5 things to know about James O'Keefe's departure from Project Veritas
1. O'Keefe's version of events
O'Keefe announced his resignation Monday, delivering a 45-minute video message to his employees.
"I have been stripped of my authority as CEO and removed from the Board of Directors," O'Keefe said. "I don't know why this is happening or specifically why this is happening suddenly, right now."
Maintaining that "nothing about how I have conducted myself over the past 13 years has really fundamentally changed," he suggested, "the only thing that has changed is that we broke the biggest story in our organization's history." He was referring to video footage released by Project Veritas in the last week of January showing the Pfizer executive talking about how the pharmaceutical company was considering mutating the coronavirus.
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O'Keefe recalled that on Feb. 2, shortly after the Pfizer story broke, he was "informed by an officer of Project Veritas on the phone while en route to the airport that he would resign unless I stepped down as CEO."
O'Keefe attributed the demand for his resignation to a "conflict of visions" over fundraising, specifically "tactical disagreements about the boldness of approaches soliciting donations."
"I was told, and I'm paraphrasing, 'by asking for x dollars right now, you will prevent 10x dollars down the road,'" he added. O'Keefe characterized that advice as "contrary to everything I knew to be true in my 13 years of fundraising," adding, "we don't measure our success in terms of how much money we make; we measure our success in terms of our impact."
The phone call followed O'Keefe's termination of the unnamed official after their conflict carried over into a leadership meeting. Another board member informed O'Keefe of his intention to restructure the company in a way that would result in his removal as CEO. O'Keefe convinced the board to postpone their meeting to Monday, Feb. 6.
At the meeting, O'Keefe "offered an apology letter" to the board for his behavior at the previous meeting. He reported that the board declined to accept the letter and "did not support" him sending it to the Project Veritas staff.
O'Keefe outlined how he was subjected to a "6.5-hour listing of grievances." He dismissed some grievances as "truly bizarre," specifically referring to a claim that he "stole a pregnant woman's sandwich in federal court." At the meeting, the board voted to strip O'Keefe of his authority as CEO for 180 days, placing him on two weeks of paid leave and restricting his ability to talk to donors.
On Feb. 16, O'Keefe asked board members to resign by the end of the week because of the "emotional circus" caused by their actions. He informed them that if they did not do so, he would "be forced to walk away." When the board declined to resign, he determined he had "no job at Project Veritas." In light of this development, O'Keefe announced that he was leaving Project Veritas "intending to start anew."
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
