James O’Keefe, the conservative activist who made his name with a string of undercover video sting operations, doesn’t like it so much when the camera is turned on him.
Speaking to around 100 members of the Bayshore Tea Party in New Jersey Thursday night, O’Keefe reportedly had members of the group ask a photographer from the Asbury Park Press to leave the event.
“You can take still pictures. If you want to ask him to film an interview afterwards, you can ask him for that, but you cannot film or record during the event, that’s what he requested,” Bayshore Tea Party member Charles Measley tells the photographer in a video posted on the newspaper’s website.
“This is a guy that’s in trouble with the law, he’s got lawsuits up the gazoo for trying to help you with your freedom,” Barbara Gonzalez, founder of the Tea Party group says in the video. “Because I feel like the people who came here to pay a lot of money, I don’t want him to walk off.”
As TPM reported this week, O’Keefe’s team of four lawyers are challenging the constitutionality of a California law which bans secret audio recordings in a suit filed by a former ACORN employee who was fired because of one of O’Keefe’s videos.
Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a D.C.-based reporter for TPM. Prior to joining TPM, he worked for a news website covering the Justice Department and was a researcher for Bloomberg News. His email address is ryan(at)talkingpointsmemo.com.
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