Secret videos target lawmakers
Conservative activists’ tactics draw complaints from GOP legislators
AUSTIN — An Austinbased nonprofit with ties to activists arrested in the past for targeting legislators in other states has collected hundreds of hours of secretly recorded video footage of Texas lawmakers to use against them in the upcoming election cycle, a representative from the group confirmed Tuesday.
The undercover video campaign represents a new front by conservative groups to target incumbent Republicans and tilt the Texas Legislature further to the right.
Several House Republican lawmakers already have expressed concerns with some of the group’s tactics, saying they aggressively were approached last week — inside and outside the Capitol — by men who used hidden cameras to secretly videotape a series of encounters that has raised alarms for Capitol security.
John Beria, spokesman for Austin-based nonprofit the American Phoenix Foundation, said the group has 16 staffers working on the project and has amassed more than 800 hours of covert footage of lawmakers.
“We’re going for the people who are notorious in some of their actions,” he said. “And so the people who are doing the shady business deals and the people who are doing the nefarious things around town, those are the people we spend our time on.”
He declined to offer examples of any wrongdoing or elaborate on anything
captured on videotape.
“They’ve collected quite a bit of content that I think will probably be very good, but a camera is nothing to be worried about if you’re not doing anything wrong,” Beria said.
The group intends to begin releasing the information in the next several weeks and months, a key time frame as the legislative session comes to an end and lawmakers begin to plot for the primary season.
Last week’s encounters at the Capitol were described by lawmakers as attempts to provoke responses on hot-button policy issues, along with questions about Republican House Speaker Joe Straus, a consistent target of criticism in tea party circles.
Lawmakers said cameras were disguised as lapel pins or hidden in a briefcase, and some characterized the incidents as harassment because the men repeatedly pursued legislators through the hallways of the Capitol and off Capitol grounds. One lawmaker was approached while eating dinner with his wife at a Tex-Mex restaurant in downtown Austin.
“It’s like they were almost stalking us,” said Rep. Patricia Harless, R-Spring, who navigated a detour through the Capitol with another female lawmaker last Friday to avoid the group.
Beria confirmed the “visionary” behind the program to collect secret footage of state lawmakers is Joseph Basel, the CEO of C3 Strategies, an Austin-based consulting firm that worked on the campaigns of Sens. Don Huffines, R-Dallas, Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, and Konni Burton, R-Fort Worth.
Basel said none of the taping was done through C3, and that his consulting clients were not involved in any way.
‘Sleazy campaign tactic’
In 2010, a federal judge sentenced Basel and fellow activist James O’Keefe to probation and community service after they pleaded guilty to entering the New Orleans offices of then-U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu under false pretenses.
O’Keefe was the mastermind behind the 2009 secret taping at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. During the exchange, ACORN staffers appeared to offer O’Keefe and Hannah Basel — masquerading as a pimp and prostitute — advice on tax evasion.
Both Basels helped found the American Phoenix Foundation.
“It’s a sleazy campaign tactic,” Rep. Charlie Geren, a Fort Worth Republican who was approached three times last week, said of the secret videotaping. “There’s some real scumbags in this business.”
Harless, the lawmaker from Spring, said she initially was approached last week by a man in an elevator after leaving a committee hearing. As the elevator doors opened, she said he peppered her with a series of questions and then zoomed away.
Harless said a Department of Public Safety trooper who observed the exchange told Harless that a badge shaped like the state of Texas on the man’s lapel actually was a camera.
Legislators are more sensitive for their safety this session in which several lawmakers have been assigned Department of Public Safety security details after receiving death threats.
Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, said he was approached after a committee hearing and said a man gave him a fake name and used a camera hidden in a briefcase to record the encounter. Larson said several other members were approached while walking to their cars.
“There is some security issues that DPS was concerned about that need to be addressed,” Larson said. “It’s one thing to have a political dialogue. It’s another issue if they are they stalking people.”
Lawmakers said DPS questioned at least one of men in the group late last week after multiple House members raised concerns about the undercover tactics. Beria confirmed the men had been detained, but later were released.
A DPS spokesman declined comment.
The most visible member of the team videotaping lawmakers has been Adam Sharp, a Missouribased tea party blogger who has a history of tangling with his video subjects.
Sharp casts himself as a crusading citizen journalist. His Twitter bio reads: “You too can unseat a Congressman with a $129 video camera.”
He was arrested for trespassing in 2011 after confronting University of Missouri adjunct lecturer Don Giljum during a labor studies class.
Sharp previously had videotaped Giljum’s classes and given the videos to conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who wrote that they proved the professor was advocating for the use or threat of violence during labormanagement negotiations.
At least a dozen House lawmakers were approached last week by Sharp or others members of the team, including Democrats. They said they were asked about bills dealing with body cameras for police officers, measures to restrict private citizens from recording police officers and in-state tuition for undocumented people.
One consistent theme, lawmakers say: they were all asked about Straus. One of the men even approached Straus while walking outside the Capitol, attempting to provoke a reaction by asking about his family, a senior staffer said.
Beria denied the group was targeting Straus allies, saying they had approached lawmakers in both chambers.
It is not a crime to film someone in public without their consent. Lawmakers, nonetheless, said they felt violated.
Confronted at restaurant
Rep. Brooks Landgraf, R-Odessa, was at Benji’s Cantina with his wife when a man approached and began asking him to weigh in on several topics. He said he was upset because his wife was “confronted at nighttime by a stranger who was evidently covertly recording us.”
“What seemed a little bit strange is that it almost felt like we had been followed there,” Landgraf said. “I just thought that was a little bit over the line. I can’t tolerate my family being threatened.”
Beria said all members of the team were unarmed and “so they’re not a threat to the legislators in any way.”
“I think there’s probably a lot the legislators want to keep hidden and keep covered up,” Beria said, “So, if they’re worried about the political consequences, I think they’re probably rightfully concerned.”
“What seemed a little bit strange is that it almost felt like we had been followed ... I can’t tolerate my family being threatened.”
Rep. Brooks Landgraf, R-Odessa