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Facebook Caught Once Again Rightfully Deleting Trump Posts

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><https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1847036642005032967>

James OKeefe serial liar, child pornographer and convicted felon.


Senator Mary Landrieu (2010)

O'Keefe and colleagues were arrested in the Hale Boggs Federal Complex in 
New Orleans in January 2010 and charged with entering federal property 
under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony, at the office 
of United States Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat. His three fellow 
activists, who were dressed as telephone repairmen when apprehended, 
included Robert Flanagan, the son of William Flanagan, acting U.S. Attorney 
of the Eastern District of Louisiana.[211][212] The four men were charged 
with malicious intent to damage the phone system.[213] O'Keefe stated that 
he had entered Landrieu's office to investigate complaints that she was 
ignoring phone calls from constituents during the debate over President 
Barack Obama's health care bill.[214]

The charges in the case were reduced from a felony to a single misdemeanor 
count of entering a federal building under false pretenses.[215][216] 
O'Keefe and the others pleaded guilty on May 26. O'Keefe was sentenced to 
three years' probation, 100 hours of community service and a $1,500 fine. 
The other three men received lesser sentences.[217]

In August 2013, O'Keefe revisited the incident by releasing a video 
entitled: "a confrontation with former U.S. Attorney Jim Letten on the 
campus of Tulane University". Letten is a former Republican U.S. Attorney 
who recused himself from the Landrieu incident because he knew the father 
of one of the men involved. The video shows Letten accusing O'Keefe of 
"terrorizing" Letten's wife at their home, of harassing him, and 
trespassing on the Tulane campus. He called O'Keefe a "coward" and a 
"spud", and referred to O'Keefe and his companions as "hobbits" and "scum".
[218]
Abbie Boudreau (2010)

In August 2010, O'Keefe planned a staged encounter with the CNN 
correspondent Abbie Boudreau, who was doing a documentary on the young 
conservative movement. He set up an appointment at his office in Maryland 
to discuss a video shoot.[219] Izzy Santa, executive director of Project 
Veritas, approached Boudreau when she arrived at the site. Santa warned 
Boudreau that O'Keefe was planning to meet with her on board a nearby boat, 
where he would try to seduce Boudreau. This would be filmed on hidden 
cameras.[219][220] Boudreau did not board the boat and soon left the area.
[219][220]

CNN later published a 13-page plan written by O'Keefe mentor Ben Wetmore. 
It listed props for the boat scheme, including pornography, sexual aids, 
condoms, a blindfold and "fuzzy" handcuffs.[219][220][221] When questioned 
by CNN, O'Keefe denied he was going to follow the Wetmore plan, as he found 
parts of it inappropriate.[220] Boudreau commented "that does not appear to 
be true, according to a series of emails we obtained from Izzy Santa, who 
says the e-mails reveal James' true intentions."[222]

Following the Boudreau incident, Project Veritas paid Izzy Santa a five-
figure settlement after she threatened to sue, which included a 
nondisclosure agreement.[223]
Attempt to solicit Colorado voter fraud (2014)

In October 2014, O'Keefe and his two colleagues attempted to bait staffers 
for Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) and then-U.S. Senator Mark Udall (D-CO), 
as well as independent expenditure organizations, into approving voter 
fraud, according to several staffers who interacted with O'Keefe and his 
colleagues. Staffers began photographing O'Keefe's crew and advising them 
that what they were advocating was illegal; one nonprofit said they 
contacted police.[224]

The 2013 Colorado election modernization act had required that all 
registered voters receive mail-in ballots. PV released a video showing a 
few individuals appearing to be OK with illegal suggestions PV's people 
proffered, e.g. finding and voting discarded ballots. But no evidence of 
illegal activity was shown.[224][225][226]
Attempted sting of Open Society Foundations (2016)

On March 16, 2016, O'Keefe attempted to call Open Society Foundations under 
the assumed name of Victor Kesh, describing himself as attached to "a 
foundation" seeking to "get involved with you and aid what you do in 
fighting for European values". O'Keefe forgot to hang up after recording 
the voicemail, and several more minutes of audio were recorded, revealing 
that he was attached to Discover the Networks and planning a series of 
attempts to create embarrassing videos or other recordings of targeted 
groups.[227][228]
Failed attempt to sting The Washington Post (2017)

Beginning in July 2017, Project Veritas operative Jaime Phillips attempted 
to infiltrate The Washington Post and other media outlets by joining 
networking groups related to journalism and left-leaning politics. She and 
a male companion attended events related to the Post, and their 
conversations with journalists were sometimes covertly recorded.[229]

In November 2017, The Washington Post reported that several women accused 
Republican Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of pursuing them while 
they were teenagers and he was in his 30s.[230] Later that same month, 
Jaime Phillips approached The Washington Post and falsely claimed that 
Moore had impregnated her as a teenager and that she had an abortion.[230]
[231] In conducting its usual fact-checking, the Post discovered multiple 
red flags in her story. They found a GoFundMe page in her name that said, 
"I've accepted a job to work in the conservative media movement to combat 
the lies and deceipt [sic] of the liberal MSM." After a Post reporter 
confronted her with the inconsistencies during a video-recorded interview, 
Phillips denied that she was working with an organization that targets 
journalists, and said that she no longer wanted to do the story.[230] She 
was seen outside Project Veritas' office in Mamaroneck, New York, with her 
car remaining at the office's parking lot for more than an hour.[230] 
O'Keefe declined to comment about the woman's apparent connection to 
Project Veritas.[230][231] Instead of running a story about Phillips' 
supposed pregnancy, the Post published an article about the attempted sting 
operation. The Post decided to disclose Phillips' original discussions made 
off the record, saying that Phillips' lies voided any agreement to keep 
those disclosures confidential.[230]

Hours after the Post published this story, O'Keefe released a video which 
he claimed exposed the newspaper's liberal bias.[232] The video includes 
undercover footage of conversations with two Post employees, national 
security reporter Dan Lamothe and product director Joey Marburger.[233] 
These employees explained to undercover Project Veritas operatives the 
difference between the news reporting of The Washington Post (which calls 
out the Trump administration's missteps while giving "him credit where 
there's credit" due) and the Post's opinion editorials; O'Keefe said that 
this exposed the Washington Post's "hidden agenda".[232][234]

O'Keefe was criticized for his failed sting, and The Washington Post was 
praised. Rod Dreher of The American Conservative praised the Post and 
called on conservative donors to stop giving money to O'Keefe's outfit.
[235] Dan McLaughlin of the conservative National Review said that 
O'Keefe's sting was an "own goal" and that O'Keefe was doing a disservice 
to the conservative movement;[236] Jim Geraghty of the National Review made 
a similar assessment.[237] Byron York of The Washington Examiner said that 
O'Keefe's "idiocy" was "beyond boneheaded", and that "O'Keefe really ought 
to hang it up."[238] Ben Shapiro, the conservative editor in chief of The 
Daily Wire, said that the botched sting was "horrible, both morally and 
effectively".[238] Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic wrote, "If James 
O'Keefe respected the right-wing populists who make up the audience of 
Project Veritas ... he would tell them the truth about all of the 
organizations that he targets. Instead, Project Veritas operates in bad 
faith, an attribute it demonstrated again this week in the aftermath of its 
bungled attempt to trick The Washington Post."[239] Noah Rothman of the 
conservative magazine Commentary chastised O'Keefe for being exploitative 
of his audience: "No longer are institutions like Veritas dedicated to 
combating ignorance in their audience. They're actively courting it."[240]

Jonathan Chait of New York magazine said that O'Keefe, having set out to 
prove that the Post was fake news, ended up disproving it. O'Keefe's plot 
collapsed because it was premised on a ludicrously false worldview, wrote 
Chait. "The Washington Post does not, in fact, publish unverified 
accusations just because they're against Republicans." O'Keefe's attempts 
to prove rampant voter fraud have failed "because voter fraud is not 
rampant".[241]

In 2018, The Washington Post was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for 
Investigative Reporting for its coverage of the allegations against Moore, 
including its exposé of the unsuccessful Project Veritas sting.[7][35]
Attempted stings of perceived enemies of President Trump

The New York Times reported in May 2021 that multiple operatives from 
Project Veritas were involved in a scheme to discredit FBI employees and 
other officials who they viewed to be enemies of President Trump. Living 
out of a large shared home in Georgetown, women employed by Project Veritas 
went on dates with FBI employees in an attempt to secretly record them 
denigrating Trump. National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster was a primary 
target of this operation, though efforts against him ended in March 2018 
when McMaster resigned his position.[242]
Nurse Jodi O'Malley unproven claims on COVID-19 vaccines in a series of 
videos (2021)

Project Veritas released a series of videos, starting on September 20, 
2021, and finishing on October 6, 2021, with millions of views on YouTube,
[243] showing nurse Jodi O'Malley, who works for the Indian Health Service 
in Arizona, speaking with a doctor identified as Maria Gonzales.[243][244] 
Gonzales can be heard saying: "All this is bullshit. Now, [a patient] 
probably [has] myocarditis due to the vaccine. But now, they are not going 
to blame the vaccine, they are not reporting it. They want to shove it 
under the mat."[243] Claims that the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System 
(VAERS) fails to register reports are misleading. VAERS, which currently 
contains over 720,000 reports, was designed for purposes of early warning 
and it may contain "incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable" 
information.[243] Despite minor challenges, data from VAERS still is 
helpful to health regulators such as the CDC and the FDA in their search 
for vaccine-related adverse effects.[245]

FBI searches relating to theft of Ashley Biden diary

The New York Times reported in November 2021 that the FBI raided the homes 
of Project Veritas employees as part of a Justice Department investigation 
into the theft and publication of the diary of Ashley Biden, a daughter of 
President Joe Biden.[246][247] The right-wing website National File 
published what it claimed to be the contents of the diary on October 26, 
2020.[248][249] The FBI also raided O'Keefe's apartment. O'Keefe confirmed 
that the FBI searched the homes of current and former employees. In a video 
statement, O'Keefe said Project Veritas chose not to publish the diary 
because it could not be authenticated. O'Keefe also said Project Veritas 
returned the diary to law enforcement and attempted to return it to one of 
Biden's lawyers, who had "refused to authenticate it".[246][247]

On November 14, 2021, the American Civil Liberties Union published a 
statement in response to the raid:

    Project Veritas has engaged in disgraceful deceptions, and reasonable 
observers might not consider their activities to be journalism at all. 
Nevertheless, the precedent set in this case could have serious 
consequences for press freedom. Unless the government had good reason to 
believe that Project Veritas employees were directly involved in the 
criminal theft of the diary, it should not have subjected them to invasive 
searches and seizures. We urge the court to appoint a special master to 
ensure that law enforcement officers review only those materials that were 
lawfully seized and that are directly relevant to a legitimate criminal 
investigation.
    — Brian Hauss, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, 
and Technology Project[250]

The Committee to Protect Journalists, while clarifying that "we do not 
endorse some of the tactics Project Veritas employs", expressed concern 
that lacking "a clear link between members of Project Veritas and 
allegations of criminal activities" the FBI raids and seizure of evidence 
were a "dangerous precedent that could allow law enforcement to search and 
confiscate reporters' unpublished source material in vague attempts to 
identify whistleblowers".[251]

In December 2021, a federal judge appointed Barbara Jones to serve as a 
special master to ensure prosecutors could not access materials protected 
by attorney-client privilege and that the group's First Amendment rights as 
a media organization were protected.[252] Project Veritas issued a letter 
to the special master in March 2022, alleging that the Justice Department 
subverted First Amendment protections and secretly seized Veritas' internal 
emails. Veritas further alleged that the Justice Department issued gag 
orders to Microsoft, the host of the emails, barring them from revealing 
the seizures to Veritas.[253][254]

In August 2022, Florida residents Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander pleaded 
guilty in federal court to stealing the diary and other items belonging to 
Ashley Biden, and selling them to Project Veritas. The two agreed to 
cooperate with the Justice Department's investigation into how the diary 
was acquired by Project Veritas.[255]
Funding and organization

Much of the funding for Project Veritas comes from anonymous donations 
through Donors Trust, a conservative, American nonprofit donor-advised fund 
backed by the Koch brothers, which according to its promotional materials, 
says that it will "keep your charitable giving private, especially gifts 
funding sensitive or controversial issues".[2][256][23] Donors Trust 
provided Project Veritas with gradually increasing cash infusions, 
including $25,000 in 2011, $922,500 in 2015,[37] $1.7 million in 2016,[21] 
and over $4 million in 2019.[38]

Other prominent donors include the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which 
donated $20,000 in 2015,[37] including a $10,000 transfer in May 2015,[39]
[257] which was made a month before the launch of Donald Trump's 
presidential campaign.[39] O'Keefe attended, as a guest of the Trump 
campaign, the final presidential debate, and was later available in the 
spin room following the Las Vegas event.[261]

The group is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.[262][263] The group's 
political branch is Project Veritas Action (also known as the Project 
Veritas Action Fund), a 501(c)(4) organization.[43][264][265]

The Daily Dot reported that they found a pattern in which Project Veritas' 
supposed whistleblowers "almost all establish crowdfunding pages hyped by 
Project Veritas within days and hours of going public with their 
allegations." The Daily Dot provided seven examples in 2019 or 2020: 
Richard Hopkins, Zach McElroy, Eric Cochran, Cary Poarch, Greg Copolla, 
Ryan Hartwig, and Omar Jamal, who each raised between $20,000 to over 
$115,000 on GoFundMe, although in some instances, the money was not 
disbursed.[266]

In January 2022, the British anti-disinformation organization Logically 
reported that Project Veritas relied on the Christian crowdfunding site 
GiveSendGo to raise money for its supposed whistleblowers.[267]
Journalism and Project Veritas

In the aftermath of the 2022 FBI raid on O'Keefe, Project Veritas said they 
did journalism and could invoke First Amendment rights that protect members 
of news media. According to Columbia Journalism Review "the Justice Manual, 
a departmental handbook, doesn't directly define who qualifies as news 
media, and thus receives those protections, instead favoring a case-by-case 
approach. To make its evaluation, the department employs a 'News Media 
Policy Consultation' form, which (as revealed by a Freedom of Information 
Act lawsuit filed by Timm and the Knight First Amendment Institute at 
Columbia University) lays out twelve factors for law enforcement agents to 
consider, including whether the individual possesses press credentials and 
whether they 'primarily [report] facts, as opposed to expressing opinion'. 
... In the case of Veritas, according to filings, prosecutors determined 
that O'Keefe didn't meet its standards for news media."[268] 

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Facebook Caught Once Again Rightfully Deleting Trump Posts "Trump - Inmate Number P01135809" <patriot1@protonmail.com> - 2024-10-20 17:42 +0000

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