An Open Letter To Project Veritas Mole Jaime Phillips (TWEETS)



Dear Jaime:

As you’re no doubt aware, life as you know it ended last Monday, when The Washington Post exposed the disgraceful attempt you and your friends at Project Veritas made to plant bogus accusations about Roy Moore in hopes of embarrassing the paper.


We have since learned that you spent the better part of this summer and fall ingratiating yourself with reporters under false pretenses, and even helped Project Veritas target at least two of them.

I look at you, and I see just about everything that is wrong with our political discourse today. Apparently your determination to help Moore was so great that you were willing to breach every standard of decency and morality that is known? Apparently so, because you had no qualms about planting a fake story about him in hopes of “proving” that The Post was an agitprop shop hellbent on destroying Moore by any means necessary. And you had no qualms about engaging in what amounted to victim-shaming of the worst type, because you were playing up the canard that those who come forward with stories of sexual assault are lying.

I’ve dealt with your kind before, Jaime. During my college days at the University of North Carolina, I was suckered into joining a controlling, abusive, and cultish hypercharismatic campus ministry. These people had no qualms whatsoever about deceiving people about who they really were in order to get them to join, then laying the guilt on thick to keep them in. Early in my sophomore year, I discovered that their church had once been the Carolina chapter of Maranatha Campus Ministries, one of many “campus cults” that sprouted around college campuses like weeds in the 1970s and 1980s. I also discovered that the church’s pastor had been hiding this minor detail, even though there was no good-faith reason for him to do so.

I tried to tell my former “brothers” and “sisters” about this, and their response was, in so many words, “La-la-la, can’t hear you!” But even worse, they were still willing to help him in his elaborate snow job. Supposedly, it was all in the name of getting people saved. Even now, the thought that I was almost one of them makes me retch.


You, Jaime, are no different from my former “brothers” and “sisters.” Just like them, you seem to believe that your cause is so important that you’re willing to throw basic standards out the window in order to further it. No one’s desire for power should be that great, regardless of political shade.

I wonder you’ve asked yourself whether it was worth it, Jaime. You’ve made yourself virtually unemployable. After all, every fifth word you said over the last seven months was a lie, and you have demonstrated you have no qualms about deceit of the worst type in order to get what you want. Even your fellow conservatives have rightly condemned this for the sleazy and depraved stunt that it was. Take, for instance, Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center.

I hope your severance from Project Veritas was very good, because I’m assuming that with your cover blown, they can’t use you anymore. And based on the condemnation from Bozell and other conservatives, no right-wing outfit with even an iota of decency will hire you. You probably won’t be able to get a nonpolitical job either–all because you let your desire to help “the conservative media movement” take precedence over all else.

Have you considered that innocent third parties have been harmed by your stunt? Consider this email that your friends obtained from The Post.

So now you’ve made it harder for students to learn how journalism actually works. Are you proud of that?

Hopefully by now it’s sunk in. Your reputation is ruined, you might never get a decent job again–all because of your misguided desire to help the conservative cause. Was it worth it, Jaime? Was it really worth it?


If you have anything at all left in you, you will apologize to The Post and to Moore’s victims. It’s the only way you can even begin to make this right. While I hope that O’Keefe has the decency to do the same, you had an option when this assignment was offered. You could have said “no.” And now you have to live with your decision to take this misguided assignment forever.

Sincerely,
Darrell

(featured image courtesy Quay Manuel’s Twitter)

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.