The Effort to Silence James O'Keefe
The Board of Directors of Project Veritas is set to commit corporate seppuku by firing the organization's Founder and CEO. Is it too late to save Project Veritas?
UPDATE No. 4: My latest Substack article covers the timeline of events from start to finish:
UPDATE No. 3: According to Jack Posobiec the Project Veritas board has sidelined and silenced James for at least two weeks as they decide what to do. Reportedly, Steve Wynn contacted the board to express his support for O’Keefe.
UPDATE No. 2: Mike Swartz Tweeted a cease and desist letter from a law firm representing Project Veritas donors objecting to the removal of James O’Keefe. The donors argue that the removal of O’Keefe would violate Virginia law—a novel argument to say the least.
UPDATE No. 1: Since writing this story I have heard from more than one former Project Veritas employee that they were angry that James O’Keefe got all of the credit and praise for their hard work. They claim that James never had any ideas and they had to do all of the work while O’Keefe was lounging on his sailboat. According to the disgruntled former employees, James would come in at the last minute to yell at everyone and leave immediately after filming his segments. I find this hard to believe but if you have any additional insight or information please DM me on Twitter: @amuse.
There is an effort underway at Project Veritas to oust the company’s founder and frontman James O'Keefe. Reportedly the board of directors voted to put O’Keefe on paid administrative leave ahead of the February 10th board meeting where they plan to fire him for cause—if they do Project Veritas will be dead.
There is little doubt that the brash young executive may be in over his head running a $25M nonprofit news organization but the answer isn’t to oust him—the answer is to surround him with executives and directors who can help him pursue the company’s mission. Any director, executive, or employee who is unwilling to support O’Keefe should simply resign—killing the company is NOT the answer.
Over the past decade, O’Keefe has grown the nonprofit’s revenue by more than 200% and exposed malfeasance by organizations ranging from Acorn to Planned Parenthood to Pfizer—an impressive feat for a Philosophy major from Rutgers.
YEAR REVENUE
2020 $22,034,786
2019 $12,151,496
2018 $ 8,860,335
2017 $ 8,029,634
2016 $ 4,857,637
2015 $ 3,705,349
2014 $ 2,416,542
2013 $ 1,201,646
2012 $ 738,210
Despite his impressive track record, forces within the company decided they would be better off without O’Keefe at the helm. Instead of helping O’Keefe develop his management and corporate governance skills a small group of executives and directors rallied support among disgruntled employees in an effort to remove him.
Reportedly, the effort to oust O’Keefe began in earnest four months ago when Barry Hinkley (he/him) was hired as Chief Strategy Officer.1 Heir to the Hinckley Yacht family Barry ran a failed Senate candidate from Rhode Island and was CEO of a failed tech startup that called itself the Airbnb of private house parties. Things came to a head when O’Keefe reportedly fired Hinkley. In response, Hinckley wrote an email to all 65 Project Veritas employees claiming that he had “stood up to a bully” and lost his job as a result. Next, he convinced eleven sixteen other employees to sign a letter declaring among other things that O’Keefe was a “power-drunk tyrant” which was sent to the company’s board of directors in an effort to oust him (importantly most people who signed the letter had never witnessed the behavior outlines in the letter).2
According to various employees, Barry Hinckley (CSO)3, Matthew Tyrmand (BoD)4, Tom O’Hara (CFO), and Daniel Strack (Executive Director)5 were the so-called ringleaders of the effort to remove O’Keefe from the company. Allegedly they have claimed O’Keefe misappropriated company funds, incurred outlandish expenses, and violated the company’s various HR policies. The ringleaders organized an ‘intervention’ where the board spent hours confronting O’Keefe bringing in multiple employees to share their grievances with the board. The overarching argument made to the board was that Project Veritas will soon collapse entirely as donors and employees flee if O'Keefe is not removed—of course if James IS removed donors and employees will ALSO flee. By the end of the meeting, the board voted to put O’Keefe on paid administrative leave pending a board meeting on February 10th (tomorrow).6
Public filings only show that Project Veritas only has three directors: John K Garvey, Colin Sharkey, and Matthew Tyrmand7 but presumably O’Keefe and others are ALSO on the board of directors. In fact, according to Mike Swartz's source, the current board consists of Matt Tyrmand, John Garvey, George Skakel, Joseph Barton, Steve Alembik, Tom O’Hara, and Barry Hinckley.
Unlike most companies and nonprofits, James O’Keefe is Project Veritas—without him, it is almost certain that the company will no longer exist. Nonprofit board members owe their organizations duties of care, loyalty, and obedience—they are legally obligated to put the organization’s interest above their own personal or professional interests—removing O’Keefe would constitute a breach of their fiduciary duties. If anyone on the board does not think they can work with O’Keefe they should simply resign. If any employee does not want to work with O’Keefe they too should resign. If there are concerns about misappropriation or other infractions the board should simply work with O’Keefe to cure the issues and put in controls to prevent similar occurrences in the future. Firing O’Keefe would be tantamount to cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Unfortunately, Project Veritas’ Executive Director, Daniel Strack, who joined the company last year believes that the company can easily continue without O’Keefe as he explained:
There are 65+ employees at Project Veritas dedicated to continuing the mission to expose corruption, dishonesty, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions. To our supporters: We hear you, we care about you, and we will never give up. ~Daniel Strack, Executive Director Project Veritas
Strack touts8 the fact that seven years ago he was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in his LinkedIn headline—a role he was ousted from in less than three years—an ouster so shocking it earned an article in a banking trade magazine.9 Strack is likely convinced that no one is irreplaceable—he is very wrong. Ironically, Strack is the day-to-day manager of the company allowing O'Keefe to focus on being the organization's public face and onscreen talent.10 It is the day-to-day issues that the company is struggling with and not O'Keefe's public persona. It is literally Strack's job to handle 'distractions' including lawsuits and employee morale—jobs he seems to have failed to handle. If the board of directors is worried about the health of the company it ought to work with Strack to better support O'Keefe and the needs of the organization or they should replace him. Additionally, the board ought to consider paying O'Keefe more. According to legal filings, James is paid less than $400,000 a year despite bringing in more than $20,000,000 in revenue—a typical salesman bringing in that sort of revenue would be making north of a million dollars a year. I suspect that would resolve whatever issues they have with his expenses.
So what EXACTLY is O’Keefe ‘charged’ with? According to the Daily Beast11, his crimes include:
Improperly used PV funds to cover travel expenses for employees to watch him perform the lead role in a production of the musical Oklahoma!
Improperly used PV funds to produce a video of himself dancing while wearing a bulletproof vest
Calling Spencer Meads a pussy after the FBI raided his home
Required a staffer to take a polygraph as part of a leak investigation
Stealing an 8-month pregnant woman’s sandwich
Creating a hostile workplace that was raucous, sexually charged, and featured one drug overdose
Instead of working to find a replacement for Strack, the board rehired the two individuals working overtime to oust James O’Keefe—Barry Hinckley (CSO) and Tom O’Hara (CFO) and announced they would be implementing a “final solution” this Friday. According to New York Magazine, there is a core group of employees including R.C. Maxwell that remain loyal to O’Keefe.12 I predict that if Matthew Tyrmand and the rest of the board remove James it will be the beginning of the end of Project Veritas—but I have no doubt O'Keefe will land on his feet reaching new heights in his career and mission.
If O'Keefe is out - what will happen to Retracto?