Conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released the first installment in a new video investigation Monday morning, this one focused on Medicaid fraud. The first video in the series shows government employees in Ohio assisting two men who have described themselves as Russian drug smugglers with applications for Medicaid.
In the video, the men explain to Ohio Medicaid workers that they are Russian immigrants who sell illegal drugs, drive a modified McLaren F1 sports car with a gold-coated engine, and use their underage sisters to perform sexual favors in exchange for drugs.
In response, Ohio employees tasked with disbursing federal Medicaid dollars are shown coaching the men through the process of applying for benefits. “If it’s not something registered here, maybe I just wouldn’t mention it,” a Franklin County Medicaid officer named Traci Daniels tells the men, when asked whether they should mention owning a vehicle that retails for nearly $1 million, as they apply for government aid designed to help poor people. “Not that I can say that. You didn’t hear that from me. But, that would right there, that would throw him off. He would be immediately not qualified.”
Daniels also tells the men to describe their occupation as babysitting, though she apparently believes they are drug dealers.
The two men also ask the Medicaid workers about whether the government health plan covers abortions for their underage sisters, who they say get pregnant often because they’re performing sexual favors for their clients. Daniels recommends they go to Planned Parenthood. One of the ersatz Russians then made a follow-up call to a woman named Jeanette, also in Franklin County, Ohio’s Medicaid Office. She also directed him to Planned Parenthood.
In Madison County, Medicaid worker Robin Johnson told the two men that her office would not report illegal aliens to federal authorities. “Even if we run into people that are illegal aliens, it’s not like we report them to INS or anything,” Johnson said. “That’s not our purpose here.”
O’Keefe told The Daily Caller he created an edited video for storytelling purposes, but is offering up unedited videos for anyone who wants to see them. O’Keefe also put the full unedited video from the Franklin County office meeting with Daniels at the end of the edited version.
At the end of O’Keefe’s edited version of the video, four questions appear on a blank screen: “Are these employees doing anything wrong? Or are they doing what they are trained to do? What should we expect of an unaccountable state bureaucracy giving away federal dollars? It couldn’t get worse could it?”
From there, it cuts to a shot of an Irish-looking man with the Statue of Liberty in the background. The man appears to be a subject in a future video.
UPDATE: 4:18 p.m.:
O’Keefe told TheDC he’s sending these videos to state investigators nationwide. “Complete footage is being released to state attorneys general offices around the nation as well as other government organizations for investigative purposes,” O’Keefe said in an email.
Watch: