After the Washington Post broke the story about Roy Moore's penchant for child molestation, it appears the right-wing ratfck operation kicked into high gear, taking aim at the reporters who exposed Moore and the publication which employs them.

Unfortunately, good journalism still trumps stupid right-wing dirty tricks, as O'Keefe just discovered.

Jaime Phillips presented herself to the paper as someone with a terrible story about Roy Moore, one where he had sex with her when she was 15 and impregnated her, then forced her to have an abortion. What she didn't seem to be counting on was the fact-check process.

As reporters were working to fact-check her story, she continually pressured her first contact to offer an opinion about whether her story would bring Moore down.

Then it got a little weird and stupid all at once.

Phillips also repeatedly asked the reporter to guarantee her that Moore would lose the election if she came forward. Reinhard told her in a subsequent text message that she could not predict what the impact would be. Reinhard said she also explained to Phillips that her claims would have to be fact-checked. Additionally, Reinhard asked her for documents that would corroborate or support her story.

Later that day, Phillips told Reinhard that she felt “anxiety & negative energy after our meeting,” text messages show. “You just didn’t convince me that I should come forward,” she wrote.

Reinhard replied, “I’m so sorry but I want to be straight with you about the fact-checking process and the fact that we can’t guarantee what will happen as a result of another story.”

"Reinhard" is Beth Reinhard, one of the original reporters on the Leigh Corfman story. She was targeted by Phillips, who is also known as Jamie Phillips, Jaime Kahl, and Jamie Kahl.

Dissatisfied with Reinhard's responses, Phillips then started shopping for another reporter, ostensibly one who would tell her what she wanted to hear, and report the fake story. But by then, reporters had some clues as to who Jaime Phillips is.

Yes, that's a fundraiser to help her move to New York so she can go to work exposing the "MSM."

The video above is the moment where reporters confronted her, but she lied and said she had wanted to go to New York for a job with the Daily Caller.

Then this happened:

The Post did not publish an article based on her unsubstantiated account. When Post reporters confronted her with inconsistencies in her story and an Internet posting that raised doubts about her motivations, she insisted that she was not working with any organization that targets journalists.

But on Monday morning, Post reporters saw her walking into the New York offices of Project Veritas, an organization that targets the mainstream news media and left-leaning groups. The organization sets up undercover “stings” that involve using false cover stories and covert video recordings meant to expose what the group says is media bias.

How stupid is this? O'Keefe and company making up a crazy story about Roy Moore in order to plant it, and they thought that would somehow help? What is the matter with them?

Jonathan Chait explains:

But this larger conceptual problem with O’Keefe’s enterprise creates a secondary problem, which is that the people who are dumb enough to believe these conspiracy theories are not generally smart enough to carry out a competent entrapment scheme. O’Keefe attempted to impersonate a Detroit Free Press columnist at the polls, and failed, in part because the poll worker knew the Free Press writer personally. An elaborate effort to sting the League of Conservation Voters failed clumsily because the operatives left their recording devices sitting around. The “Canadians” who tried to entrap Hillary Clinton staffers into accepting “foreign” donations all gave the same phone number, which turned out to be from “Students for a Conservative Voice.” O’Keefe’s attempt to register the vote of a dead person accidentally used the identity of a voter who is completely alive. His attempt to impersonate a Hungarian donor to the Clinton campaign floundered when its catfisher forgot to hang up the phone and accidentally recorded a long message explaining the details of the operation:

I have covered James O'Keefe's antics (and funders) since Project Veritas first attacked ACORN. As time goes by, it's hard to understand why the billionaires keep paying him to fail so completely every single time.