James O’Keefe has been ousted from the undercover gonzo journalism organization he created 13 years ago, Project Veritas. O’Keefe says that the nonprofit organization’s board of directors stripped him of his CEO position and his spot on the board, leaving him with no job.
After a two-week suspension in which the board reportedly told O’Keefe to temporarily unplug from the organization, the man who has been the heart and soul of the undercover journalism enterprise issued a final video for his staff. The 44-minute video explained his battle with the Project Veritas board of directors and the extraordinary 6-1/2 hour meeting — an “airing of the grievances” he called it — in which they brought up a series of employee complaints about his oversight of the organization. He called his battle with the board an “emotional circus” and wondered why after 13 years it came to a head now.
Though the board’s decision to oust him appears to have been brewing for many months, O’Keefe wondered: “Why this week?” He referred to the timing of the effort to drum him out, which began in early February. The pressure began the very week Project Veritas released what is likely its most consequential exposé — and that’s saying a great deal about the body of work produced by this outfit.
In this case, the story about a Pfizer official admitting that the company had considered or carried out what was tantamount to illegal gain of function research on Covid, and had considered morphing the disease to create new “vaccines” to attack it, was the most shocking and consequential of O’Keefe’s professional life.
In this video:
-I was locked in a restaurant (possible Unlawful imprisonment)
-I was Assaulted
-Had our IPad destroyed
-Pfizer director said “I’m literally a liar”
-He confirmed hes Boston Consulting and Pfizer
-He said he’s trying to “help the public”
– pic.twitter.com/kIMCREEyyN— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) January 27, 2023
After O’Keefe released his video, the Project Veritas board issued a statement claiming O’Keefe was supposed to have maintained contact with them during his suspension. The statement read that “we did not fire him, nor do we want him to resign.” They also claimed that O’Keefe had engaged in overspending for “personal luxuries,” such as “black cars” to take him to meetings and chartered flights used for personal trips under the guise of donor meetings. The statement said that O’Keefe was to be suspended for the time it took to do an audit on spending.
Over the years, some undercover journalists who work with O’Keefe have complained about his heavy-handed management style. Those who didn’t like his style left. But others kept coming. I’ve been acquainted with James for years. There are times when I complained to him about inside aspects of a story or two, but I still remember his beginnings when he sat next to Andrew Breitbart and told his story about the corrupt ACORN organization. I’ve always admired his work.
And the work created by Project Veritas has grown more sophisticated over time. Exposé on CNN, The New York Times, the sham of not using voter ID, mail-in ballot election chicanery, and many more people were caught on video in journalistic stings that were more akin to old 60 Minutes programs.
O’Keefe got his hands on Ashley Biden’s diary, which she left behind at a rehab outfit. Though he never published it, his former Project Veritas employees and O’Keefe himself were raided by the Feds on behalf of their boss, President Joe Biden.
O’Keefe held his employees to the standards he operated by, sometimes yelled at them, and was accused of coming in at the end of a project to do a victory lap on Project Veritas exposé videos. That appeared to stick in the craw of employees who did the hard work of embedding themselves in organizations for months and getting the undercover video. But that happens all the time. There was only one face of Project Veritas, and it wasn’t theirs.
And there was a reason for that. Like Mike Wallace, when James O’Keefe showed up at the end of a sting, targets knew they were in trouble.
Throughout his time at Project Veritas, O’Keefe was subjected to a felony conviction for pleading guilty to a complaint of representing himself as a telephone repairman at U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu’s Louisiana office. Landrieu famously stated that she’d received no complaints about supporting ObamaCare. O’Keefe went to her office to determine if the phones were even turned on. It was a troll, and he had the book thrown at him. He calls pleading guilty the biggest professional regret he ever had. After that, he battled back on every legal arrow shot his way. Many times he was rewarded by getting discovery, which he used in his reporting.
O’Keefe demanded that the board of directors quit instead of him, a throwdown that went unheeded.
“So currently I have no job at Project Veritas,” O’Keefe stated in his video. “I have no position here based upon what the board has done. So today I’m telling you on President’s Day that I’m packing up my personal belongings. And I’m intending to start anew. I don’t have the answers as to why they’ve been doing this. Or why board members have gone directly to employees to collect grievances.”
O’Keefe said he may “begin anew” and urged those employees who came to watch him read his Project Veritas swan song to look him up because he isn’t done yet. He says he doesn’t know what the future of Project Veritas is or if it will even keep the name.
You can’t replace the guts, zest, or balls-out way in which O’Keefe conducted himself over the years with Project Veritas. If he’s going to start over, he will have to take his “Be Brave. Do Something” slogan to heart.
Let’s hope it’s sooner than later.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member