ development. Breitbart and several others had been involved in the planning stages beginning in July 2009, following a period wherein O’Keefe and Giles had shopped around their East Coast ACORN videos basically like a pilot. “They discussed ACORN during their [Breitbart and O’Keefe’s] first phone conversation,” Iredale tells us. “Andrew Breitbart knew about Mr. O’Keefe’s plans before the West Coast videos were made, and he was aware they were recording people without their knowledge or consent.” During his deposition, O’Keefe refused to provide any details from those early discussions that did not directly pertain to the making of the San Diego video, as per the instruction of his attorney, Mike Madigan….
Much more detail at the link. Be nice if Mr. Vera could get his reputation restored, even though it’s too late to save ACORN from being (further) codified by Wingnut Wurlitzer slander. Given past performance, I assume that O’Keefe has already attempted to pin everything on his dead capo… in the best Breitbart/Drudge tradition, perhaps a chainmail rumor will be mounted that St. Andrew the Angry was murdered by his treacherous underling(s) in an attempt to shift the limelight? Be interesting to see whether O’Keefe’s d/b/a Project VeritasMyAss rates go up or down as a result of this.
YoohooCthulhu
I can spend an afternoon interviewing someone and poorly cutting together a video. Where’s my sweet sweet wingnut welfare?
Trentrunner
That soft, warm feeling, like dipping into a steaming bath on frigid spring night, like wrapping yourself in a well-worn blanket and sipping on your favorite tea…
…remembering that that cumfunnel Andrew Breitbart is still beastly dead.
Thanks. You made my day.
Omnes Omnibus
@YoohooCthulhu: Have you had an ethickectomy yet?
gbear
Why the fuck isn’t O’Keefe in jail for parole violations yet?
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m pretty sure ACORN will kill the rest of them when the time is right.
dr. bloor
Or, you might find yourself in the position of having to throw it all at high-end attorneys.
Where the hell is Big Rigor’s toxicology report, anyways?
YoohooCthulhu
@dr. bloor:
News said 6-8 weeks after March 2, so we should be seeing them any day now…
Villago Delenda Est
@YoohooCthulhu:
I’m looking forward to seeing them, myself.
Of course, 6-8 weeks could mean as late as the first week in May.
geg6
And this surprises exactly who? If there is anyone whose entire schtick reeked to high heaven of confidence men without a brain or moral principle among them, it was Breitbart and his minions. I can’t think of anyone whose demise has pleased me so much or that watching his evil empire crumble post-funeral in finger pointing and recriminations has given me such satisfaction as Breitbart. Why the Village took him seriously, I’ll never understand since he was, in so many ways anathema to their sensibilities. He was loud and coarse and unethical and proud of all of it. That usually frightens them away but it never did with Breitbart. Sadly, they don’t feel the same sentimental tug toward the mental midgets now running the Big Whatever empire. I do believe that this is one of the wingnut welfare main lines being shut down. Good riddance.
Birthmarker
Did anyone think these people weren’t being paid?
Omnes Omnibus
@Birthmarker: I would not have been shocked if they were doing it to make their bones and get on the wingnut welfare, but this doesn’t surprise me either.
Valdivia
pardon the ignorance: what are life rights?
Narcissus
Wow I’d forgotten about the rape-boat.
dr. bloor
@Valdivia:
Heh. O’Keefe is so toxic, acquiring his life rights killed Breitbart.
Keith
With a hotshot would be my guess.
ruemara
You can get $65k for neocon fetish videos? Maybe I should apply for that job at the local GOP pac. I can store my ethics and my talents in a jar, for a bit.
Valdivia
@dr. bloor:
ha ha! FTW.
fourmorewars
Even in the midst of a good article, do not the Wonkette reporters slip when they call JO the ‘pimp/boyfriend?’ I was under the possibly erroneous impression that in NONE of the videos did he represent himself as even a bf/p, only a bf.
Egg Berry
Woohoo, a shoutout!
nellcote
A pleasent surprise to read some actual Journalism. Even more so that it’s Wonkette. no offense meant!
dead existentialist
Fer fuck’s sake, it’s Wonkette. jeezus christ.
g
What’s the latest with O’Keefe’s being accused of roofy-ing a beer of one of his former minions?