In a Tulane University incident on campus about a month ago, former U.S. attorney and current assistant dean Jim Letten unloaded a verbal barrage on journalist James O'Keefe, Campus Reform reported.

The reason for the attack was not clear, but O'Keefe was on Tulane's property, which is private, and his team caught the whole tirade on camera. O'Keefe's organization, Project Veritas, released the video Monday.

"You are a nasty cowardly little spud, all of you, you're hobbits," Letten shouted in the video. "You are less than I can ever tell you."

It is not clear precisely what Letten is mad about, but based on his interaction with O'Keefe, it seems to be related to a court case in 2010. O'Keefe and three others were arrested for entering a U.S. building under false pretenses and Letten, a U.S. attorney at the time, recused himself because he knew one defendant's father.

In the video, Letten continually yells at O'Keefe for harassing him and his family and for intruding on the campus' private property. The Tulane campus police then told O'Keefe he and his team were going to be detained but did not say for what.

The police only said, "this is private property."

"Listen to me," Letten said. "You're violating federal law. You spend your life as a snail. You do weird little political things. You're a horse's ass. Stay away from my family. Stay away from me. Stay from my house, stay away from this institution."

As O'Keefe points out in his narration of the video, a previous court decision allows members of the public not affiliated with a private school are allowed to be on campus. He also showed videotape of himself politely knocking on Letten's home's door and asking if the former attorney was home.

Letten's wife answered shortly that he was not and refused when O'Keefe tried to give her a copy of his book. On campus, the journalist tried to give Letten the book as well, but he threw back at him, which O'Keefe called a minor assault.

O'Keefe also noted that Letten's tirade and name-calling likely violated Tulane's conduct policy, which states community members must "speak and act with scrupulous respect for the human dignity of others."

Tulane later released a statement through Michael Strecker, the school's executive director of public relations.

"This exchange, arising from an issue related to his previous position as U.S. attorney, followed visits to Jim Letten's home and campus office by James O'Keefe and his film crew that were intimidating and harassing to both his wife and staff," Strecker wrote. "Despite the provocation of these unannounced and uninvited visits, Mr. Letten regrets losing his temper in addressing the impropriety of Mr. O'Keefe's conduct."

In 2010, O'Keefe and his cohorts were originally charged with a felony, but all pleaded guilty to a similar misdemeanor charge. The four men claimed they were investigating the office of Sen. Mary Landrieu because people were having difficulty calling to complain about President Barack Obama's proposed healthcare bill.