Ms. Maddow could write this off as a matter of semantics, but it goes deeper than semantics. Anyone who reads the
full report from the Attorney Generals office will see that the way the videos were edited has no bearing on whether the AG office found evidence of any criminal behavior. The reason the ACORN employees were cleared of aiding and abetting criminal behavior was ultimately, that OKeefe and Giles were only pretending to commit crimes. You cant aid and abet criminal behavior if there is no actual criminal behavior. And the release of the unedited videos had nothing to do with that legal conclusion.
But, Rachel Maddow had a story to tell. And all of these things that she concealed from her audience contradicted her story. So she left it out and showed what she needed to show to convince her audience that ACORN had been wronged and OKeefe and Giles had deceived the world.
I wonder how many people actually bought it?