okeefetips@protonmail.com
2/24/2023
Statement from Project Veritas Insiders
As individuals who trusted Project Veritas with our stories, the removal of James O’Keefe by the Board of Directors was extremely disappointing and shocking. Without James O’Keefe, there is no Project Veritas.
We have all worked directly with Project Veritas journalists and in many cases spent months working with them and also interacting with Mr. O’Keefe both before going public and afterwards during various events.
We sacrificed our jobs and our livelihoods in order to give James O’Keefe hard evidence of fraud and corruption, at CBS news, Fox news, Google, Facebook, UPS, Pfizer, Hasbro, DHS, CNN, ESPN, HHS, and United Healthcare.
Many of us were reluctant to go public, but because of O’Keefe’s dedication to journalistic integrity and honesty, we made the leap to go public with our stories, because we trusted him and the organization. That currency of trust can’t be bought with money, and we knew James would never sell us out, and he never did. He always had our back. He stayed true to his word and his undercover journalists went to great lengths to share our stories in the most compelling manner possible.
We have many unanswered questions about what transpired between the Board and James O’Keefe. We are still questioning the facts and hope that more information will come to light and that both parties can come to an understanding. We hope that any misinformation is immediately corrected and that there is full transparency.
We played a small but crucial role in the organization when we were given the opportunity to share our stories, but O’Keefe’s removal from the organization has dealt a devastating blow to future whistleblowers who now may have doubts about the organization and its leadership.
A few of us started engaging with Project Veritas as early as 2017, and after going public we have collectively been interviewed thousands of times and have promoted the Project Veritas brand simply by telling our story, both in the U.S. and globally, in dozens of countries such as Brazil, Japan, Columbia, Mexico, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Chile and Argentina. We were happy to promote James’ organization because of the great experience we had working with him and his journalists.
Many of us were inspired by other whistleblowers who went public, and we forged strong relationships with one another after being fired and dealing with media blowback, hit pieces and harassment. Because of James, there is a growing movement of whistleblowers who are willing to come forward and tell their stories.
We stand united with James O’Keefe and his team of journalists, and we are confident they will continue to fight for the truth and expose corruption.
Sincerely,
O’Keefe’s Insiders
Ryan Hartwig – Facebook Insider
Cassandra Spencer – Facebook Insider
Trevor Adams – ESPN/Disney Insider
Zach Vorhies – Google Insider
Aaron Stevenson – DHS insider
Cary Poarch – CNN Insider
David Johnson – Hasbro Insider
Jodi O’Malley – HHS Vaccine Insider
April Moss – CBS Insider
Melissa McAtee – Pfizer Insider
Ivory Hecker – Fox News Insider
Jeanne Stagg – United Healthcare/LDH Insider
Richard Hopkins -USPS Insider
Tara Rodas – HHS Insider
Kent Heckenlively JD, co-author for Cary Poarch, Ryan Hartwig, David Johnson and Zach Vorhies
James O’Keefe, the undercover journalist and founder of Project Veritas, posted a video to the website Vimeo on Monday, announcing he would be leaving PV amid a dispute with the nonprofit’s board of directors.
One America News (OAN) reporter and Veritas-linked journalist Neil McCabe tweeted out the announcement late Monday morning.
Exclusive: @JamesOKeefeIII, my friend and former boss at @Project_Veritas just read his resignation letter to his former team and board members at their Mamaroneck, N.Y. headquarters,” McCabe wrote. “James will make his own way—as he always has before.”
Known for his various sting operations and undercover stories investigating lawmakers, government agencies, private corporations and celebrities, O’Keefe sought to hold true to the organization’s motto: “Be Brave And Do Something.”
The group’s leader was placed on paid leave earlier this month seemingly related to a dispute over the removal of two board members. In O’Keefe’s quest to remove them, the board reversed his decision and issued a memo with more general complaints about the working conditions and management attitude at PV.
Despite the board attempting to tamp down rumors of O’Keefe’s imminent departure, he posted a video to the website Vimeo, detailing how he was stripped of his authority.
“Journalism is reporting things powerful people want kept hidden for the wrong reasons,” he said during the 45-minute video. “Moral wrongs. Bad behaviors. As journalists we’re the custodians of the public’s conscience. And as we’ve gone deeper and deeper, exposing and illuminated corruption … the line separating good and evil becomes more clear — not just in the institutions we investigate, but within one another. Throughout my 13 years doing this, our mission has evolved from simply being about exposing the truth with some hidden cameras to something more transcendental: giving people hope. That’s what we do.
“… I have felt a lot of despair and seen a lot of evil and felt overcome with various emotions over the last few weeks. You could say I’ve seen glimpses of heaven and hell — of darkness and light. What I take away from these is the gratitude I have … What makes us great is we do this work because we actually believe in this … we don’t sell out.”
O’Keefe began to become emotional on camera and said he had his power taken from him and was, in effect, forced out. He then followed up with a story about his father and why he does what he does.
“I do love many of you,” O’Keefe said. “I never said it, those words, but I’ll say it now. I still believe we have a long and bright future together somehow, some way … When I left the office on Feb. 6 after being stripped of all my authority, I saw my father and gave him a hug. Realizing just how honest and real the man he is. Both my parents are as genuine and down-to-earth as a son can ever have.”
He then spoke about his experiences being raided by the FBI and how he felt persecuted by the government.
“There were federal agents showing up at my parent’s house,” he related. “There were no donors, no supporters, and I was not trending on Twitter. My father went through this hell with me and stood up to those bullies on the front lawn and told them to stop harassing my family. And at that point that’s all I had, was him. I was otherwise completely alone. I will never forget that. Now the good news, we’re no longer alone. We have millions of Americans who also know who I am.
“The mission will perhaps take on a new name, and it may be no longer called Veritas or Project Veritas. I’ll need a bunch of people around me, and I’ll make sure you know how to find me.”
O’Keefe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“He just resigns and walks out the door to start a new life,” said McCabe. “Now we’ll see: does the organization he created survive?”
O’Keefe explained his fight with board members:
I’m going to take you through what happened. Some of you don’t know these things. We’re talking about the story we broke. An unusual emergency happened on Thursday, February the 2nd – that’s a few days after the Pfizer story – I was informed by an officer of Project Veritas on the phone while enroute to the airport that he would resign unless I stepped down as CEO.
We’ve been having a conflict visions, him and I over fundraising… there were tactical disagreements about the boldness of approaches soliciting donations. I was told, and I’m paraphrasing, by asking for X dollars right now you will prevent 10x dollars down the road. That advice ran contrary to everything I knew to be true in my 13 years of fundraising. But that conflict was even more fundamental and essentially boiled down to this and my vision. I’m going to paraphrase Howard Roark, the architect, quote, ‘I don’t build in order to have donors. I have donors in order to build.’ That’s what I believed and I felt like we had a conflict of visions.
We measure our success in terms of what we produce, not just in terms of our wallets. That was a pretty fundamental conflict I felt. The day prior, I informed him in front of his colleagues that if he wasn’t willing to follow my lead he’d be shown the door. I tried to deal with it privately but I was unsuccessful and the disagreement boiled over publicly in a staff meeting. The next day, this individual refused to resign so I fired him.
Later that same day, that’s Thursday, February 2nd, a few days after the 50 million viewed Pfizer videos. I was informed by a different officer of Project Veritas that he would go to the board in a few hours from that moment and have an emergency vote to restructure this company, receiving an agenda in my email while I was sitting on an airplane tarmac with the doors closing, the meeting was scheduled for the moment that my plane landed in Nashville…
It became clear to me in that moment I would be removed from my position at Project Veritas by the time I landed at my destination. So, our mission continues on. I’m not done. The mission will perhaps take on a new name. And it may be no longer called Veritas. Project Veritas. There will be a bunch of people around me and I’ll make sure you know how to find me.
I hope he starts a new project. I’ll be one of the first to support.
Related article:
One wonders how many pieces of silver it took. Like you, I’ll be awaiting O’Keefe’s return with bated breath — and support . . .