James O’Keefe discovers political money laundering involving unsuspecting senior citizens

James O’Keefe, five weeks after Project Veritas’ board fired him, made his first scoop on March 28. This one hints at political money laundering involving unsuspecting senior citizens.

Political money laundering

O’Keefe released a video late on March 28, on at least two platforms.

In it he interviewed four senior citizens, all listed on-line as having donated tens or hundred of thousands of dollars to various left-wing causes. The most prominent of these is Act Blue, which already bills itself as a clearing house for donations to American leftist candidates. Their home page boasts that they have raised nearly $12 billion since 2004.

The Federal Elections Commission makes available data on contributions, large and small, to political candidates. A group calling itself Election Watch contacted the O’Keefe Media Group after identifying several senior citizens apparently giving large amounts of money, in the aggregate, over a period of years. Contributions show up in a person’s name, or variations on it, and from the same address. The remarkable stand-out fact is that these contributions add up to very large sums. These sums vary from $32,000 to $230,000, or more.

In his premiere video, James O’Keefe visited four homes of senior citizens in various States. These homes are modest – perhaps too modest for the owner to be giving away such vast sums. One senior citizen encouraged James O’Keefe to “talk to Donald Trump,” and even to launch a violent attack on him. No other senior citizen expressed his political leanings with anything approaching such violence. But – without exception – all disavowed any knowledge of making contributions more than, say, five dollars once or twice.

It’s happened before

The FTX scandal involved a putative cryptocurrency exchange that in fact used Ukraine’s treasury for political money laundering. Democrats – and some Republicans (“Republicans in Name Only”) – took FTX campaign money.

But this appears different. James O’Keefe’s interview subjects generally appear sympathetic with the aims of Act Blue and similar operations. But they deny giving them tens or hundred of thousands of contributions. One couple even wanted to know whether O’Keefe could find out who is using their name without their permission.

Act Blue has not responded to O’Keefe’s request for comment.

Earlier today he dropped a six-tweet thread naming his partner in this story (Election Watch), sharing “sources and methods,” and inviting interested people to join his effort.

In reaction, several Twitter users dropped accusations of similar activity in Prince William County, Virginia,

and in Oklahoma, New York State, Texas, Oregon, and Michigan.

One user accused Act Blue of financing the campaign of Senator John Ossoff (D-Ga.). This user noticed several out-of-work people donating as much as $50,000 each.

Curiously, one user submitted a screencap from Act Blue indicated that Act Blue had blocked access from his service area.

Other reaction tweets suggest that this scheme is far more widespread than O’Keefe showed in his video. If true, then we can expect more revelations to come.