This case gets weirder by the day. James O’Keefe, along with Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, were caught up in a scheme whereby two of them posed as telephone repairmen to gain access to Senator Mary Landrieu’s office. Early reports indicate that they were attempting to bug her phone lines and the four have been charged with entering a federal building under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony. Although no please have yet been entered, Michael Madigan, O’Keefe’s lawyer, has claimed that his client was not trying to bug the phone lines.
O’Keefe is a conservative political activist best known for going undercover as a pimp to catch ACORN workers on film giving advice on how to circumvent the law and run a brothel. He also caught Planned Parenthood workers on tape advising a girl to lie about her age in order to be able to receive an abortion.
Michael Madigan is a litigation partner at the Washington office of Orrick. He has some experience dealing with political cases involving illegal phone taps, having served as counsel to Senator Howard Baker on the Senate Watergate Committee.
