Congrats to WaPo For Successfully Thwarting a Right Wing Ratfucking Attempt

Congratulations to The Washington Post, a newspaper that caught an infamous right wing fraud, James O’Keefe, attempting to plant a false story about accused sexual predator and current Alabama Senate candidate, Roy Moore. In doing so, The Post provided Monday’s most entertaining video #content. Here’s how it went down, in five acts:

• A woman by the name of Jamie Phillips contacted reporter Beth Reinhard shortly after her explosive story detailing Moore’s pursuit of teenagers as an adult was published. Phillips claimed she too had a story about Moore to tell, but she wanted assurances that her identity would be protected and he would be disqualified from the race.
• Reinhard met with Phillips at a mall in Virginia. Phillips told Reinhard that she had a “secret” relationship with Moore in 1992, when she was 15. Phillips also claimed that Moore got her pregnant and talked her into obtaining an abortion. Incendiary stuff!
• WaPo fact checked Phillips’ story and background—surprise: it didn’t add up! Phillips didn’t work where she claimed and a fact checker discovered she accepted a job working for “the conservative media movement” through a GoFundMe page hosted by a woman with her name. WaPo deduced that Phillips works for Project Veritas, a group that always seems to get caught attempting to entrap their liberal-leaning targets with “undercover” sting videos, after she is seen outside their New York “office.”
• WaPo sent another reporter, Stephanie McCrummen, and two videographers to meet with Phillips in Virginia a second time—knowing that she is most likely lying about her story. At the meeting, Phillips reiterated her desire to have Moore “completely taken out of the race” if her account is published. McCrummen confronted Phillips with the GoFundMe page. Phillips told McCrummen that she would like to “cancel” her interview.
• O’Keefe “declined to answer questions about the woman outside the Project Veritas office.”

Let’s hear it for fact checking! And Google. And WaPo’s decision to publish a video of Phillips and McCrummen’s meeting, which you can watch here, despite their off-the-record agreement.

“The intent by Project Veritas clearly was to publicize the conversation if we fell for the trap,” said WaPo executive editor Martin Baron. “Because of our customary journalistic rigor, we weren’t fooled, and we can’t honor an ‘off-the-record’ agreement that was solicited in maliciously bad faith.” Kudos!