The board of Directors for the group Project Veritas has recently released a statement as of this past Monday night to explain the reasoning for their choice to remove Project Veritas’ founder and CEO James O’Keefe from the company.
The statement was issued in the wake of O’Keefe making public a 45-minute video on Monday which stated the he was not sure why he was being ejected from his role in his company and that the only thing that had been altered over the past few weeks was the release of the undercover sting video from the company which showed an alleged employee of Pfizer that was making claims about things which were reportedly taking place inside of the pharmaceutical titan.
The board of directors explained in a statement that the company “made numerous attempts in the last 14 days to have a conversation with James, but he ignored our outreach and decided to instead leak private information to others, either by doing so himself or by proxy.”
“We had a Board meeting scheduled for tomorrow where James was invited, and there was also a Board meeting on Friday, February 10, where James was invited (but did not attend) to discuss the financial malfeasance that was discovered, which requires us to act in order to remain in compliance with the law,” expressed the statement. “There were two subjects that the Board wished to come to terms with James on: the company’s long-term sustainability based on staff retention and morale, and the company’s financial health — which has been a serious concern for several months now.”
The company explained that its leadership team has not completed the full investigation into the alleged spending of donor money carried out by O’Keefe throughout the last several years but that its initial review discovered that “James has spent an excessive amount of donor funds in the last three years on personal luxuries.”
The statement revealed that O’Keefe was “suspended indefinitely pending the resolution of a fulsome investigation and clarity which will need to be provided by a third party investigative audit report.”
The release also highlighted the following “small representative sample” of O’Keefe’s alleged spending of money given by donors:
- $14,000 on a charter flight to meet someone to fix his boat under the guise of meeting with a donor
- $60,000 in losses by putting together dance events such as Project Veritas Experience
- Over $150,000 in Black Cars in the last 18 months
- Thousands of dollars spent on DJ and other equipment for personal use
- Hundreds of other acts of personal inurement
The statement explained that the board wanted to work things out with O’Keefe but that he “left us no choice but to suspend him in the last few weeks when he unilaterally fired the CFO, who can only be fired with Board approval.”
“That is a violation of our non-profit’s bylaws. James went as far as to say that a Board member had approved this firing to others, but it was later discovered that it was not the case. That member did not approve the firing. The Board approved James’ suspension so it would have time to properly investigate these internal infractions,” the statement went on. “The Board has a legal obligation to comply with state and federal law, and these matters are serious ones that cannot be ignored.”
“James claims that the Board did not allow him to send an apology letter to the staff, which is not true. The Board never told James he was not to speak with staff members, nor that he could not apologize to them,” concluded the statement. “Even with all of this public fallout, the Board still wants to speak with James. We did not fire him, nor do we want him to resign. We would like to continue conversations with James to resolve internal matters rather than litigate them publicly.”
