With two associates, Michael McElroy and Rebecca Ruiz, I have reviewed the entire available public record, including the O’Keefe videos and what are represented on a conservative Web site as the full transcripts and audio of his visits to the Acorn offices. It is the same record from which FAIR and others are getting their alternative interpretation. I have talked with Andrew Breitbart, the conservative Web entrepreneur who arranged the release of the videos; Bertha Lewis, the chief executive of Acorn; and Scott Harshbarger, a former Massachusetts attorney general, and his associate, Amy Crafts, who were hired by Acorn last year to investigate what happened and to evaluate the group’s management.
Here is what I found: O’Keefe almost certainly did not go into the Acorn offices in the outlandish costume — fur coat, goggle-like sunglasses, walking stick and broad-brimmed hat — in which he appeared at the beginning and end of most of his videos. It is easy to see why The Times and other news organizations got a different impression. At one point, as the videos were being released, O’Keefe wore the get-up on Fox News, and a host said he was “dressed exactly in the same outfit he wore to these Acorn offices.” He did not argue.
