A controversial conservative activist is being accused of trying to incite anti-police protesters by saying, “I wish I could kill some of these cops,” to provoke them into making outrageous statements.
A former top staffer with Project Veritas, Richard Valdes, said the incident occurred in January, when an undercover operative assigned to infiltrate the protest groups was given a script that included the startling comment.
Valdes said he was fired by the group’s founder, James O’Keefe, for not following through on the bizarre assignment.
Valdes said Veritas assigned a Muslim undercover agent pretending to be anti-cop to attend protest meetings and utter the following statement: “Sometimes, I wish I could just kill some of these cops. Don’t you just wish we could have one of the cops right here in the middle of our group?”
But the undercover agent refused, according to Valdes.
“I will not say words that will jeopardize my entity, especially when they involve an illegal act of ‘murdering police,’ ” the agent wrote in a Jan. 9 e-mail to Valdes and cc’d to O’Keefe.
Valdes claims O’Keefe, known for hidden-camera tactics against liberal groups, fired him “because he was unhappy with me for being unwilling to strong-arm the guy to do his dirty work.”
Valdes and his lawyer, Arthur Schwartz, are threatening to sue for wrongful termination.
“Project Veritas would never do anything that we believe would incite violence against police officers. Anyone suggesting otherwise is clearly unfamiliar with our body of work,” Veritas spokesman Dan Pollack said.