James O'Keefe's Remarks to Project Veritas Staff: "I've been removed from CEO and Board

45-minute farewell speech James O'Keefe delivered to Project Veritas staff.Show more

Transcript:

00:00:00:12 - 00:00:20:22
James O'Keefe
All right. Thank you all for being here on a Presidents Day. But I think it's fitting that, you know, we're here on Presidents Day, so I wrote these so I could get the words right, you know, But it's obviously from the heart. And and I wanted to do this in person with you all. Not over Zoom or teams.

00:00:20:22 - 00:00:35:19
James O'Keefe
And, you know, he's going to film it. And and this is these are intended just for the family here at Project Veritas. You know, this is just for us. I recognized it when you send something out to 60 people, but I'm not going to do that today. So, you know, so I just want to tell you the truth.

00:00:35:19 - 00:01:00:12
James O'Keefe
So I'm going to read this and I'm going to try my best to, you know, speak from the heart. But I did write these words and I want to tell you what's going on. So here we go. It's going to take about 15 minutes to do this. Journalism is reporting things powerful people want kept hidden for the wrong reasons moral wrongs, bad behaviors, as journalists were the custodians of the public's conscience.

00:01:01:02 - 00:01:27:04
James O'Keefe
And as we've gone deeper and deeper exposing and illuminating corruption, the lies hidden from public view, the line that separates good and evil becomes more clear, not just in the institutions we investigate, but within one another. Throughout my 13 years doing this, our mission has evolved from simply being about exposing the truth with some hidden cameras to something more transcendental, giving people hope.

00:01:27:09 - 00:01:49:19
James O'Keefe
Right? That's what we do. And I'm going to stand here because I just feel like I'm filming a video for the audience. And as we ascended into that higher purpose, which I think we all understand that we have, we have suffered through triumph and disaster along the way in a similar fashion to what I wrote about in my book.

00:01:50:00 - 00:02:22:22
James O'Keefe
You know, the first chapter was called Suffering. So the line that separates good and evil passes not through the states, nor classes, nor political parties, but right through every single human heart, to quote Solzhenitsyn. So that line in the sand becomes more clear the deeper we go in investigating these powerful institutions. So over the last over the last few weeks, I have felt a lot of despair and a lot of seeing a lot of evil and felt overcome with various emotions.

00:02:22:22 - 00:02:45:18
James O'Keefe
Over the last few weeks, you could say, I've seen glimpses of heaven and hell of darkness and light. But I take away from these is the gratitude that I have for many of you, for most of you. And there is such goodness in so many of you that I have seen, and I am grateful for that and the generosity and goodwill we have steadily built over the past 13 years.

00:02:45:18 - 00:03:14:20
James O'Keefe
With so many people. I've received thousands of text messages and phone calls from people all over the world concerned about my well-being. But as I was going through this process, I reflected upon my appreciation for many of you. What makes us great is that we do this work because we actually believe in it, right? We actually believe in this shocks people that we do, and we have a passion for it and we have principle like, I know, you know, we don't sell out.

00:03:15:03 - 00:03:38:09
James O'Keefe
I think that's fair. At least most of us. We have a passion for doing the right thing in a visual way, no matter what. That's what binds us. I know many of you who have experienced this despair alongside of me in the last couple weeks. One of you just told me the other day that you'd go work at Wal-Mart at the night shift so that you could do this during the day.

00:03:39:06 - 00:04:00:20
James O'Keefe
That's what one of you said to me. I believe you. Rather than sell out. In fact, I know this is true for many of you and many more out there who wish to be part of this. It's true. I remember back in the beginning, 13 years ago when I had like, no money, I would have to use bubblegum duct tape.

00:04:01:03 - 00:04:18:01
James O'Keefe
I think you were around during that time. I keep looking at you because I've known you since Andrew Breitbart and my grandmother's chinchilla. I literally had to place a Project Veritas sticker on a piece of cardboard that I ripped off from my dad's cardboard and stick it to a microphone on at RadioShack because I had no money to buy a flag.

00:04:18:01 - 00:04:38:11
James O'Keefe
Mike And this was after experiencing a meteoric high of the ACORN story. I was up and I was down and I was broke again and I was arrested and then crashed down to a meteoric low back in the carriage house, resorting once again to bubble gum and duct tape to achieve the NPR investigation that took us yet again to a meteoric high.

00:04:39:13 - 00:05:07:23
James O'Keefe
I was so broke that I had to scribble my name and phone numbers on pieces of paper because I had no business cards. And so the saga continues. Back then, there were no employees and no budget, but I felt the same sensation this week. I feel the sensation right now, as Steve Jobs once wrote about being fired from Apple, the company he founded, quote, The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner.

00:05:07:23 - 00:05:36:05
James O'Keefe
Again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. So back then I trudged on from the back of a stretch limo in DC to guys. I was on federal probation so I couldn't be there, but two of my volunteers, dressed like Muslim Brotherhood fundamentalists armed with hidden cameras, projected us as born again in 2011 for a second time, a couple of donors eventually became 100,000 donors.

00:05:36:05 - 00:06:07:05
James O'Keefe
Present day. 13 years later, after almost a decade and a half of 85 hour workweeks, sometimes traveling 300 days a year, I am on the road, packing multiple meetings in a day and plenty of blood, sweat and tears, the likes of which I could never have possibly fathomed. The external threats and pressure inflicted against myself and some of us has been unimaginable.

00:06:07:13 - 00:06:38:15
James O'Keefe
I'm going to summarize them. Handcuffed by the FBI on two separate occasions, 12 years apart, having my phones confiscated and private information leaked to the New York Times being placed on effective house arrest for three years between May of 2010 and May of 2013, being sued dozens of times being served. Two separate criminal grand jury subpoenas in New Hampshire in the last ten years getting pursued in a high speed chase by a New Jersey education union official on Interstate 80 in Passaic.

00:06:39:01 - 00:07:13:11
James O'Keefe
Deposed many times suffered through mediation with insurance companies where they had all of our emails and everything. But they evidently didn't have anything on me getting my home raided by the FBI, having my loved ones put in handcuffs in the hallway and having our office destroyed by a hurricane, literally a hurricane which forced us into a temporary workplace before rebuilding and stirred up disgruntled employees, including grievances about me, which I will get you in a minute.

00:07:14:12 - 00:07:40:10
James O'Keefe
The list goes on. Even so, as a former board member told me ten years ago, Project Veritas will never be stopped from the outside. It will only be because we stopped ourselves. Right. I'll get to that too, in a minute. Prophetic as it may be, that is exactly where we find ourselves in the situation today. A situation where I have been stripped of my authority as CEO and removed from the board of directors.

00:07:40:10 - 00:07:57:04
James O'Keefe
I bet you didn't know that. I'll get to that in a minute. Contrary to what public statements may say. And by the way, I have copies for this. I will not give them to you yet. I will give them to you after I'm done. And there are board minute meetings which you'll all get a copy of that read as follows.

00:07:57:04 - 00:08:28:09
James O'Keefe
Quote James O'Keefe indefinitely suspended as CEO without compensation February 10th. Yes. Quote, Indefinite suspension of James O'Keefe from the board dated February 10th, five days before the statement saying that I'm still the CEO. I don't know why this is happening now or specifically why this is happening suddenly right now. As you know, at the helm of Veritas, I've never allowed or entertained speculation.

00:08:28:09 - 00:08:46:20
James O'Keefe
I only report the facts. I think you know this your work, you're involved in hiring. But don't you know that so many people want to go beyond the facts? I'm adamant that I'm only going to stick to the facts so much so that sometimes we don't hire people if they want to pontificate and Alpine about what's going on in society.

00:08:47:19 - 00:09:19:02
James O'Keefe
And I've had people leave because they don't agree with this vision of what a journalist ought to do. But fortunately, I have recordings and documents to back up everything I'm about to tell you. So everything I'm about to tell you, I have documentation and proof so you don't have to say I wasn't there. You can listen to it and watch it for yourself.

00:09:19:02 - 00:09:53:01
James O'Keefe
So I'm about a quarter of the way through here. Bear with me. For the last 13 years, I've been the same person. I've always been probably better than I used to be. These are adjectives. Some people used a tough, hard charging, driven, creative, exacting. I have extremely high standards and somewhat disorganized. I don't ask you how your Thanksgiving lists or the names of your siblings, although a good leader probably should.

00:09:53:01 - 00:10:15:11
James O'Keefe
I don't do that. I ask a loud of you, a lot of you, but I don't ever ask you to do anything I haven't myself done and continue to do. I haven't always been the most compassionate leader, and that is admittedly a fault of mine, something I need to work on. But I remember when I was back in the carriage house in the beginning there was a journalist in the beginning and he pointed this out to me.

00:10:15:11 - 00:10:37:14
James O'Keefe
So, you know, to be more compassionate, to ask me about my life. And it hurt him that I wasn't more compassionate towards him personally. I told him it was difficult for me to change myself, but this experience stayed with me. And I always have known this about myself. I've tried to do a better job of that, but the truth is, I've been very hurried, hurried, very busy, pressed for time every day, trying to pack in so much in a day.

00:10:38:07 - 00:10:56:06
James O'Keefe
I think you all know this in meetings. I'm busy because I'm trying to get so much done in an hour, all the while moving at the speed of light to raise as much money to hire more people to take care of you guys in a fundamental way. Although I may not be good at communicating the reasons why I am that way, I'm doing as much as I humanly possibly can.

00:10:56:06 - 00:11:17:17
James O'Keefe
So I could build this place out and do more. And that's what we did every year, each year since 2010, growing every year, sometimes doubling our revenue, doubling our impact. I have a chart here, which again, I'm going to hand to you the chart of the growth every year. I have never slowed down. I recognize that perhaps I should.

00:11:17:17 - 00:11:39:07
James O'Keefe
But number one, there is a trade off to slowing down. And number two, I need the right leaders around me in order to do that. So along the way, there has been much turnover, replacing people with better people. This was painful to me and to many of you who witnessed it, but that has always been happening since day one.

00:11:40:06 - 00:12:02:08
James O'Keefe
There was turnover ten years ago when I had to fire a friend from college. Let's just maybe hold off on that until the end, so I'll make sure that everyone has a copy of this. And I don't intend to publish this. This is for you guys internally. But ten years ago I had a fire, a friend from Rutgers.

00:12:03:07 - 00:12:32:23
James O'Keefe
That hurt me. It took me months to get over this. I never discussed this. I felt for him, but it was the conflict that aided me. But I had to do it. So leadership has a price and results often come at a human cost, maybe fewer in this world. Present day are willing to pay that price. Many people want the fruits of leadership, such as its power results, Twitter followings, secondary effects.

00:12:32:23 - 00:13:04:08
James O'Keefe
But the price of the responsibilities burdens, trials, hardships, difficult decisions, or just sheer suffering. I don't think people want that. And all through the years, things fundamentally continued on an upward trajectory for this place, albeit turnover. And I'm a hard guy to work for. Sometimes we file our annual tax return. A public tax return is required by the IRS, and my compensation is set by an independent board of directors via a compensation committee four times a year.

00:13:04:08 - 00:13:31:18
James O'Keefe
Our Chief Financial Officer has submitted company financials to the board. That's every quarter, and our board approves it in quarterly meetings. All three members of the C three were present and we have subjected both the C three and C four to audits from outside independent accounting agencies each and every year. That happens. That has always been happening. Nothing about how I've conducted myself over the past 13 years has really fundamentally changed until now.

00:13:33:03 - 00:14:02:12
James O'Keefe
So what has changed in the last three weeks? What has changed? The only thing that has changed is that we broke the biggest story in our organization's history. You know that one I'm talking about Pfizer, the week, the last week of January, with 50 million views that like broke the record by like ten X, our video became a global phenomenon.

00:14:03:20 - 00:14:27:13
James O'Keefe
It was about Pfizer and one of the directors discussing mutating the virus, Our confrontation video where he locked me in a pizza restaurant with you and you and he smashed the equipment and called the police. That became a phenomenon and was riveting television for audiences glued to their screens. That was my probably my one of my favorite things that ever happened.

00:14:28:04 - 00:14:57:01
James O'Keefe
It was just really unbelievable. It was like, true, true to be false and seemingly too false to be true, but it was real. If someone else is here, you can let them in. Hello? Come on in. Just giving a few remarks to the team here. So you came at the right moment. So the only thing that change with these videos outlets in India and trying to cover the story and our social media exploded like never before are employees and board members.

00:14:57:01 - 00:15:21:05
James O'Keefe
Twitter accounts also exploded like never before. Pfizer even put out a non-denial denial. Like you always capture these things where they basically admitted they were mutating the virus, albeit they buried this admission in jargon, but it was still an admission. And it was extraordinary that Pfizer responded to us with an admission not denying that this guy was who he was.

00:15:21:05 - 00:15:51:08
James O'Keefe
What an amazing turn of events. That is the only thing that's changed in 13 years of me being who I am. And then suddenly an unusual emergency happened just a few days after that. I think we have one more person here. We could. Letterman So suddenly, an unusual and I'm going to take you through this. I'm going to take you through what happened.

00:15:52:18 - 00:16:23:08
James O'Keefe
Some of you don't know these things. Hello. We're talking about the story we broke an unusual emergency, happened on Thursday, February 2nd. As a few days after the Pfizer story, I 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. We've been having a conflict divisions, him and I, over fundraising, living in fund raising, I guess No one from fundraising.

00:16:23:08 - 00:16:56:16
James O'Keefe
Zero. There were 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 ten X dollars down the road. That advice ran contrary to everything I knew to be true in my 13 years of fundraising, But that conflict was even more fundamental and essentially boiled down to this In my vision, I'm going to paraphrase Howard Roark, the architect, quote, I don't have I don't build in order to have donors.

00:16:57:00 - 00:17:15:09
James O'Keefe
I have donors in order to build. That's what I believed. And I felt like we had a conflict divisions. We don't measure our success only in terms of how much money we bring in. We measure our success in terms of our impact. Member ACORN. I don't think I raised a single dollar off that. I had a stack of media coverage to the ceiling.

00:17:16:01 - 00:17:36:07
James O'Keefe
We measure our success in terms of what we produce, not just in terms of our wallets. That was a pretty fundamental conflict I felt the day prior. I informed him in front of his colleagues that he if he wasn't willing to follow my lead, he'd be shown the door. I tried to deal with it privately, but I was unsuccessful.

00:17:36:17 - 00:18:11:16
James O'Keefe
And the disagreement boiled over publicly in a staff meeting. The next day, this individual refused to resign, so I fired him later that same day. That's that Thursday, February 2nd, a few days after the 50 million views visor videos, I was informed by a different officer of Project Veritas that he would go to the board in a few hours from that moment and have an emergency vote to restructure this company, receiving an agenda in my email while I was sitting on an airplane tarmac with the doors closing, the meeting was scheduled for the moment that my plane landed in Nashville.

00:18:12:08 - 00:18:30:05
James O'Keefe
It became clear to me in that moment I would be removed from my position at Project Veritas by the time I landed at my destination. I bet you didn't know that. I have a copy of the emergency meeting here for you guys to take a look at. It's in writing. You could read it. You don't have to be there.

00:18:30:05 - 00:18:52:09
James O'Keefe
You can read the minutes. They're official board minutes. They're written by a lawyer. My first question on the phone to this guy, my colleague, as I was staring at this agenda when the stewardess was asking me to get off the phone was, quote, What are we going to tell our supporters if I'm removed from my position? I think that's the first question.

00:18:52:09 - 00:19:17:05
James O'Keefe
I'm at 100 questions, but that was the first one. My colleague, who is an officer of Project Veritas, responded by saying Our supporters wouldn't have to find out. Sounds like something you would get in the Claire McCaskill campaign. It sounds like something you'd it sounds like something you would expose. I was so shocked by this. And again, the stewardess was asking me to get off the phone I was in.

00:19:17:06 - 00:19:53:09
James O'Keefe
I guess you could say that I was in a state of complete shock. How would our supporters not be informed of such an enormous thing? It was a lapse in judgment, so severe that it was itself a firable offense to make a statement like that. It was a lapse in judgment so severe it was it was impossible to hide my removal from my position at Veritas to anybody as the CEO and chief fundraiser, I have to explain the context of my role to thousands of people 300 days a year on the road while soliciting them for funds so that I can pay you.

00:19:54:15 - 00:20:17:22
James O'Keefe
And I knew many of our supporters and donors would not like that change if I was removed from the chief decision maker at the organization I founded. I share who we are, our vision, our structure, our strategy with everybody. In fact, hiding something so fundamental from people is something that we stand against in principle, particularly with the amount of scrutiny that under the doors closed, the plane took off.

00:20:18:06 - 00:20:51:06
James O'Keefe
But somehow over the next few hours, I was able to convince the board to push this emergency meeting to that Monday, February the sixth, the very next day. And this is where things gets really bizarre. So fasten your seatbelts the very next day on Friday. This is now Friday, February 3rd, a board member reached out to one of our journalists and stated, quote, You get a raise if there is a restructure without James O'Keefe at Project Veritas.

00:20:52:06 - 00:21:23:01
James O'Keefe
I have a copy of the text message and I'll give it to all of you. I redacted the name of the journalist. The board member deleted the message, but not before our journalists took screenshots. Good job. Journalist Yeah, on Sunday, February 5th. Now that's Sunday. Two days after the Friday, a board member requested my presence at his home.

00:21:23:01 - 00:21:49:20
James O'Keefe
He informed me, quote, You had nothing to do James, with this flies your story, unquote. Perplexed by this, I took out my iPad and showed him a video of myself confronting the Pfizer executive, which had 11 million views on YouTube. He responded, quote, But that was after the undercover video had already been done, unquote. I pointed out that the brave journalist that many of you know who this person is.

00:21:49:20 - 00:22:20:05
James O'Keefe
I'm not going to name anyone who recorded the interaction with someone that I had to sit down over a year prior. Remember, over dinner, 4 hours talking off the proverbial ledge, insisting he take the long, arduous road to get the story about Pfizer. And indeed, he did. The board member responding to me, saying that said he did not know that and admitted that another board member was persuading him to the contrary in the meeting.

00:22:20:06 - 00:22:42:11
James O'Keefe
And that's now fast forwarding to Monday, two weeks ago on the sixth, I offered an apology letter to the board for my tone of voice in the office at the leadership meeting the week before that. I intended to also share that apology for my tone of voice with our staff. But the board refused to accept my apology nor believe that it was sincere.

00:22:43:16 - 00:23:11:04
James O'Keefe
They also did not support my sending it to the staff. I imagine many of you didn't even know that I drafted an apology. Then I was subject to a six and a half hour listing of grievances, which included taking black cars to meetings. I don't know the significance of the color of the vehicle and taking a few charter jets over the years to pack multiple party meetings in a day.

00:23:12:00 - 00:23:40:20
James O'Keefe
One of those jets, I think we had a meeting in New York, Wisconsin and California in the same day, and it raised $2 million, but the revenue part was omitted. There was also some truly bizarre grievances, including my failure to record audio in one encounter at a bar in upstate New York and an allegation that I stole a pregnant woman sandwich in federal court.

00:23:40:20 - 00:24:03:22
James O'Keefe
There were also discussions from a few staffers with donors in the boardroom. Donors were listening to some of this, and some of these were sent directly to donors without my consent, donors who have no knowledge of my personal life and have no business asking questions about my personal life, about girls I've dated in the past, a fundraising colleague relayed.

00:24:03:22 - 00:24:34:19
James O'Keefe
And again, this is going to start getting really strange, but I'm this this board meeting was video recorded. We'll get to that in a minute. A fundraising staffer relayed, quote, concerns about my behaviors regarding videos or I quote, literally chased a Twitter executive around New York by acclamation from all of you in 2022. That video about the Twitter chase was one of the most successful videos.

00:24:34:19 - 00:24:59:17
James O'Keefe
But yet your colleagues in a boardroom were expressing concerns about it. Every board member previously communicated their love of that video, but none pushed back in that moment when the staffer criticized it. Why the attacks were so severe against me personally in that boardroom. And again, this is all video recorded, and I suggest that you ask for that.

00:25:00:00 - 00:25:23:07
James O'Keefe
I will not provide that to you. This it the attacks were so severe that one board member asked, quote, Is there anything James O'Keefe is good at? That's what your board member said. Oh, and by the way, this meeting was video recorded. I'm going to keep saying that you may want to ask existing board members if they want to share that entire video with you.

00:25:23:22 - 00:25:53:07
James O'Keefe
I suggest you request the entire seven hour or so video to see for yourself what actually happened. You don't have to have been there. You simply need to watch the video and hear all of the testimony. After the 6 hours, I was asked what I had to say for myself. I was given about 10 seconds to respond and then I was dismissed then.

00:25:53:07 - 00:26:21:08
James O'Keefe
And I'm reading from board minutes drafted by lawyers who are taking a record of what the board member said and did. A vote was called to strip me of all of my authority and decision making at this organization for half a year. That's 180 days. Again, it's in the board minutes. You'll have a copy of it. It says, quote, The CEO's ability to make these decisions suspended for 180 days with such power transferred to the executive director, the executive director reports to the board.

00:26:21:16 - 00:26:49:05
James O'Keefe
The CEO is placed on leave for two weeks and the CEO's access to donors is restricted. So I can't talk to donors. I can't raise money. Let's see. Okay. My first question before I was dismissed, I asked how the remaining team will manage the company and what the plan was. That's something you would say, What's the plan? But they didn't provide one.

00:26:49:05 - 00:27:14:02
James O'Keefe
It was clear they didn't actually have one. Then I was dismissed, so I went off the grid as requested, went hiking with Kennedy in the mountains. Within a few days of going off the grid, I started receiving missed calls and texts from the same board members and officers who demanded I be gone. They informed the staff that they're waiting to hear from me.

00:27:14:12 - 00:27:46:03
James O'Keefe
I found that odd. There was a corporate resolution demanding that I be gone for two weeks. I was a little worried about violating the corporate resolution. Wouldn't you? This was while I was commanded by a motion of a board to be literally gone, unpaid leave for two weeks, and then an officer at Project Veritas took a screenshot of my read receipts of text messages and distributed them to you saying, quote, You owe your team a response.

00:27:46:03 - 00:28:17:00
James O'Keefe
Please allow communication. This was during the time when I was required by the board to be gone. Then it's going to get stranger then and again, I'm going to give you copies of all this. Then on February 10th, you guys don't know what I'm about to tell you. Another board meeting occurred again. I'm gone with the meeting's minutes reflecting that they had indefinitely suspended me from the board.

00:28:17:00 - 00:28:36:22
James O'Keefe
By this time they had stripped me of all of my authority as CEO during the time I was on leave. They kicked me off the board. So I can't be a CEO. If I have no authority. I can't make any decisions. I'm not allowed to access any donor names. I wasn't even sure what my job was or if I even had a job.

00:28:36:22 - 00:29:07:14
James O'Keefe
Right now. I actually don't. I'm not sure what my job here is in the board minutes. It says that I no longer have a paycheck and I'm indefinitely suspended from this organization, which five days later, after that, on February 15th, a statement was put out by this organization, by this organization, executive director saying, quote, James has not been removed from Project Veritas.

00:29:08:11 - 00:29:25:12
James O'Keefe
Five days after they removed me from Project Veritas. James is the hardest working person I've ever met. Those who know him know he will not take time off from us. Forced to absent from the statement was the actions of the board to remove me from the board and remove me as CEO. I don't know why they admitted that part.

00:29:26:15 - 00:29:48:16
James O'Keefe
Later on the 15th, the same day while hiking with Kennedy PD, put a statement by quote, tweeting a picture of me with him saying there is nothing better than enjoying a well-deserved vacation. That tweet failed to mention that by then I had been removed from the board and indefinitely suspended as CEO. Why didn't they put that part in?

00:29:48:16 - 00:30:11:23
James O'Keefe
This is where things get really messed up. A few days later, an officer sent an email to the board with bizarre hyperbole and innuendo about certain expenses related to our business needs. These included. And you can't make this up. That Project Veritas paid for James O'Keefe's down payment of his wedding. I got a chuckle out of this. I'm not married.

00:30:13:09 - 00:30:39:03
James O'Keefe
I've never been married. I do hope to get married one day. In fact, I got married to you in Oklahoma, but that was pretend good time. That was fun. Everyone enjoyed it. We rented a charter bus. We all went down and everyone enjoyed that musical. Or at least I thought, I'm not married. But the truth of the expense, the $12,000, was that it was a payment for an annual Project Veritas Christmas party.

00:30:39:15 - 00:31:13:04
James O'Keefe
Remember that you guys were there some You brought your spouses. The officer lied by omission, excluding the purpose of paying the $12,000 for the wedding venue, it looked like Project Veritas was reimbursing me for a wedding venue. Why would the officer lie like that? There were also, again, bizarre complaints. This is where you come in, Asha, about taking too many trips to too many meetings over the course of a year.

00:31:13:04 - 00:31:46:00
James O'Keefe
I think there were like 305 cars I had taken to meetings and donors in journalism assignments, including all the, quote, black cars taken from airports to various meetings. I have a copy of that so you don't have to take my word for it. The officer stated to the board, this is on February 13th this week that we should do things such as, quote, reschedule meetings and the IRS would prefer Zoom meetings over in-person meetings.

00:31:46:00 - 00:32:07:18
James O'Keefe
I'm going to let that sink in for a minute. My lawyer has got a real laugh out of that one over the last couple of days. And again, I have a copy of this. You can read them for yourselves. The wedding, there's a line item here. It omits the purpose of the expense. It was for a private. You were there.

00:32:07:18 - 00:32:27:00
James O'Keefe
You were dressed in your amazing Christmas clothes. I remember. It was beautiful. It was like a Christmas PJ Blazer thing you had on. You were there. It wasn't a wedding. It wasn't a wedding. Thanks for bringing that. It was a great outfit. I remember. That was all I remember from that. And we sang Oh, what a Beautiful Morning.

00:32:27:02 - 00:32:56:15
James O'Keefe
But it wasn't. No, I didn't get married. It was a Project Veritas Christmas party. Saw our Christmas party this year cost about twice as much. That one was about 12,000 bucks. Okay. And I have the line item here sent to the board about the black cars. Too many, too many, too many car trips. And by the way, Zoom meetings over in-person meetings is not how you raise money and not how you conduct your journalism.

00:32:57:11 - 00:33:23:06
James O'Keefe
It's hard to get the content over a screen. Ask our journalist if that works to produce a story. In fact, I would maybe ask you guys to ask these guys how you're supposed to do your jobs without taking, quote, black cars around. I don't know how I can do my job here if I can't transport myself around the United States.

00:33:23:06 - 00:33:46:07
James O'Keefe
It actually doesn't make any actual sense, does it? None of this makes any sense. And why is it all happening right now? Those are the questions I have. I don't have answers. Your guys are journalists. Maybe you can go find the answers. I don't know. After the series of events, I wrote a letter to the board on February 16th with the proposal.

00:33:46:23 - 00:34:07:02
James O'Keefe
Many of you have not seen this, but this is what I sent to them, which I guess they haven't shared this with you, but I'm going to share it with you now with a proposal that the board members resign by the end of this past week. We're now past that point or I'll be forced to walk away. And this is what I wrote.

00:34:07:02 - 00:34:30:14
James O'Keefe
Oh, dear. Board. And I'm not going to provide the whole thing, but I'll provide the meat and potatoes. Over the last two weeks, I've carefully followed the board's directive to take a vacation and avoid contacting donors. Of course, donors called me by. My phone was being lit up with thousands of phone calls. One donor even posted a video.

00:34:30:14 - 00:34:53:07
James O'Keefe
She was upset about how she was portrayed in the grievances Rumors was her name. She posted a video saying the grievance was total lie. My understanding is one of the officers of this organization responded that by calling the donor a liar, the officer wasn't there. Why would the officer call the woman with the sole authority on the matter who was there?

00:34:53:07 - 00:35:21:18
James O'Keefe
Why would he call her a liar? I don't know the answer to that question. Your actions over the same period to undermine Veritas and its future, including airing confidential employment matters publicly, has broken trust. I cannot in good conscience return to such a mismanaged organization. I have no I have not responded privately or publicly because there is no rational, appropriate response for the emotional circus that has been created by your actions.

00:35:22:22 - 00:35:42:07
James O'Keefe
I expect the board to resign by the end of the week. Project Veritas, including any employees who choose to stay, will go on. Under my leadership, with newly appointed professional board members and officers prepared to exercise their duty of care and duty of loyalty to the organization. That's what a board does. The exercise duty of loyalty and duty of care.

00:35:42:23 - 00:36:13:21
James O'Keefe
What they shouldn't do is try to destroy an organization that's not what a board member does. I will return to work on Monday. That's today and work with the remaining team to go forward with our mission. Short of this action, I cannot, in good faith return to the employment of an organization with leaders who are attacking me personally, making false and unsupported claims of improper management of resources about weddings and black cars, improperly airing employment issues related to me and others at Project Veritas.

00:36:14:06 - 00:36:41:09
James O'Keefe
I did not leak that document and I would swear to it under oath. But it probably wasn't the best idea to march employees into a boardroom. That's never happened in any boardroom in the history of boardrooms, and that's one of the reasons why our donors are so upset. That doesn't happen, ruining our reputation in front of supporters and donors and leaking confidential information and fabricating stories.

00:36:42:05 - 00:37:08:17
James O'Keefe
One of our ethical rules is we don't lie to our audience. I've never lied to our audience in 13 years, but I was stripped of all decision making last week, and you guys put out a statement lying to your audience, and there's nothing I could do about it because I was stripped of all my decision making. I was removed from CEO.

00:37:08:17 - 00:37:30:15
James O'Keefe
I was asked to be gone until the 20th. It is now the 20th. I asked the board to resign for the conduct and they did not. So currently I have no job at Project Veritas. I have no position here based upon what the board has done. So I'm announcing to you all that today on President's Day, I'm packing up my personal belongings here.

00:37:30:15 - 00:38:09:14
James O'Keefe
I don't really have much in this room that belongs to me, I guess. A painting, a diploma, some personal things. It won't feel much. Maybe it'll feel my queer. I'm packing up my personal start to be emotional from headquarters, and I'm intending to start anew. I don't have the answers to why they've doing this or why board members were going directly to employees to collect grievances on the week of our biggest story ever, or why our board members were going to employees directly to discuss removing me from this organization.

00:38:10:00 - 00:38:33:11
James O'Keefe
Even saying, I'll give you a raise if James is removed, that might be illegal. I don't know. But why would they do it? The week of our biggest story ever. But I'm confident that those reasons and motivations will come to light. To borrow an old expression, the public has a right to know what has happened here and why.

00:38:33:12 - 00:39:05:07
James O'Keefe
There was a concerted effort to remove me from the organization I founded the same week of our biggest story ever had almost none. This is very difficult and I'm filming this for the staff. Sorry you couldn't be physically here. This is for internal distribution. My my dear team. I do love many of you. I never said it those words, but I'll say it now.

00:39:06:09 - 00:39:23:01
James O'Keefe
I want to go back to the beginning of what I said and express how important so many of you are to me. How I still believe we have a long and bright future together somehow, some way. And to share my profound appreciation for many of you. When I left the office and this is where I'm going to get emotional, so please forgive me.

00:39:23:17 - 00:39:43:11
James O'Keefe
When I left the office on February 6th, after being stripped of all my authority, I saw my father and gave him a hug, realizing just how honest and real the man he is. Both my parents are as genuine and down to earth as a son could ever have. It's true. You never really know someone until you go through hell with them.

00:39:44:22 - 00:40:11:12
James O'Keefe
You see, back in the carriage house 13 years ago, the feds would come to my home to make sure that I was inside my house, administering random drug tests and rifling through my expenses to make sure I wasn't lying about the strawberry ice cream. I bought 7-Eleven. I didn't have any money, but they went through my debit card statements and tried to get me to sign things to prove I wasn't lying.

00:40:12:06 - 00:40:33:22
James O'Keefe
There were federal agents showing up at my parents. There were no donors. There were no supporters. And I was not trending on Twitter. My father went through this Hell with me and stood up to those bullies on the front lawn and told them to stop harassing our family. And at that point, that's all I had was him.

00:40:36:04 - 00:41:10:05
James O'Keefe
I was otherwise completely alone. I will never forget that. Now the good news. We're no longer alone. We have millions of Americans who do. Who also know who I am. In fact, I'm sorry for that. We're all. But in fact, you have. And we all have watched their overwhelming support. They see the truth. They know who I am.

00:41:11:17 - 00:41:39:16
James O'Keefe
I also know many of you know who I am. And you know what's right. Right. You know, you're people of principle here. People in this room. And this now may be your moment of truth. One of you called me from a closet the day of the seventh after I was suspended. The day after I was let go. And you were crying.

00:41:41:01 - 00:42:00:16
James O'Keefe
I never heard. I never heard that tone before. I told you it was going to be okay. You were afraid of what was happening here. You said it was really hard. This is really hard to take. I can't take this anymore. I told you that I struggled alongside you. Although I wasn't physically there. I told you that I loved you.

00:42:01:17 - 00:42:28:03
James O'Keefe
A number of us told each other that we loved one another. It was the first time I've shared that sentiment with a colleague. It was a very real moment, a very beautiful moment. A touching moment where we were bound together. Many of us were really bound together in that moment. And I was grateful for that. I recognize just how honest and real many of you are in your souls, that you are amazing people.

00:42:28:19 - 00:42:49:23
James O'Keefe
We have some really amazing people here with men with brass balls and women with the courage of a lion and it really what I what I drew from this experience is the gratitude that I have, you know, for so many of you. And that's. And as I was going through this horrible pain, I lost £8 and couldn't sleep for five days.

00:42:50:14 - 00:43:17:15
James O'Keefe
I was actually overcome with this amazing gratitude. True story. I was I was really feeling it. And I and I'm grateful for that because I experienced something I never have because I saw the goodness in many of you that I did not previously see. So I meant the statement that I made in the beginning of this, the statement I made before was Veritas will never be defeated from the outside.

00:43:17:15 - 00:43:46:10
James O'Keefe
It will only be defeated from the inside. That's actually not true. No. The only way to defeat us is if they take our spirit. And from the looks of things, many of us remain completely undefeated and unbroken. So our mission continues on. I'm not done. The mission will perhaps take on a new name. And it may be no longer called Veritas.

00:43:47:03 - 00:44:19:10
James O'Keefe
Project Veritas. I'll need a bunch of people around me and I'll make sure I'll make sure you know how to find me. And I'll quote the When you invited me to New York City and did that little stand up. How fitting that from Shakespeare quote and this story shall the good man teach his son? We few we happy few we band of brothers and sisters.

00:44:20:22 - 00:44:33:11
James O'Keefe
So with that, I'm going to collect my things. I'm going to load them in my car and I hope to see some of you soon. That's it.

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