And in this particular case, deep enough for some bonus cash offers, according to an email that appeared in the trial exhibits. “Knowing that ‘Content is King,’ I decided to challenge the organization with an emphasis on concentration,” Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe wrote in an email to colleagues. “I have set out specific goals below that when achieved will reward each full-time employee and several others closely involved in the investigations.” The email came amid the crisis over Project Veritas, a month before the 2016 presidential election, whose outline it tried to shape. For months, he had taken careful steps to infiltrate Democracy Partners, an umbrella group of progressive political consulting firms. Project Veritas operatives used hidden cameras to record Democratic operatives bragging about their work. Among the targets were Robert Creamer, founder of Democracy Partners, and Scott Foval, a subcontractor for the firm. (After the release of the videos beginning on October 17, 2016, Creamer resigned from his job advising the Hillary Clinton campaign, and Foval lost his job.) Arguments at trial Democracy Partners v. Project Veritas focuses on whether the attackers engaged in fraudulent misrepresentation and illegal wiretapping, as alleged in the plaintiffs’ 2017 complaint. Paul Calli, who represents Project Veritas, maintains that his clients were merely reporting a story — and that it’s not their fault if political operatives made embarrassing statements while on tape. Democracy Partners, on the other hand, claims that Project Veritas is a “political espionage operation” intended to help Donald Trump win the presidential race. Follow Erik Wemple’s viewsFollow Add In his opening statement last week, Joseph Sadler, an attorney representing Democracy Partners, cited the cash bonus offer as part of his argument that the organization is engaged in politics, not investigative journalism. The issue may well come up again this week when O’Keefe is set to testify at trial, unfolding in the courtroom of US District Judge Paul Friedman. O’Keefe’s offer of cash bonuses came late in Project Veritas’ investigation into Democracy Partners, a business whose timeline stretches back to spring 2016. Through the use of false identities, stories and Internet pages, Project Veritas had not only collected videos of Creamer and Foval, but had also planted an intern — Allison Maass, who introduced herself as “Angela Brandt ” — at the offices of Democracy Partners. In an October 3, 2016 email, O’Keefe clarified what else the project needed. The top goal:

  1. $1,000 bonus to each qualified participant IF we get the content we need to Democracy Partners: Goal- Before October 14th, PV obtains video and audio OR written cooperation where individuals directly associated with the Creamer/Foval element (or a derivative directly associated with it) state that they are engaging in some form of voter fraud. The words “Electoral Fraud” need not be listed, however the activities listed must contain elements of voter fraud. Like “we offer ‘x’ buses to the area from overseas” or “we offer homeless people money to vote” etc. The memorandum also suggested a $1,000 bonus if a candidate cited the Democracy Partners survey “Or we receive television or print coverage in the Washington Post, New York Times, WSJ, Associated Press, National CBS, National NBC, National ABC, Fox News, CNN or MSNBC.” A higher bonus of $2,500 would be disbursed “if Donald Trump mentions our videos in the Oct. 19 debate, with or without PV credit.” “Looking forward to writing dozens of bonus checks,” O’Keefe wrote in closing the email. In February 2019 Testimony, O’Keefe fielded a series of questions from Sandler in the email, including whether it was ethical to “offer a bonus to reporters, to a reporter, if they ask a source or an interviewee to state something specific that is defined by in advance. ” O’Keefe replied that in this situation, “I don’t think it’s immoral.” Further defending the practice, he said there was nothing unethical about “giving reporters an incentive to go get a story, which our reporters actually did, and the story they got was huge.” Furthermore, O’Keefe claimed that “we can’t make people say things.” However: When Sandler noted that Project Veritas “never got Mr. Creamer to say” that he had engaged in voter fraud, O’Keefe responded, “We got him to say, maybe, things that were even worse.” Asked about these issues, Project Veritas responded with this statement: “As journalists, we understand your focus. As litigants, your particular focus is likely to be the subject of future testimony during the examination of Mr. Sandler, and therefore it would not be ethical or appropriate for us to comment at this time.” The Project Veritas videos went viral and garnered coverage from many mainstream outlets. O’Keefe told Sandler in the deposition that he did not recall whether he had actually paid a bonus to the first “target” in the memo. The Erik Wemple Blog has never heard of a bonus being offered to reporters at mainstream outlets in relation to specific reporting results. Any such settlement would only add to criticisms that the establishment media are tailoring facts to their preconceived conclusions—and would be a smoking gun liability in a defamation lawsuit brought against any media reckless enough to use it as a motive. Mark Stencel, co-director of the Reporters’ Lab at Duke University, notes that tabloids pay for exclusives when hot stories arise, though such scenarios differ from “bonuses for specific news outcomes,” he writes via email. And although there are examples of “chequebook journalism” in Britain, he is “hard pressed to think of recent examples here”.