Right wing media huckster James O’Keefe tried and failed to entrap the Economic Policy Institute, a small but distinguished liberal think tank, Sam Stein reports in the Huffington Post:

Last week, both [EPI’s President Lawrence] Mishel and Amy Hanauer, the founding executive director of the group Policy Matters Ohio, received cryptic phone calls from a person identifying himself as Luke Fowler. Fowler explained that he worked as a researcher for a hedge fund manager named Peter Harman who was interested in funding a study showing that cuts to education and collective bargaining rights would hurt students. Harman, Fowler added, was associated with the Ohio Education Association, a union that represents some 130,000 teachers and faculty members.

The implication was clear. If Mishel could produce the data, he would get the money. “He wanted me to do something to show that spending cuts were going to hurt children in schools,” Mishel said. “I told him, you know, you can’t buy results.”

The last time O’Keefe was in the news, it was for falsely claiming to have entrapped National Public Radio officials in a money-for-coverage sting. In fact, O’Keefe released heavily edited video that made it appear that NPR execs were agreeing to slant coverage for donations when the unedited footage showed that they were refusing to do so.

Hat tips to Laura Clawson of DKos and Dave Dayen of Firedoglake.

[Photo credit: Center for American Progress, Creative Commons.]