U.S. Attorney Jim Letten Steps Down From O’Keefe Case

obamacornDoes anyone find this a tad interesting? James O’Keefe appeared on the Hannity show tonight to state his case for the alleged “phone tampering” and media fueled lie of “wire tapping” Senator Landrieu’s phones. Though O’Keefe wouldn’t answer the question directly when asked by Hannity, there are now rumors going around that James O’Keefe sat in jail for 28 hours without even being given access to an attorney. Now according to Fox News, Jim Letten, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, has stepped down from the case.

The same day the man who first published James O’Keefe’s explosive videos exposing wrongdoing at community organizer ACORN came to his defense Monday, claiming the conservative filmmaker “sat in jail for 28 hours without access to an attorney” while the prosecutor made his case to the media, the U.S. attorney involved stepped down.

O’Keefe, accused of trying to tamper with the phones of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, was “framed” by the media and the U.S. attorney’s office, Andrew Breitbart, publisher of BigGovernment.com, told Fox News Monday.

Hours later, Jim Letten, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, recused himself from the case.

The Department of Justice announced the change in a news release Monday night, but did not say why Letten wanted off the case.

Click here to read the affidavit.

“James O’Keefe sat in jail for 28 hours without access to an attorney, while the U.S. attorney leaked the information about his arrest, helping the media frame it as ‘Watergate Junior,’” Breitbart said.

O’Keefe declined to talk about Breitbart’s allegations on Fox News Monday night, adding he was cooperating with the U.S. attorney’s office and he was pleased with the way the U.S. attorney was handling the case.

He said details of his arrest may be brought up at another time, but not now because it is an ongoing investigation.

“The panty bomber on Christmas was given — you know, this guy’s from Al Qaeda, and he’s not even an American citizen, and he’s given access to an attorney right away. I believe that this was a concerted effort, this is just my opinion, to allow for the media to frame the issue to put James O’Keefe in a very bad position.”

Breitbart said he though the U.S. attorney’s effort was part of a payback scheme against O’Keefe, who posed as a pimp and prostitute with another citizen journalist to enter ACORN offices around the country and get advice on how to apply for federal housing grants for a brothel.

“It’s tied to the Justice Department. And we’ve been very aggressive in asking (Attorney General) Eric Holder to investigate what’s seen on these ACORN tapes and he’s ignored it,” Breitbart said of the media ploy.

Jan Maselli Mann, the first assistant U.S. District Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, declined to talk about specifics of the case, but said there were are no ulterior motives with their case.

“We don’t try cases in the press,” Mann told FoxNews.com. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office is motivated by nothing more than what we believe is to mandate and enforce the existing laws that were put in place to ensure the safety and security of federal buildings.”

Mann took over the case Monday.

Federal authorities allege that two of the men posed as telephone workers wearing hard hats, tool belts and fluorescent vests when they walked into Landrieu’s office in a federal building in New Orleans a week ago. The other two are accused of helping to organize the plan.


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February 1, 2010 · Filed Under General Politics

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One Response to “U.S. Attorney Jim Letten Steps Down From O’Keefe Case”

  1. zeek on February 2nd, 2010 9:48 am

    Other information sources have indicated Jim Letten was only the “interim” attorney, and that Obama is assigning a different one from the area.

    Cross-blogged at http://www.repubx.com – first in news and home to IntelliFETCH Search – check it out!

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