By Jarryd Jaeger – The Postmillennial
James O’Keefe sprung into action during a recent confrontation with an Internal Revenue Service official who admitted that the agency’s warrantless searches and artificial intelligence programs were “unconstitutional” after the employee took off running down the streets of lower Manhattan.
Despite Alex Mena’s attempts to evade O’Keefe, the investigative journalist refused to give up, only ending his pursuit after the official ducked into a locked building, and the cameraman ran out of breath.
O’Keefe confronted Mena as the pair left a cafe after both buying chocolate chip cookies, the latter unaware until they stepped outside who the former was.
“Are you Alex Mena with the IRS?” O’Keefe asked, showing him footage from a hidden camera. “You’re part of an undercover investigation talking about [the IRS] going after small people, destroying people’s lives.”
“That’s not me,” Mena replied, before making a sharp left and trying to get away from O’Keefe. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m sorry.”
Mena, still walking at this point, accused O’Keefe of “harassing” him, at which point the journalist brought up the fact that Mena had admitted that some of the IRS’ behavior was “unconstitutional.”
All of a sudden Mena took off running, with O’Keefe and his cameraman in hot pursuit.
“We have a runner at the IRS!” O’Keefe exclaimed. “We’re going for a jog here in New York City with the criminal investigations unit at the IRS!”
Mena was able to sprint ahead and hide in a dark doorway, but O’Keefe soon caught up and the chase continued.
“James, hold on, I can’t breathe!” the cameraman finally said minutes later after Mena fled into a building. O’Keefe went in after him, but the door was locked, thus ending the pursuit.
“That was not a jog, that was an all-out sprint!” O’Keefe noted afterwards. “I’ve seen a lot of crazy things in my life, but an IRS individual running like Forrest Gump after he’s caught on camera saying that the warrant program was unconstitutional?”
Achieving their goal of exposing Mena, O’Keefe and his cameraman retired for the evening, making their way back to the cafe to replace the cookies that had, tragically, been dropped along the way.
As O’Keefe reported last week, Mena was caught admitting that he “‘doubts the constitutionality’ of his employer, the IRS, using AI to access everybody’s bank accounts nationwide.”