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James O'Keefe Under Investigation. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-08-18
The Nation broke a story about the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office investigating former CEO and founder of Project Veritas, James O’ Keefe for alleged “financial improprieties”. www.thenation.com/… I am not sure if others can read this, i.e. if this article is paywalled, but here are a few of the highlights:
* “While the exact nature of the investigation is not yet public, the timing would suggest that it relates to O’Keefe’s alleged financial improprieties during his tenure as the group’s chairman and CEO. Back in February, O’Keefe was accused of spending “an excessive amount of donor funds in the last three years on personal luxuries” by the conservative nonprofit’s own board of directors, amid their very public feud over the management and future of Veritas.”
* “Attorneys for Project Veritas also filed a civil complaint against O’Keefe in federal court this past May, accusing the ostensible investigative reporting outfit’s original hidden-camera sting artist of breaching his contract and fiduciary duties to the group, among other counts."
* “Pending a “third party investigative audit,” the board [PV] accused O’Keefe of spending “$14,000 on a charter flight to meet someone to fix his boat under the guise of meeting with a donor,” blowing over $150,000 on high-end limo services, and taking thousands of dollars more for personal DJ equipment. O’Keefe, they said, also requisitioned $60,000 for “dance events,” including the production of a semi-autobiographical pop music celebration of his life in muckraking: the Project Veritas Experience. Such self-indulgent expenditures would be what’s known within the Internal Revenue Code for tax-exempt 501(c)3s as “inurement.”
* “In private, however, past and present Veritas executives have groused to us for much longer about O’Keefe’s dubiously charitable expenditures outside that reported compensation, including the construction of a recording studio for his high school music buddy Anthony Dini and tens of thousands of dollars in “investigating reporting” and “consulting” fees paid to O’Keefe’s pass-thru NJ S-corp, Veritas Inc.”
As a part-time, freelance journalist for over five years, it galls me to no end that this fraudster was ever treated as a serious journalist. To add insult to injury, with so many media outlets shutting down and serious journalists being laid off, O’Keefe was pulling in a salary of over $430,000 before he stepped down as CEO of Project Veritas. I hope karma catches up with O’Keefe for all the damage he has caused.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/18/2188106/-James-O-Keefe-Under-Investigation
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