The Fall of Project Veritas
The Schadenfraude of James O'Keefe's Collapse
James O'Keefe is a self-described "muckraker" whose personal mission is to "investigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions in order to achieve a more ethical and transparent society," according to the Project Veritas website.
In actuality, he’s a political hack, a fraud, a straight up A+ level jerk and someone who’s ego is far outweighed by his lack of abilities. He’s the kind of scoundrel who would try and sell you rat piss as perfume and then after you rejected the solicitation he’d point and say “Hey everyone, this person wanted to buy rat piss!”
He’s been out of the news for awhile but this week, he released whatever the f**k this is:
The response by Project Veritas which has slowly been trying to show him the door in an attempt to maintain some level of credibility, was to denounce this trivial online video as unnewsworthy, costly, and unnecessary. Right wing circles seemed a little perplexed.
This required Project Veritas to offer this apology:
With money drying up, Project Veritas now largely under control of others and O’Keefe without a win in years, the organization is broke and considering folding up shop. It couldn’t have happened to a more worthy idiot.
The Rise of Project Veritas
Project Veritas and O’Keefe first came to attention in 2009. President Obama had won election by mobilizing many inner city african-americans who typically didn’t vote. One of the organizations that Obama utilized to help get out the vote was ACORN (The Association of Community Organizations to Reform Now). The organization had been around from the 1970’s, and was largely a loose affiliation of various groups in urban areas working together for housing, programs and other issues of common interest.
However, because Obama had tapped into ACORN to help propel him to victory in 2008, ACORN became an immediate target for the right. ACORN suffered a damaging nationwide controversy in the fall of 2009 after James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles secretly recorded, and released videos of interactions with low-level ACORN personnel in several of their offices. In the videos, James poses as a pimp attempting to start a brothel with underage immigrant girls from Central America. ACORN personnel attempt to help James with housing (they were indifferent to the purpose).
The video appears below, but even back then the modus operendi of O’Keefe was evident: 1) Create an outlandish “sting” story to get attention—success was not relevant, it was the allegation and the headline that mattered; 2) use a camera to record the interactions; 3) target low level employees; 4) selectively edit and misrepresent much of what occurs; and 5) provide as “proof” video that demonstrates whatever allegation you were attempting to make.
The story became a viral hit on the right, just as the TEA Party was taking off. Investigations into ACORN began and eventually led to the cutting off of government funds for the organization, resulting in its collapse. O’Keefe became a celebrity among young Republicans and Project Veritas took off.
Project Veritas’ subsequent “Stings”
O’Keefe was never able to replicate the same success though. Even though there was always an interest, and right wing blogs, websites and conferences were always all too happy to include him and his content, mainstream sources always provided accurate reporting about what was edited, left out or outright fabricated. Some subsquent attempts by O’Keefe:
In 2010, in an attempt to infiltrate Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office and install listening devices to the phones, O’keefe and three others were arrested for entering a property under false pretenses with intent on committing a felony. According to the FBI affidavit, they entered the federal building at 500 Poydras Street on Monday about 11 a.m., dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts and hard hats. They told the staffer they were there to fix phone problems. At that time, the staffer observed O'Keefe positioning his cell phone in his hand to videotape the operation. O'Keefe later admitted to agents that he recorded the event. After being asked, the staffer them access to the main phone at the reception desk. They then told the staffer they needed to perform repair work on the main phone system and asked where the telephone closet was located. The staffer showed the men to the main General Services Administration office on the 10th floor, and they went in. There, a GSA employee asked for the men's credentials. They said they left them in their vehicle and were soon arrested thereafter. O;Keefe was sentenced to 3 years probation, 100 hours community service and a $1500 fine.
Also in 2010, O'Keefe planned to embarrass CNN journalist Abbie Boudreau by bringing her on a boat with sexually explicit props and recording the two in awkward conversation. Boudreau was working on a film about the conservative activist movement and planned to meet and interview O'Keefe in his office.
Just before the their scheduled appointment, Izzy Santa, then Project Veritas' executive director, warned Boudreau of O'Keefe's intentions. Boudreau didn't follow through on the interview.
During the 2014 mid-term elections, O'Keefe and two of his staff members tried to bait Democratic field staffers in Colorado into endorsing voter fraud.
To avoid being recognized, O'Keefe said he grew a moustache to disguise himself as a 45 year-old. During a campaign event, one of O'Keefe's colleagues introduced himself as "Nick Davis" to a Democratic staffer and "asked the staffer if he should fill out and mail in ballots for other college students who had moved away but still received mail on campus." The staffer told him not to because that would be considered voter fraud. After receiving repeated questions about submitting other people's ballots, Democratic staffers suspected that they were being punked. They connected the dots to O'Keefe after coming across a photo O'Keefe had posted on Instagram showing him with a moustache — the same one he used while undercover.
In 2014, O'Keefe made an appearance at the Cannes Film Festival and unveiled a 20-minute long video apparently showing top Hollywood film directors, including Josh Fox, accepting money for an anti-fracking movie from Middle Eastern oil interests. The video, however, deceptively edited Fox's comments. Luckily, Fox had secretly recorded his full conversations with the Project Veritas employees. Fox is the director of the Oscar-nominated, anti-fracking film, "Gasland."
In late 2013, Fox received emails from a group called Beacon International. The group claimed to want to fund the director's next anti-fracking film, but Fox became suspicious of the group's lack of transparency and announced that he would not accept any donations until he knew more about those behind the funding. Fox's full-length recordings of his conversations absolved him of the hypocrisy that O'Keefe had attempted to expose.
In 2017, a woman who posed as a victim of Roy Moore, the embattled Republican Alabama Senate candidate whose campaign has been roiled by multiple allegations of misconduct, appeared to be involved in a sting operation meant to disgrace The Washington Post. The attempted sting operation failed after Post reporters discovered on background that the woman, who identified herself as Jaime Phillips, was actually working for Project Veritas.
So O’Keefe has been a mess-up for a long time. He’s basically been a one-hit wonder that has tried to parlay this schtick for almost a decade and a half now. He’s more famous for the number of times he’s been caught than for the one time he was (arguably) successful.
Project Veritas has been trying for years to establish itself as a legitimate political investigative organization and seems more and more put off by O’Keefe’s antics. They placed him on paid leave and are looking into firing him.
If the financial issues are to be taken as truth, O’Keefe may finally be given the termination that he has so deserved, and many could not feel more thrilled at that prospect.
PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day
O’Keefe was always this way. When he was in college at Rutgers, according to Wikipedia:
“For his first video, he and other Centurion writers met with Rutgers dining staff to demand the banning of the cereal Lucky Charms from dining halls because of its offense to Irish Americans. O'Keefe said the leprechaun mascot presented a stereotype. He intended to have officials lose either way: to appear insensitive to an ethnic group, or to look silly by agreeing to ban Lucky Charms. They expected to be thrown out of school, but the Rutgers official was courteous, took notes, and said their concerns would be considered. Rutgers staff say the cereal was never taken off the menu.”
So even then, at a childish attempt at pre-Woke wokeness, he was a failure.
PurpleAmerica Cultural Criticism Corner
Burt Bacharach died this week. The celebrated songwriter wrote some of the most memorable songs of the past 50 yrs, including many I doubt you’d even recognize as a Burt Bacharach song. Through all the years, this one always remained my favorite.
Outstanding Tweet
O’Keefe is just one of many kooks on the right these days, like Bannon, Laura Loomer, Jacob Wohl and a host of other crackpots.
Charlie Sykes and Tom Nichols have a great name for these clowns that actually manage to get into Congress— The Kook Bench. This podcast is a gem.
Parting Thoughts
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