Democratic consultant Robert Creamer and his organization, Democracy Partners, won a $120,000 decision against conservative propaganda producers Project Veritas for a deceptive “undercover sting” committed on a Democracy Partners leader.
“BREAKING NEWS: @DemPartners has won a jury verdict on every count of our lawsuit against Project Veritas and its founder James O’Keefe. The group, known for using undercover tactics to go against political opponents, was ordered by the jury to pay $120K in damages & possibly legal fees,” the group posted on Twitter. “#DemocracyPartners co-founder #BobCreamer said: We thank the Jury for its decision and are deeply appreciative of the time and effort the members of the Jury devoted to consider our case. Hopefully, the decision today will help to discourage Mr. O’Keefe and others from conducting these kinds of political spy operations – and publishing selectively edited, misleading videos in the future.'”
Creamer’s group sued under fraud and wiretapping statutes for illegally recording Scott Foval, a Democracy Partners associate, discuss “bracketing” at Trump rallies. An edited version of an illicitly-recorded conversation was put online to make it seem like Foval was advocating stoking violence, according to Politico.
Project Veritas’s lawyer defended its action as old-style muckraking journalism concentrating on corrupt, hypocritical and criminal liberals and left-wingers.
“We will prove to you that this was not investigative journalism,” the plaintiff’s lawyer said during the trial, adding, “The evidence will demonstrate that they went about this in a way that no real journalist would.”