We can sympathize with the taint of being called “Trump’s man,” but is James O’Keefe really that desperate for cash?

Associated Press reports a James O’Keefe associate has taken issue with being referred to as a supporter of President Donald Trump in a Polish newspaper and is suing the publication for $13,000. (It sounds like a lot more when you mention the total in Polish currency, 50,000 zlotys.)

Matthew Tyrmand of the group Project Veritas brought the case against journalist Tomasz Piatek and Agora, publisher of the liberal Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, over a 2016 article that described Tyrmand as “part of the global war by the right-wing against democracy.”

The first person to take the witness stand as the trial opened was Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe. Project Veritas carries out undercover operations in the United States which it says are aimed at uncovering wrongdoing, but the group has been criticized for its tactics.

That’s putting it extremely mildly.

In an article published in May 2016, Piatek addressed the activities of Tyrmand, who is the son of the late Leopold Tyrmand, a prominent Polish communist-era dissident and writer. The young Tyrmand, who is 36, is a political commentator in his father’s homeland and has served as an informal adviser to the current conservative government.

The starting point for Piatek’s article was Tyrmand’s criticism of the Committee for the Defense of Democracy, a Polish group that has organized anti-government protests over what it sees as erosions of democracy. Piatek described Tyrmand’s unsubstantiated allegations that billionaire American-Hungarian investor George Soros might have secretly funded the group to bring down the government.

He said that when the article was published he still supported Republican candidate Ted Cruz and only shifted his allegiance to Trump later. Describing himself as a “transparency advocate,” he said the idea that he would support Putin is “beyond offensive.”

But the journalist denies that he ascribed the Putin sympathies to Tyrmand and said he was referring to Trump. He said Tyrmand, who does not speak Polish, must have misunderstood his text.

The icing on the cake for those of us who have been victimized by the right wing press…

Tyrmand did not take the stand Wednesday, but told The Associated Press there was no basis for the way Piatek described him throughout the column and that the reporter never tried to contact him for comment.

WHAT? WHAT? A RIGHT WING ACTIVIST COMPLAINING THAT HE WAS NOT CONTACTED FOR COMMENT?

Unheard of.

 

By The Portly Pundit

After four months in the belly of the right wing media beast, and after a full four days of hot showering, everyone's favorite Portly Pundit is once again weaving tales of progressive pulchritude on Breitbart Unmasked.

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