
Project Veritas, the controversial right-wing undercover-sting group founded by James O’Keefe in his father’s carriage house in 2010, ousted O’Keefe on Monday, O’Keefe and the nonprofit’s board said in separate statements. O’Keefe’s departure follows an internal power struggle that started spilling into the open when the board suspended him with pay earlier in February.
O’Keefe said Monday in a 45-minute video addressed to staff that the board had “indefinitely suspended” him and refused his ultimatum that they resign. “So currently I have no job at Project Veritas,” he added. “I’m packing up my personal belongings.” The board then issued a statement saying “we did not fire him, nor do we want him to resign,” but rather wanted to “continue conversations with James to resolve internal matters rather than litigate them publicly.”
In the same statement, though, the board said its preliminary review of O’Keefe’s leadership had uncovered “financial malfeasance,” including O’Keefe spending “an excessive amount of donor funds in the last three years on personal luxuries.”