(LifeSiteNews) — James O’Keefe and his team of undercover journalists have caught a senior government official on camera boasting of his efforts to undermine the efforts of the Trump administration.
In the video, Steven Putansu, a 16-year veteran of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and current assistant director, spoke about a covert effort by the GAO to unlawfully access vaccine research data deleted by Health and Human Services, under the direction of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.)
CAUGHT ON HIDDEN CAMERA: U.S. Government Accountability Office Director Admits GAO Staff “Stole & Backed Up” Vaccine Data Allegedly Deleted by RFK Jr.’s HHS – Possible Violations of Federal Records, Theft, & CFAA Laws.
Steven Putansu, a 16-year veteran of the U.S. Government… pic.twitter.com/OaGR6ME248
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) November 25, 2025
The GAO’s purpose “is to oversee and have oversight over government spending, very similar to what DOGE was recently supposed to be doing,” explained O’Keefe at the outset of his presentation.
And yet the video clearly shows that there are forces within the GAO and other government agencies acting on their own behalf in order to preserve themselves apart from the will of the American people.
Putansu called RFK Jr. “the vaccine-denying head of HHS who’s going to ruin healthcare in this country even more than it already is.”
He asserted that he and others within the government are trying to stymie RFK Jr.’s directives and indicated that “there’s resistance everywhere” to the Trump administration.
“The Trump administration has gone through and they’ve destroyed statistical agencies and data sources and they’ve deleted important data,” said Putansu. “And we have stolen and backed those things up so that someday they can come back to government.”
In the video, O’Keefe consults with Will Chamberlain, senior counsel at the Article III Project and the Internet Accountability Project, about the possible violation of federal statutes by Putansu and his colleagues at the GAO.
“This strikes me as very seriously and very clearly a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which prohibits intentionally accessing a computer without authorization, or exceeding authorized access to obtain information from a U.S. government department or agency,” said Chamberlain. “That’s precisely what he did.”
“[Putansu] doesn’t have the right to purloin that information from HHS,” said Chamberlain.
“That could also easily be a theft of government property, which would be a violation of 18 U.S.C. 641. And also the unauthorized removal of public records under 18 U.S.C. 2071,” he added.
