Michael Cardinal, FISM News
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Conservative activist, James O’Keefe resigned from Project Veritas, the investigative journalist organization he founded in 2010, after clashing with other board members for his management style and a conflict of interest over finances.
As first reported by OAN reporter Neil McCabe, O’Keefe posted a video to Vimeo on Monday for company employees in which he reads a letter that detailed both his history with the organization and some of the details surrounding his removal.
O’Keefe made a name for himself by conducting hard-nosed undercover investigations in which he exposed multiple liberal agendas, corporate greed, and buried narratives. In late January, Project Veritas released its most widely circulated video that showed a Pfizer executive admitting that the company had purposefully mutated the COVID-19 virus to “preemptively develop new vaccines.”
On Feb. 8, less than two weeks after the release of this video, New York’s Intelligencer magazine broke the news that O’Keefe was on paid leave while the board considered whether to remove him from his position as CEO. Shortly thereafter, it was also reported that several employees had sent a letter to the board on Feb 6 complaining about his leadership style. Part of the letter stated, “James has become a power drunk tyrant and he is exactly who he pontificates on who we should be exposing,”
In the video, O’Keefe admitted that he was hard on employees of the company, but that he has not asked something of anyone that he hasn’t “already done.” He also maintained that he had the same style of leadership from the time he started the company and that the only thing that changed was the success of the Pfizer video which strangely led to internal disagreements.
O’Keefe referenced notes from a 7-hour board meeting in which members aired grievances with the former CEO including traveling too much for meetings with donors, his brashness, and disputed expenses that he said were purposefully misconstrued to paint him in a negative light.
He went on to reveal that the board had indefinitely suspended him, removing him from his position of CEO and barring him from contacting donors for no less than six months.
O’Keefe maintains that he will continue his mission of investigative journalism, though it will no longer be with Project Veritas. “Our mission continues on. I’m not done. The mission will perhaps take on a new name,” he stated.
James O'Keefe addresses Project Veritas as he exits from the organization he founded:
"Our mission continues on. I'm not done. The mission will perhaps take on a new name…" pic.twitter.com/UYHWNXCbQG
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) February 20, 2023
In response, Project Veritas released a statement denying that they had pushed O’Keefe out of the company, stating, “We [Project Veritas] did not fire him, nor do we want him [O’Keefe] to resign.”
— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) February 21, 2023
“We would like to continue conversations with James to resolve internal matters rather than litigate them publicly,” the statement continues.
The company refutes some of the claims O’Keefe made in terms of his resignation, stating that their actions to remove him as CEO were due to “financial malfeasance.” They say the board meetings in which O’Keefe says he was blindsided were to discuss revelations that he had used “an excessive amount of donor funds in the last three years on personal luxuries.”
Project Veritas also maintains that O’Keefe had gone rogue in firing the company’s CFO without approval, which “left us no choice but to suspend him.”