The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Exit, stage right for O’Keefe
Before firing himself as the mastermind of Project Veritas last week, James O’Keefe was put on leave and decided to chill in the Santa Monica “wilderness” with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. We’ve since learned that he calls his bro “Kennedy,” a name that was a synonym for “Democrat” back in that other century.
I’m trying to imagine the awkward hilltop summit that would result if I ran into these two along the trail. It’s some 2,900 miles away, yet all roads in America seem to lead to Greenwich.
In Kennedy’s case, we bumped heads over my refusal to publish an op-ed he wrote suggesting several other people he liked better as murder suspects instead of his cousin, Michael Skakel. Pardon me, but I have this thing about accusing strangers of murder. It was always a civil exchange, until RFK decided to leverage his social connections to tattletale to someone with the last name “Hearst.”
O’Keefe had already objected to other content on our pages a few years before he accepted Leora Levy’s invitation to step to the mic at the end of a news conference about the Veritas bombshell in August. The story used hidden cameras to expose a Cos Cob School assistant principal boasting about his biased hiring practices. He didn’t have sole hiring powers, but that detail required further reporting.
The “gotcha” worked because no one could argue with the educator’s shameful words. O’Keefe’s other stunts reliably leaned on actors to try to entrap people, using hidden cameras and editing footage in a manner that may meet his own code, but falls short of ethics as defined by the Society of Professional Journalists.
If O’Keefe has been on a mission to discredit the traditional media, he largely succeeded with the simple act of deeming himself a journalist, albeit one mostly influenced by Allen (“Candid Camera”) Funt.
“Here’s one thing journalists
don’t do, James,” I probably couldn’t resist blurting out in the California sunshine. “They don’t get called to the stage by candidates at news conferences. They don’t take bows.”
The “Project Veritas Ethical Values” charter ends with one nicked from another fictional journalist, Peter Parker: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
O’Keefe and Kennedy aren’t the only Connecticutions here. Further up on the virtual trail is none other than Candace Owens. About seven years ago, during her fledgling days as a Republican provocateur, we published an op-ed in her hometown paper, The Stamford Advocate, about a website she was launching to shame users of online hate speech. After I wrote a column challenging the cybervigilante methods, she responded with poise. I subsequently ran more of Owens’ op-eds before she became a conservative brand.
Owens was among the first to express fury at Project Veritas’ Board of Directors for suspending O’Keefe. In their statement, they listed a few reasons they were investigating “the financial malfeasance that was discovered,” including “over $150,000 in Black Cars in the last 18 months.”
“I am a donor, and I do not care that James O’Keefe takes black cars,” Owens tweeted. “This is all so laughable. #ProjectVeritas is done.”
Other donors, though, might care about how O’Keefe was spending the money. The board cites other examples, including $14,000 for a charter flight to meet someone to fix his boat.
A lot of those donors are also on this virtual
hiking loop. O’Keefe may have needed cars to pass the collection basket around the country, but Connecticut was a reliable ATM.
Back in spring of 2020, he was slated to be the headliner at the Stamford GOP’s annual Lincoln dinner. Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo was on the undercard, but said at the time that he knew little about O’Keefe, who already had a decade-long trail of controversies. Among them was a 2017 effort to trick the Washington Post into publishing a fabricated tale of a woman impregnated as a teen by a candidate. The Post tracked the woman to her home in North Stamford and followed her to the Veritas offices in Mamaroneck, N.Y. Fake news leaves its own trail.
COVID cancelled the Lincoln dinner, but O’Keefe would return to the Gold Coast. The recent lovefest began on Valentine’s Day 2022, when the Greenwich Patriots announced, “We have a special Valentine’s Day surprise for you, Patriots! We are pleased to announce that James O’Keefe from Project Veritas is coming to Greenwich!”
The Patriots summoned equal enthusiasm to add the selling point “And of course there’s the Ashley Biden diary story that led to an FBI raid on James at his home!” Yay for stolen diaries.
That group planned to hold the event at the Arch Street Teen Center in Greenwich before wiser heads prevailed and it was moved to the nearby Delamar Hotel. The Greenwich Patriots’ invitation to O’Keefe’s next local appearance, the August news conference about the Cos Cob School scandal, ended with the P.S.: “For those of you asking how you can help support James’ work, here is the link …”
In the days to come, a photo of Cos Cob School was used to promote O’Keefe’s 9/11 appearance at Hyatt Regency Greenwich “to support Project Veritas’ nonprofit journalism.” It was billed as free … with a suggested donation of $125.
Can you follow the money along that trail of Wonder Bread crumbs? It led to a reported $22 million in contributions in 2020, with O’Keefe earning a salary of about $400,000 (according to tax records published by ProPublica).
But now Project Veritas has a bigger problem than O’Keefe’s proclivity for black cars (maybe Uber once in a while?). The board has accused him of spending company funds in a way that puts their tax-exempt status in jeopardy. That wouldn’t just be costly for them, but for all the supporters who claim their donations as tax deductions.
The board announcement on the site is surreal, especially in suggesting they were willing to welcome O’Keefe back. But then, the theater buff (who starred in a Virginia production of “Oklahoma” in 2021) topped their drama by firing himself. Then he filmed himself addressing the staff on Presidents Day, guzzling water like Rafael Nadal during a French Open tiebreaker and sobbing in a decidedly un-MAGAesque fashion while quoting Ayn Rand. The master of stealth recordings kept reviving a refrain that the message was being recorded for internal use, only to see it posted within hours. It all has the feel of performance art.
The next move may be up to the Project Veritas board. And just to circle back to the beginning of this hike, the board’s longtime members include one George Skakel. Yes, another Skakel/ Kennedy relative.
O’Keefe can likely forge a new path and rebrand (Project Martyr?), but will likely leave some old money behind. Whatever that next act is, he’s sure to deliver more melodrama posing as drama, more fiction presented as fact. As for “journalism,” I suggest James O Keefe exit, stage right.