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John Craven's full interview with James O'Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas.&nbsp;

John Craven's full interview with James O'Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas. 

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FULL INTERVIEW: Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe

talk about the video. What do you see in the video? Um, well this was a man who were in front of the cost of school here and uh, you know, obviously it's, it's against Connecticut law to discriminate against someone based on the religion of the race. And he makes a statement. He says we don't hire Catholics. And he talks about a subtle way of indoctrinating Children. It's clearly outraged a lot of people here. Um, and I think it's important people see it. I think it's important people understand, you know, who's educating their Children. Uh, and we have two people to be honest. And that's why project veritas does the investigative journalism that we do. Um, what were the circle? We obviously haven't seen the unedited video. Okay. Um, what were the circumstances that led up to this? When was it filmed? Where was it filmed? It was filmed recently this summer. Um, I did note your characterization of me as a quote far right activist group. I I don't fully understand. I think that's an unfair characterization. We're investigative reporters. And what's great about our journalism is that you can see the people's faces. You can see the people's lips moving. Quite unlike many of the tactics used by our media today where you don't see anyone's lips moving? You don't see the anonymous sources and what they see or the intonation of the voice is you can see this assistant principal's face, you can see him laugh. Uh, when he says that they don't hire Catholics. Um, in fact, I reached out to him for comment will be putting that video out here shortly. Um, uh, and we have a statement from superintendent. So I think the characterization by news 12 that were a far right activist group is a is frankly an unfair and unjust characterization of the work that we do. Alright duly noted Again as I mentioned a minute ago, we have not seen the full unedited version of this, but no media including news 12. You guys don't release the full raw unedited video. And frankly sometimes that's to protect sources and methods. Journalists don't reveal the names of their sources most of the time. So it's kind of ironic for you to accuse me of not releasing the full when you don't release you're not accusing. I'm just asking because it might, it might add context. The statement itself is quite ironic given that you don't release your full reporter's notebook. Okay. But James are you willing to release your full report? But James, in all fairness, we have not been sued for liable multiple. And I've won every case including most recently against the new york times for defamation. But I've One we've won every case at summary judgment and jury verdict which is something that the media selectively edits out reporting about us. Why don't you include that was an invasion of privacy lawsuit in 2009 against me personally. And there's a big difference between recording someone without their permission and lying about somebody. So I've never, we've never settled any lawsuits. We won on your directed verdict in north Carolina in the teeter case. We've won on a motion to dismiss in the new york Times defamation lawsuit. And none of these things were included in the reporting on project veritas. Which is precisely the selective editing that you're accusing me. Oh, I'm not accusing. It's actually worse than an accusation. It's a statement of fact. The video is edited. We can agree on that. Right? So is your journalism Okay, So the video is edited. My journalism is edited. My question is what do we not see in the video? You've seen everything in context? He said what he said. We stand by our reporting of what Boeing said. But what what question was he responding to? You see all of those questions in the video and it's fully in context. We stand by our reporting the way that any investigative reporter stands by the reporting and we we release more information than any other journalist. And we hold ourselves to a higher standard than any other journalist. And rather than and rather than ask these sorts of questions about me, maybe you should be going and doing what we do and go investigate. I mean if if if you guys were doing your job there wouldn't be a need for project veritas and James O'keefe. Okay guys guys please. So so so okay, okay you can speak to him afterwards. This is our time. We book this in advance. So please let us let us do our thing and please Okay, well, I'm asking relevant questions. The school board is gonna be asking the same question. So let let me ask you this since the school district has announced they're doing a full investigation, will you release the full unedited video to the school board so they can investigate what happened? Well, I'm not going to compromise my sources or my methods. No journalist in the history of media has ever released their full raw reporter notebooks 60 minutes. Doesn't do that. When we're subpoenaed. We do yes. And we've won on summary judgment and directed verdict? We continue to win all of these cases uh when we are sued for libel, We continue to win. And this these are not reported by News 12. So, my question is in a world where you guys don't include our victories in court. Isn't that selective editing is giving you a chance and this is your chance to talk about it right now. And this is my answer, isn't it selective editing when the media doesn't include our victories in court in reporting on project. So, so, my question though, James, if the school board says we really would like to see the entire conversation, would you be open to sharing that with them? Or are you saying that that would be you know, that would violate, you know, your sources confidential depends upon the circumstances. I mean, we did a story on NPR where I had to redact a certain segment of that story, uh, because a person in Libya was mentioned and I redacted that and people and people accused me of selective editing. So it's a, it's a very unjust world. Um, characterizations of project veritas is, are unfair. But we stand by our journalism and what we've released should be enough. You should be asking these questions of the assistant principal you should be doing, applying as much heat on the school because like I said, you know, we're just doing the job that needs to be done that the media should be doing well. We're asking them very tough questions. I can, I can only, and I appreciate you taking the time to, to actually come here and answer them. A lot of people wouldn't do that. Um, what, what do you hope happens? What do you hope is the result of what you put out today? I mean, I hope people understand what's really going on. I want, I want, I want the principal and the superintendent to be honest about what they're actually doing. That's my goal. My goal is honesty and transparency, not deception. So if they actually, if, what if, what the assistant principal said is that what he actually does, then he should just be honest, screaming from the rooftops. We don't hire Catholics. We don't hire christians, we lie about our curriculum. Say what he said, but say it openly don't hide it. And the other thing about releasing the raws, I'm not sure that that would satisfy you or the school board. If I release the raw if I did, they'll say well I don't believe you really, no matter what we don't know what, no matter what we do is enough for our critics. They will always be skeptical and engage in the sort of conspiracy theories. Man is on tape. He said what he said, we stand by our journalism, we've litigated that project veritas all of our cases and we don't lose in court. Should he be fired? That's up for the people of Connecticut? It's up to them. I'm a journalist just like you I released the information and the people need to decide. They need to make their own decisions. Okay. Anything else that you want to add that we did not touch on. Yes we we we spoke with the assistant principal yesterday in port Chester new york. We're gonna be releasing that and we have another tape coming out tomorrow. So it was this something where you went to his home and confronted him. He was in a public place in a parking lot in port Chester new york. Okay can you give us a preview of what he told you? Yeah he he said I shouldn't be doing this. You know, he said he told me that he spoke privately but he did not deny what he said, he just said I recorded him privately and and to that I said, well whether it was private or not, did you do it? Did you do what you said? And then he said he's not going to talk to me. And he walked away. Okay? Alright. Fair enough, thank you. All right.

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