In August 2022, James O’Keefe needed to get to Maine for a sailing trip. Rather than take a commercial flight for roughly $200, the conservative undercover-video activist directed his employees to book a $12,000 helicopter flight direct from New York to the seaside town of Southwest Harbor, using funds donated to Project Veritas, the nonprofit he founded, according to a draft of a private internal audit conducted by an independent law firm.
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There was $208,980 worth of luxury black-car travel over a two-year period. There was a $600 haul of bottled water during one hotel stay in San Antonio. There was even a $2,500 set of DJ equipment; O’Keefe dreamed of playing a set at Coachella, according to two former employees, and was irritated when his staff couldn’t get him booked at the legendary California music festival.
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But the group laid off 25 of its 40 staff members last month, Project Veritas acknowledges. In an Aug. 18 meeting, board chairman Joe Barton told staffers he was concerned that the audit, if made public, could trigger an IRS investigation or even a forced shutdown, according to a recording of the meeting that was shared with The Post.
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In February, conservative undercover-video activist James O’Keefe left the nonprofit he founded, Project Veritas, amid a dispute with his board over his spending and treatment of employees.
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The board investigated allegations that O’Keefe screamed at his subordinates during meetings and used employees for personal errands, such as cleaning his boat, among other claims.
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Even after O’Keefe was put on leave, Project Veritas claims in the lawsuit, O’Keefe used one of the organization’s credit cards to spend about $19,000 on his personal expenses.
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The internal dissension comes as Project Veritas faces a number of threats, including an FBI investigation and an ex-employee’s lawsuit alleging O’Keefe oversaw a raucous, sexually charged workplace complete with at least one drug overdose. Project Veritas has denied breaking any laws in the FBI investigation, and is fighting the lawsuit. In December, the group laid off several staffers.
The memo, which was obtained by The Daily Beast, covers its founder’s demanding and allegedly abusive treatment of his staff, even laying out concerns that Project Veritas will soon collapse entirely as donors and employees flee.
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The memo details a series of bizarre incidents. In one, during a Sept. 2022 trial against a Democratic consulting firm that O’Keefe later lost, an employee complained that O’Keefe berated them in front of jurors because he needed something to eat. Ultimately, the employee alleged, O’Keefe took a sandwich from a heavily pregnant woman to sate his hunger.
“I was yelled at in front of jurors because he was hungry and then he took the 8-month pregnant woman’s sandwich,” the account reads.
In another apparent reference to O’Keefe, a staffer complains about employees at Project Veritas getting spat upon.
“Rule #1: You can’t spit in an employee's face over a tweet,” the message reads. “True story.”
The memo’s authors describe O’Keefe as a paranoiac so fearful of leakers within his organization that he set up at least one “mole hunt” complete with private investigators and a lie detector test.
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But he is not deterred from being his usual charming self...yet.
At an August 29 meeting of the Roselle Park Board of Education, Roselle Park Mayor and Democratic congressional candidate Joe Signorello was confronted by James O’Keefe, a far-right activist who founded the “guerrilla journalist” organization Project Veritas.
On Sunday, O’Keefe – a Bergen County resident who became notorious for his selectively edited, sometimes-illegal hidden camera recordings of liberal politicians and organizations – posted a heavily edited video of his interactions with Signorello to social media, where it has gotten several million views. It was the second time this summer that O’Keefe targeted a New Jersey school board, following an incident at the Livingston Board of Education earlier in August.
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