More than a dozen years after he founded the right-leaning organization that has exposed scandals across various sectors of American society, James O’Keefe confirmed this week that he had been removed from the Project Veritas board.
After being placed on paid leave earlier this month amid unclear allegations against him, O’Keefe addressed the situation head-on in a lengthy video he shared with employees of the organization and posted online.
For its part, the board issued a statement accusing O’Keefe of threatening the organization’s nonprofit status by spending “an excessive amount of donor funds in the last three years on personal luxuries.”
The organization’s founder spoke up in his own defense, however, and expressed fundamental confusion regarding the decision to remove him from the board.
“Journalism is reporting things powerful people want kept hidden for the wrong reasons — moral wrongs, bad behaviors,” he said. “As journalists, we’re custodians of the public’s conscience.”
After extolling the virtues of his profession, O’Keefe went on to note that his efforts to be a force for positive change put him in a vulnerable position.
“Leadership has a price and results often come at a human cost,” he explained. “Many people want the fruits of leadership such as its power, results, Twitter followings, secondary effects — but the price of the responsibilities, burdens, trials, hardships, difficult decisions, or just sheer suffering, I don’t think people want that.”
Attempting to address the issues that led to his ouster from Project Veritas, O’Keefe referred to a recent undercover video operation that indicated Pfizer intends to purposely mutate the COVID-19 virus, noting that the “global phenomenon” is the “only thing that has changed” for the organization in the recent past.
“And then suddenly, an unusual emergency happened just a few days after that,” he said, suggesting that the report was somehow a factor in his removal from the board.
WATCH! Steve Bannon goes Nuclear on Project Veritas Board of Directors: All of them, none of them, Tyrmand, the whole crowd. Zero, Dead to us. Never come back ever ever ever. It’s unconscionable what happened here. James O’Keefe is a National Treasure!
— Matt Couch (@RealMattCouch) February 21, 2023
“None of this makes any sense,” he declared. “And why is it all happening right now? Those are the questions I have. I don’t have answers.”
Despite the current confusion, O’Keefe vowed to continue working toward the same goal he had upon establishing Project Veritas.
“So, our mission continues on,” he concluded. “I’m not done. The mission will perhaps take on a new name, and it may be no longer called Project Veritas. I’ll need a bunch of people around me, and I’ll make sure you know how to find me.”
