Project Veritas, the watchdog group that has broken several major stories in the last decade with its use of undercover journalists and sting operations, has reportedly fired more than 20 staffers this week as the organization struggles to stay afloat in the wake of their high-profile separation from founder James O’Keefe earlier this year.
A post on X yesterday from the organization’s official account stated, “SOS Hannah Giles just fired us all.” The post was quickly removed, but several sources, including The Post Millennial, Jack Posobiec of Human Events, and Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, have confirmed that the organization has fired virtually all of their production team, field operators, and communications staff, leaving only an office administrator, a human resources person, and a few IT personnel.
Giles was named CEO of the organization in June, replacing O’Keefe. She was notable in that she worked with O’Keefe on one of his earliest stories, the 2009 takedown of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known more commonly as ACORN. O’Keefe played a pimp and Giles portrayed a prostitute while ACORN employees coached them on how to run an illegal business. ACORN was disbanded in 2010, largely because of O’Keefe’s videos.
Project Veritas CFO Tom O’Hara resigned in the immediate wake of the firings, sending the employees a message: “I tried and failed, I apologize to all of you. I have resigned as CFO effective immediately.”
O’Hara has reportedly been replaced by George Skakel.
Reportedly, since O’Keefe’s split from Project Veritas, the nonprofit organization has encountered serious trouble with fundraising.
“Since James quit,” an unnamed source told The Post Millennial, “the donations dried up…the donations never resumed. The board were desperate to bring Hannah on board because they thought it would be cute but the problem is she’s a charlatan and a fraud. Everything she’s ever done has been a failure and she lied to everyone claiming she had all these donors she could bring in.”
After the separation, which O’Keefe and others referred to as a “firing,” O’Keefe began OMG Media, a for-profit company that does the same type of journalism that made O’Keefe famous with Project Veritas.
In late May, Project Veritas sued O’Keefe, claiming that he ran “amok” and put his own personal interests ahead of the organization that he founded. The Project Veritas Board of Directors claimed that he “routinely behaved unprofessionally during team meetings, including by screaming at coworkers and belittling them and their contributions to Project Veritas.”
The lawsuit sought an injunction to keep O’Keefe from contacting or soliciting donations from Project Veritas’ “donors, employees or contractors.”
Aside from the brief post on X, which was quickly deleted, Project Veritas has not yet commented publicly on the situation.
Meanwhile, it’s being reported that O’Keefe is now under investigation by the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office in New York. The far-left news source The Nation claims that the Westchester DA is looking into “alleged financial improprieties during his tenure as [Project Veritas’] chairman and CEO.”
It remains to be seen if the seeming chaos now occurring at Project Veritas is part of some grand restructuring of the organization or the beginning of an all-out collapse. Either way, it’s disheartening to see an organization that’s done so much good in getting truth out to American citizens in such straits.
