In an October 17 article, the Huffington Post reported that Lawrence Mishel, president of progressive think tank, the Economic Policy Institute, was targeted, along with Amy Hanauer of the group Policy Matters Ohio, in a conservative media sting by “infamous saboteur” James O'Keefe last week. From the article:

Last week, both 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.”

Hanauer's call came later and was nearly identical. “They were fishing for us to say we would release it if it had a pro-union point of view or kill it if it didn't,” she recalled. “He asked me some fishy questions. I think he was simply trying to make me feel tempted to tell me what he wanted.”

Ryan Girdusky, a spokesman for Project Veritas, the 501(c)3 organization O'Keefe started, declined to confirm whether EPI was the subject of an ongoing investigation, arguing that it would undermine the remainder of the group's work.