By now, you have likely heard of James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas organization. Over the years they’ve tried to engineer one sting after another, targeting Democrats and news outlets in an attempt to discredit and annihilate them. Here’s a brief rundown of their work in recent years:
In 2010, he tried to pull off a bizarre sting with sex props meant to embarrass (or worse) a CNN correspondent.
A conservative activist known for making undercover videos plotted to embarrass a CNN correspondent by recording a meeting on hidden cameras aboard a floating "palace of pleasure" and making sexually suggestive comments, e-mails and a planning document show.
Also in 2010, he and his crew attempted to illegally wiretap the phone system of a United States senator, for which he was eventually convicted of misdemeanor tampering, getting a plea deal to avoid felony charges.
Federal officials charged four men on Tuesday with plotting to tamper with the telephone system in the New Orleans office of Senator Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana. One of the men was a conservative activist who gained fame last year by secretly recording members of the community group Acorn giving him advice on how to set up a brothel.
In 2013, he was forced to pay a huge settlement for violating state law with secret recordings:
In 2013, after receiving immunity from criminal prosecution from the California Attorney General, he paid $100,000 to settle a civil suit after one of the people he filmed claimed he violated a state law against secret recordings of an individual’s voice and image.
In 2016, he tried to “bust” Hillary Clinton’s campaign by recording a Canadian citizen attempting to purchase a Hillary Clinton swag at a campaign event. It flopped, but they were attempting to gain a national headline that Clinton had illegally accepted foreign donations.
In O’Keefe’s latest video, an unnamed Canadian from Montreal asks if she may purchase some merchandise from the campaign at the June event where Clinton announced she was running for president.
Molly Barker, the campaign’s marketing director, immediately says that since the woman is Canadian, they can’t take her money.
In 2016, they tried to gain a foothold in favorite conservative boogeyman George Soros’s foundation, but the plan went afoul when the goofballs accidentally forget to hang up on a voicemail and recorded themselves discussing the plot.
The list of failed stings goes on and on, culminating with yesterday’s Washington Post story about how O'Keefe and Project Veritas sent a woman to the Washington Post with claims she was assaulted by Roy Moore. Will Sommer, campaign editor at The Hill, has a good rundown of the complete list of attempts to set-up, sting or otherwise embarrass elected officials and news outlets. This is a full-time operation, with several staffers working on these attempts to frame officials, so who’s behind it? Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beast tweeted the 2016 tax filings of Project Veritas and it shows someone is paying O’Keefe and his crew a lot of money. The organization claimed $738,210 in 2012 and that figure skyrocketed to $12,919,534 in 2016. Someone is banking big on O’Keefe, who personally hauled in more than $317,000 in salary from Project Veritas last year.
The timing of this latest failed sting is curious though. Take a look at the timeline:
When Aaron Davis of the Washington Post went to the offices of Project Veritas to interview James O’Keefe, they were initially rebuffed as O’Keefe and crew sprinted away from the Washington Post reporter, claiming they were late for very important meeting. Banks was told to schedule an appointment and O’Keefe would answer his questions. Davis made the appointment and returned to Project Veritas, but instead of answering questions, O’Keefe brought along his own cameraman and microphone in a feeble attempt to turn the tables. Davis had several simple questions that O’Keefe refused to answer and frankly, his silence spoke volumes, particularly about who had hired Project Veritas to attempt to smear the Washington Post and discredit the numerous women who’ve come forward to accuse Roy Moore of predatory sexual behavior when they were teens. Watch this exchange as Aaron Davis asks who hired Project Veritas? The campaign of Roy Moore? Steve Bannon? The Republican party? Who?
So, exactly who is funding this organization? It’s hard to say because they have gone through great lengths to hide the funding, creating a network of dark money:
According to tax records obtained by PRWatch.org, an investigative watchdog group run by the Center for Media and Democracy, in recent years hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to Project Veritas have come through a fund in Alexandria, Virginia, called Donors Trust, which specializes in hiding the money trails of conservative philanthropists. In its promotional materials, Donors Trust says that it will “keep your charitable giving private, especially gifts funding sensitive or controversial issues.” The records obtained by PRWatch.org also show that one donor, a conservative political activist in Wisconsin, contributed fifty thousand dollars just before Project Veritas undertook a sting of one of his political enemies—a state senator.
We do know one of O’Keefe’s benefactors: Donald Trump, who’s foundation donated $10,000 to Project Veritas only one month before he launched his presidential bid.