James O'Keefe

James Edward O'Keefe III (born June 28, 1984) is an American political activist who founded Project Veritas, a far-right activistActivist...

O'Keefe started at Rutgers University in 2002 and majored in philosophy.

Beginning in his sophomore year, he wrote a bi-weekly opinion column for The Daily Targum, the university's student paper.

He left the Targum and founded the Rutgers Centurion, a conservative student paper supported by a $500 "Balance in the Media" grant from The Leadership Institute.

For his first video, he and other Centurion writers met with Rutgers dining staff to demand the banning of the cereal Lucky Charms from dining halls because of its offense to Irish Americans.

O'Keefe said the leprechaun mascot presented a stereotype.

He intended to have officials lose either way: to appear insensitive to an ethnic group, or to look silly by agreeing to ban Lucky Charms.

They expected to be thrown out of school, but the Rutgers official was courteous, took notes, and said their concerns would be considered.

Rutgers staff say the cereal was never taken off the menu.

After graduating from Rutgers, O'Keefe worked for a year at the Leadership Institute (LI) in Arlington, Virginia, under media specialist Ben Wetmore, whom O'Keefe calls his mentor.

The institute sent him to colleges to train students to start conservative independent newspapers, but, after a year LI officials asked him to leave.

According to LI president and founder Morton Blackwell, O'Keefe was "very effective and very enthusiastic" but after a year he was asked to leave because officials felt his activist work threatened the group's nonprofit status by trying to influence legislation.

O'Keefe has produced and distributed secretly recorded and misleadingly edited videos and audio files made during staged encounters with targeted entities or individuals.

His work takes the form of undercover stings targeted at liberal groups and politicians.

He sought to "embarrass" and "damage" his targets, such as Landrieu and ACORN.

He has sought to maximize publicity by releasing secretly recorded videos over several days or months, often in relation to funding authorizations or significant political actions related to the subject organization.

Many videos received widespread media coverage sparking significant reactions, most notably videos of ACORN that resulted in the Congress quickly freezing funds, two executive agencies canceling contracts, and several ACORN workers being fired, and videos of National Public Radio (NPR) executives that led to the resignation of CEO Vivian Schiller, shortly before Congressional funding hearings involving NPR.

O'Keefe first gained national attention for his selectively edited video recordings of workers at Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) offices in 2009, his arrest and misdemeanor guilty plea in 2010 for entering the federal office of then-U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) under false pretenses, and the release of misleading videos of conversations with two high-ranking, now former, NPR executives in 2011.

When his videos – heavily edited to portray ACORN workers seemingly aiding a couple in criminal planning – were publicized, the U.S. Congress voted to freeze funds for the non-profit.

The national controversy resulted in the non-profit also losing most of its private funding before investigations of the videos concluded no illegal activity occurred.

In 2009, Andrew Breitbart commissioned him for the option to publish new videos exclusively on BigGovernment.

The Project Veritas board removed O'Keefe from leadership positions in February 2023 for what it said was financial malfeasance with donor money.

On March 15, 2023, O'Keefe launched a new organization called O'Keefe Media Group.

Project Veritas subsequently sued O'Keefe and two others, alleging that they had created the competing O'Keefe Media Group while still employees, approaching PV's donors and using company funds for this purpose.

O'Keefe was also alleged to have improperly spent company funds on himself.

James Edward O'Keefe III was born in Bergen County, New Jersey, the elder of two children of James, a materials engineer, and Deborah O'Keefe, a physical therapist.

He has a younger sister.

O'Keefe grew up in Westwood, New Jersey.

His home was politically "conservative but not rigidly so", according to his father.

He graduated from Westwood High School, where he showed an early interest in the arts, theater and journalism.

He attained Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America.

In March 2010, ACORN was close to bankruptcy and had to close or rename most of its offices.

Shortly thereafter, the California State Attorney General's Office and the US Government Accountability Office released their related investigative reports.

The Attorney General's Office found that O'Keefe had misrepresented the actions of ACORN workers in California and that the workers had not broken any laws.

A preliminary probe by the GAO found that ACORN had managed its federal funds appropriately.

One of the fired ACORN workers sued O'Keefe for invasion of privacy; O'Keefe issued an apology and agreed to pay $100,000 in a settlement.

O'Keefe has gained support from right-wing and conservative media and interest groups, as well as from the far right.

In January 2010, O'Keefe began a column on Breitbart's website, BigGovernment.

Andrew Breitbart stated in an interview that he paid O'Keefe a salary for his "life rights" to gain release of O'Keefe's videos first on his website.

In 2010, O'Keefe formed a new organization, Project Veritas, whose stated mission is "to investigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions in order to achieve a more ethical and transparent society."