Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe confirmed Monday his title as the CEO of guerilla journalism group has been "stripped" and that he had been "removed" from its board of directors following weeks of internal strife.
"I don't know why this has happened now or why this is happening suddenly right now," O'Keefe told staff on Monday in a video shared publicly by Project Veritas.
O'Keefe, who founded Project Veritas in 2010, acknowledged to staff that he had not "always been a compassionate leader," which he admits is a "fault" of his, but boasted his work ethic and how he was never "slowing down."
"So what has changed in the last three weeks?" O'Keefe asked. "The only thing that has changed is that we broke the biggest story in our organization's history… with 50 million views."
O'Keefe was referring to the explosive expose from January of a man described as Pfizer director of research and development Jordon Trishton Walker telling an undercover Project Veritas journalist that the company was exploring plans to "mutate" the COVID virus themselves through "directed evolution."
"And suddenly, just a few days after that… an unusual emergency happened," O'Keefe said. "On Thursday, February 2nd, that's 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 of visions, him and I, over fundraising… They were tactical disagreements about the boldness of approaches soliciting donations."
Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe says he was removed from the group by its board of directors. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
"We don't measure our success only in terms of how much money we bring in," O'Keefe continued before saying he was able to push back the emergency meeting to the following Monday. "We measure our success in terms of our impact… 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, and the disagreement boiled over publicly in a staff meeting," he said. "The next day, this individual refused to resign, so I fired him. Later that same day… 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."
O'Keefe suggested that there was an effort by at least one Project Veritas board member of an attempted coverup of his removal to keep the group's supporters from knowing, telling his staff he was "in a state of complete shock" by that notion and compared it to something that his group would normally expose. He also said it was "impossible" to his incoming removal.
He later listed the apparent "grievances" he was confronted with, including his "tone of voice" to staff and his use of "black cars" before revealing that the board of directors voted at a prior board meeting that he would go on paid leave for two weeks and have his duties as Project Veritas CEO be suspended for at least six months. And at another board meeting, they voted to end his pay.
James O'Keefe accused Project Veritas of "lying" to its supporters as the group downplayed tensions between its board of the directors and the embattled CEO. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
He then called out Project Veritas over a statement it put out last week insisting he had "not been removed" from the organization despite the board of directors having voted for his ousting days prior as well as a separate tweet claiming he was on a "well deserved vacation." O'Keefe also swiped an unnamed board member who accused him of using over $12,000 in funds for his wedding, pointing out he's not actually married and that banquet expense was actually for a Christmas party for staff and asking "why would the officer lie like that?"
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"Ruining our reputation in front of supporters and donors and leaking confidential information and fabricating stories- 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," O'Keefe said.
"So I'm announcing to you all that today, on Presidents Day, I'm packing up my personal belongings… and I'm intending to start a new," O'Keefe told Project Veritas staff.
Project Veritas did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.
James O'Keefe has become a celebrity in conservative circles for Project Veritas' undercover reporting over the years. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
In recent weeks, there were reports about internal Project Veritas strife targeting O'Keefe and alleged complaints from employees.
Under O'Keefe, Project Veritas made headlines over the years through government whistleblowers and undercover journalists. Some organizations engulfed by the group's reporting include Pfizer, The New York Times, CNN, ABC News, Facebook and Twitter.
In addition to the recent Pfizer expose, some of the biggest controversies uncovered by Project Veritas was the leaked hot mic moment of then-ABC News anchor Amy Robach revealing the network "quashed" her Jeffrey Epstein story during the 2016 election cycle and the leaked CNN editorial calls showing top bosses deciding to avoid the Hunter Biden scandal during the 2020 election.
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O'Keefe has become an icon in conservative circles, drawing big crowds around him at events like CPAC and Turning Point USA conferences.
In 2021, O'Keefe and other Project Veritas journalists were subjected to unprecedented FBI raids regarding the alleged theft of Ashley Biden's diary, which O'Keefe had obtained a copy of in 2020 but chose not to publish since his group could not verify its authenticity. O'Keefe maintained that he and his group were innocent of any wrongdoing.
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