Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash: An American Troll, James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Is “Like Animal House” on Steroids

Project Veritas performers. (Gage Skidmore)

August 18, 2022

By Bill Berkowitz

James O’Keefe is the founder of Project Veritas, a self-described “guerilla journalist,” the author of the book American Muckraker, and as The Rolling Stone’s Laura Jedeed characterized him, “an artful troll.” For more than a decade, Project Veritas, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, has gotten headlines for staging undercover sting operations targeting media organizations and progressive groups. O’Keefe’s Project Veritas is well known for using deceptive tactics, including doctored videos. Over the past few months Project Veritas has been stung by a lawsuit alleging porn, sexual discrimination and sexual harassment at the PV workplace, and has had a nearly $150,000 fine levied against it by a U.S. District Court Judge.

"In 2010, O'Keefe was sentenced to three years of probation, 100 hours of community service, and a $1,500 fine after taking a plea bargain following a botched sting attempt at the office of then-Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA),” Think Progress reported. “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 in his targeting of the now-defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) claimed he violated a state law against secret recordings of an individual's voice and image."

In March 2020, PR Watch reported that “Erik Prince, the former head of private mercenary firm Blackwater Worldwide, recruited ex-spies to work with … Project Veritas to infiltrate liberal groups…. [Prince] also gave Project Veritas staff access to his Wyoming ranch, where they took ‘surveillance and elicitation training" from a former British MI-6 officer, as The Intercept reported in May 2019.”

“The gawky teenager whose early videos include him pretending to marry his male friend for the luiz [to be a warrior] (and the benefits) and convincing college students to become pen pals with accused terrorists in Guantanamo Bay has, through relentless effort, transformed himself into the mastermind of a political powerhouse whose videos receive hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube and serious airtime on right-wing news outlets,” The Rolling Stone’s Laura Jedeed reported from the book-launch party at the Glimmer ballroom at the La Fontainebleau hotel in Miami in February (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/project-veritas-james-okeefe-american-muckraker-1292654/).

In early August, The Hill’s Brad Dress reported on internecine strife within the organization, as Project Veritas employees “filed two lawsuits … alleging illegal business practices and accusing leaders of fostering a ‘sexually hostile work environment.’”

Dress reported (https://thehill.com/media/3592886-lawsuits-allege-sexually-hostile-culture-underpayment-at-project-veritas/): “The class action lawsuit filed by Antonietta Zappier, Nick Gioia and Dan Schuy in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York alleges Project Veritas failed to pay them a minimum wage for hours they worked overtime, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.”

Zappier, an administrative assistant at PV, “additionally says she was fired … after she was sexually assaulted and harassed by Michael Spadone, a field director for the group, according to another lawsuit she filed in the same courthouse.”

MediaITE reported that the legal filing adds that the suit aims “to remedy the fact that she was terminated by PV and Spadone because she rejected Spadone’s entreaties to spend the weekend with him at his home for a sexual liaison.” In the lawsuit Zappier alleges “that her duties for Project Veritas extended to a particularly debauched boat party for Young Republicans. After buying hundreds of dollars worth of alcohol for the party, Zappier alleges, she was left frantically purchasing cleaning supplies when attendees ‘defecated on the floor,’” The Daily Beast reported.

The suit details Zappier’s time working closely with O’Keefe, and alleges “O’Keefe gave instructions to flag private messages on his social media account from attractive women so he could respond to them personally; that he wanted young, attractive female operatives he referred to as ‘pretty young things’ or ‘PYTs’ to be hired to go on undercover dates; and that he mandated that the group’s operatives review copies of the book and movie ‘Red Sparrow,’ about a Russian intelligence agent trained in ‘sexpionage.’”

The Daily Kos’ Walter Einenkel recently reported (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/11/2115911/-Judge-hits-Project-Veritas-with-150-000-bill-after-it-tries-to-kill-free-speech) that “In May, U.S. District Judge Thomas S. Zilly ruled that Project Veritas’ claims that Stanford University’s school blog, reporting on how debunked every aspect of Veritas’ election fraud claims were, did not amount to defamation. In fact, they were easily provable facts and valid opinions concerning Project Veritas’ attempts to misinform the public about election fraud claims.

“On August 4, U.S. District Judge Thomas S. Zilly finalized the ruling in the only way groups like Project Veritas would understand. Judge Zilly ruled that Project Veritas is on the hook for $149,596.90, to be exact. This is the money that Project Veritas owes to pay off Stanford University’s legal fees. It is an important part of this process because the frivolous nature of the lawsuit is very specifically how shadowy-backed groups like Project Veritas try and stop free speech. In his ruling , Judge Zilly pointed out that Stanford’s accounting of what this ridiculous lawsuit cost them was clearly very fair.

The Rolling Stone’s Jedeed wrote that “The book jacket of American Muckraker describes the work as a “seminal work of nonfiction [that] recounts the journalistic mass movement of today,” and it somehow manages to get more self-serious from there. The 264-page tome seeks to mythologize its author, not simply as a muckraking journalist in the style of Upton Sinclair or Nellie Bly, but as a modern-day hero who has suffered deeply for his commitment to the craft.”

O’Keefe’s broke onto the scene in 2009, when it staged a sting at ACORN that resulted in destroying the organization. Jedeed wrote: “As he had in previous, less-famous videos, O’Keefe and his compatriot [Hannah Giles] adopted a ridiculous persona: a prostitute and her pimp boyfriend seeking tax advice and housing assistance. Unlike previous videos, O’Keefe chose a politically relevant target: ACORN, the nation’s largest aid organization for low-and moderate-income people. The duo targeted six ACORN locations across the country. Rather than call the police or tell them to leave, the low-level employees they spoke to attempted to help disguise Giles’ income to avoid paying taxes. When Giles began talking about using housing assistance to create a brothel for undocumented underage Salvadorian girls, the employees appeared to be on board with this, too.”

As a result, Congress froze ACORN funds, the census cut off all funds, and the organization disbanded. 

Over the years Project Veritas has experiences highs and lows. Despite the defeats, the money keeps flowing in; In 2020 Project Veritas pulled in more than $22 million in donations. Project Veritas also has a 501(c)(4) political arm called the Project Veritas Action Fund,

As long as billionaires keep funding it, it maintains its strong following on YouTube, and the right wing media universe keeps expanding, James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas will continue its toxic trolling.