James O’Keefe fired in coup

Project Veritas just fired their founder, President and CEO, James O’Keefe III, in an obvious coup. The reasons they give for this firing are worse than specious. But as it is, the company’s donors will likely not let them get away with it. Even those who agree with the firing, will soon discover that they inherit a rudderless and terminally confused company.

What happened to James O’Keefe?

James O’Keefe made his latest big splash when following up on a big intelligence score by a Project Veritas operative. Jordon Trishton Walker, Ph.D., Director of Research and Development, Strategic Operations, and mRNA Scientific Planning at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, told this operative, over several drinks, that he personally oversaw efforts at Pfizer to mutate SARS-CoV-2 and release the variants in order to have vaccines ready to distribute “at need.” It was the most serious admission of racketeering – and germ warfare – by any employee at a major drug company.

James O’Keefe later confronted Walker directly, which resulted in an altercation.

This happened on January 25, 2023. Pfizer later denied doing the kind of research Dr. Walker described. YouTube, for its part, blocked the video Project Veritas uploaded of the initial interview. But of course Project Veritas has an account on Rumble, so that version of the video remains.

But for how long will it remain? That is no idle question – because within days of this story breaking, Project Veritas’ board of directors embarked on the most shocking, most egregious, and least honest campaigns to vilify a company founder in the history of non-profit public charities and advocacy groups. This will utterly destroy Project Veritas – which is, quite simply, no longer worthy of its name.

After the biggest story they ever broke…!

On February 2, 2023, James O’Keefe abruptly, and without explanation, went on paid leave from Project Veritas. Soon afterward, word came out that the Board asked him to absent himself from the company and not contact anyone. Almost at once the rumors started to swirl around him. According to some disjointed accounts, a parade of employees marched into the boardroom to complain about O’Keefe’s treatment of him. In the would-be-funny-were-it-not-so-sad department, one employee apparently accused him of taking her sandwich out of her hand and eating it.

Less than a week later, a Twitter user calling himself Swig, dropped this thread:

This thread lasted until Tuesday, Feburary 15. It included the anchor tweet to another thread about the demand letter:

See also:

Project Veritas’ board did put out a statement, here:

Then on Monday, February 20, Swig left this:

His intentions were to call a private meeting of his most loyal friends still at Project Veritas, in his office. This he did, in a meeting that lasted forty-five minutes. James O’Keefe recorded that meeting, and said repeatedly that he intended it for internal distribution only. At that meeting he detailed all the drama surrounding him, from his perspective. O’Keefe did admit to giving the board an ultimatum: either they went, or he went. They didn’t go. So he was going, now that he had no authority and was not even on the payroll anymore.

Clean out your desk!

He finished in an emotional moment as he announced that he would fill a box with a few personal items, including a framed diploma, carry said box out to his automobile, and drive away. In short, this would be the classic clean-out-your-desk moment of a man who has just gotten the sack.

But before the day was out, YouTube and Twitter Influencers Charlie Kirk and Benny Johnson acquired the video – neither man ever said from whom – and shared it. Charlie Kirk didn’t embed the entire video; instead he dropped a thread with key moments and explanatory notes:

Benny Johnson, however, shared the video in its entirety:

But wasn’t James O’Keefe under orders to stay away?

At 7:13 p.m. EST, the board put out this tweet:

carrying this link to their statement. In that statement they denied firing him, and said this:

The Board and Management made numerous attempts in the last 14 days to have a conversation with James, but he ignored our outreach and decided to instead leak private information to others, either by doing so himself or by proxy.

O’Keefe disputes that. In his office speech he says the Board ordered him to stay away and attempt no contact. That was an official Board resolution with all the force of a judicial injunction. Were he to disobey that order, the Board might have gone to court to get a real injunction. And perhaps court is the only place to sort out who, between O’Keefe and the Board, is telling the truth.

After that, James O’Keefe himself shared it on his own account:

And what did the Board allege that he did?

The operative phrase is self-dealing – or, to be as highfalutin as the Board chose to be, personal inurement. It’s when an officer abuses his expense account, travel allowance, company car, or other perquisites. (If he flat-out draws checks to himself for no good or accountable purpose, the law calls that embezzlement.)

Bear in mind that James O’Keefe routinely brought in millions of dollars to Project Veritas. Last year alone he brought in $22 million, double what he brought in in 2021. So let’s look at the Board’s complaints:

Here are a few examples of what has been uncovered so far by PV Leadership (this is far from an exhaustive list, it is merely a small representative sample):

$14,000 on a charter flight to meet someone to fix his boat under the guise of meeting with a donor

$60,000 in losses by putting together dance events such as Project Veritas Experience

Over $150,000 in Black Cars in the last 18 months

Thousands of dollars spent on DJ and other equipment for personal use

Hundreds of other acts of personal inurement

Total amount of alleged self-dealing: less than a quarter of a million dollars. Of all the pettifogging complaints one person can make against another, these are some of the worst. And about those “hundreds of other acts”: notice that the Board gave no figure even for a total amount. If this is their representative sample, then they chose poorly.

James O’Keefe v. a tissue of lies

The statements by Project Veritas are anything but true. They are instead the kind of statement people make when they don’t want to admit their purpose up-front. Instead they lie about what a person did, then lie to everyone else about their intentions.

James O’Keefe does have a problem. If he founds another company, he cannot call former staff to recruit them actively. Laws protect companies against that sort of thing. But if a member of Project Veritas staff calls him and applies for a job, he is at full liberty to hire him. Still, he cannot use the Project Veritas name. So perhaps he should derive a name, not from Latin, but from another ancient language. Say, Project Aletheia – from the Greek word. Or even Project Urim – literally “Lights” in Hebrew, after the objects called Urim and Thummim that the high priests of ancient Israel wore on their shoulders, and used for the exercise known as to inquire of the Lord.

That leaves open one final question: why did they do it? They didn’t do it because he was self-dealing. A man who brings in $22 million in a year will scarcely limit himself to a quarter of a million! We can regard the self-dealing canard as false – and turn our attention to other motives.

Analysis

Two schools of thought now exist as to why the Project Veritas board, and two of its officers, acted as they have. One school blames Matt Tyrmand, Barry Hinkley, and Executive Director Daniel Strack for hatching this plot on their own. According to this theory, they arrogantly decided that Project Veritas could function without James O’Keefe.

This story does give the clearest timeline. It was Barry Hinkley who first told O’Keefe, “Either you go or I go!” Daniel Strack threatened the emergency board meeting – while James O’Keefe was in an airliner with the flight attendant telling him he had to hang up. (Airline captains do indeed delay pull-out from the gate until all cellphones are turned off or in “Airplane Mode.”) Matt Tyrmand offered the raises people would get if O’Keefe had to leave.

But the article mentions only in passing the timing of these events. Within days of the Pfizer story, the Chief Operating Officer tells the boss, “Either you go or I go.”

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and the third time it’s enemy action. Ian Fleming

In this case the most likely enemy is Pfizer Pharmaceuticals – or maybe the entity most likely behind Pfizer, Moderna, the Norfolk Southern Railroad, and many other companies that have brought real, physical harm to Americans in the last three years. Now you decide. Did the Board act out of spite? Or did they act under orders or even under threat? (And not of jail time, either, but worse.)

About the image

The featured image derives from a snapshot of James O’Keefe that Gage Skidmore took on December 21, 2018 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Mr. Skidmore has licensed it under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-alike 3.0 Unported License.