Conservative provocateur James O’Keefe posted a video of himself tailing a van on Twitter mid-day on Tuesday, saying he was following a driver busing people to the polls in his quest to bust voter fraud.
“We’re behind this bus, which is like a pastor bus, busing people around to polls in Philadelphia,” the video shows O’Keefe saying to a camera in the front seat of a car.
O’Keefe’s vehicle is trailing behind a blue van with its license plate number blurred out.
“We’re going to be releasing video here today showing some people doing some improper things, busing people around. Maybe they shouldn’t be doing it,” he says, before asking viewers to “stay tuned” to video dispatches from around the country.
In Philadelphia tailing a pastor’s bus that’s bussing people to the polls. #VeritasIsEverywhere & we will catch your #VoterFraud. @PhillyGOP pic.twitter.com/FY9UPOQolp
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) November 8, 2016
Of course, “busing people around” to polling places, if that is what the unidentified van driver is doing, is completely legal: Warren Buffet, a Clinton supporter, launched drive2vote.org specifically to recruit people to drive voters to the polls.
And Amish PAC, a super PAC aimed at selling Donald Trump’s message to Amish voters, advertises on its website for “volunteers to help drive Amish voters to the polls in Pennsylvania.”
Still, in subsequent tweets, O’Keefe seemed to imply he’s got more damning video on the way.
Bite your tongue before you watch the video about to come out or we will get egg all over your @MotherJones J-school faces. https://t.co/QDXHLD3k8N
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) November 8, 2016
O’Keefe’s initial teaser video is sure to play into Democrats’ fears of voter intimidation in places where Trump isn’t popular, like Philadelphia, which leans heavily Democratic.
“Voter fraud is all too common, and then they criticize us for saying that,” Trump said at a rally in early October in Colorado Springs, Colorado, one of numerous times he broadcast his conspiratorial suspicion of voter fraud in “certain areas” in recent months, despite the evidence that such fraud is extremely rare.
“But take a look at Philadelphia, what’s been going on, take a look at Chicago, take a look at St. Louis. Take a look at some of these cities, where you see things happening that are horrendous,” he continued.
Andrew Anglin, founder of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer, promised “an army of Alt-Right nationalists to watch the polls” in cities across the country including Philadelphia. A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s office told TPM there would be “no tolerance” for such practices.
Project Veritas, O’Keefe’s group, has been criticized in the past for heavily editing videos it presents as investigative journalism. In October, one Project Veritas video purported to show democratic operatives bragging about planting protesters at Trump rallies to incite violence.
A year ago, O’Keefe hyped “bombshell” evidence of Clinton campaign wrongdoing that turned out to be a huge nothingburger: A video showing a Project Veritas member buying $30-40 of campaign paraphernalia for a reported Canadian citizen.
James O’Keefe is just a few grandparents from crawling on the ground, and I wish he would return there.
Yeah, disabled people voting.
Man, I wish someone would pay me to post videos of people doing things that aren’t illegal.
‘Man eats burrito at Chipotle!’
‘Woman walks dog at dog park!’
‘Sun rises in east! More damning evidence to come!’
Once the initial self-loathing is bearable, the rest is easy.
Too bad they don’t have open carry in PA