Ousted Project Veritas Founder James O'Keefe To Keynote Chelan County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner
The far-right activist was fired in 2023 by the non-profit he founded for using donor funds on personal luxuries and now charges between $20,000 and $30,000 for speaking engagements
Controversial far-right activist and self-styled “Guerilla journalist” James O’Keefe will be the keynote speaker at the Chelan County GOP’s Lincoln Day Dinner on Sept. 21 at the Wenatchee Convention Center.
O’Keefe is best known for founding Project Vertias, a group that uses deceptively edited videos and surreptitious information-gathering techniques to attack mainstream media organizations and progressive groups.
“Project Veritas operates under the guise of citizen journalism, but serves a conservative political agenda without adhering to basic journalistic ethics,” the American Federation of Teachers wrote.
Marty Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, said O’Keefe isn’t a journalist at all.
“What O'Keefe does isn't journalism. It's agitpop, politi-punking, entrapment-entertainment. There is no responsible definition of journalism that includes what he does or how he does it,” Kaplan said. “His success at luring his prey into harming themselves is a measure of how fallible and foolish anyone, including good people, can sometimes be.”
In 2010 O’Keefe founded Project Veritas as a non-profit organization and served as its chairman until Feb. 2023, when the board of directors fired him over allegations that he mistreated workers and misspent “an excessive amount of donor funds” on personal luxuries, according to the AP.
According to IRS filings from 2022, the year before O’Keefe’s ouster, the non-profit brought in more than $20 million in revenue. According to the board, O’Keefe’s lavish spending included $14,000 on a charter flight to meet someone to fix his boat under the guise of meeting with a donor; more than $150,000 on private car services over an 18-month span; and expensive stays in luxury hotel suites while other employees were forced to stay in budget accommodations.
During his time at Veritas, O’Keefe was embroiled in several high-profile hidden camera stunts aimed at bringing down members of the mainstream media and progressive groups.
According to Rolling Stone Magazine in 2010: “O’Keefe allegedly attempted to lure a female CNN reporter onto a boat festooned with sex toys, pornographic posters, a ceiling mirror, and hidden cameras. The plan, according to emails between collaborators, was for O’Keefe to mock-seduce her.”