Conservative activist James O’Keefe was unceremoniously eliminated in 2023 as the top of Mission Veritas, the far-right activist group that he based, and now he desires everybody to know that individuals within the group had been imply to him.
The Bulwark’s Will Sommer reported on Tuesday that O’Keefe is promoting a video known as “The Truth Inside Veritas” purporting to inform the “chaotic power struggle that consumed Project Veritas from within.”
After watching the video, Sommer notes that O’Keefe “devotes a surprisingly large amount of the video to demonstrating how rude his employees were to him.”
This consists of detailing the content material of imply texts that had been despatched to him, together with a Photoshopped image changing O’Keefe’s face with a intercourse toy. In one other occasion, O’Keefe whines that an worker despatched out “a text message of me eating a sandwich covered in semen.”
O’Keefe’s obvious aim is to revive himself as the top of Mission Veritas so he can as soon as once more produce absurd far-right propaganda.
O’Keefe is an unsympathetic determine who has spent greater than fifteen years in right-wing political activism concentrating on liberals and the Democratic Get together, notably by smearing and distorting left-aligned teams just like the Affiliation of Neighborhood Organizations for Reform Now, which assisted poor Black individuals.
James O’Keefe is seen in a video produced by Mission Veritas.
In 2023, the Mission Veritas board pushed him out of his position as CEO, which got here as allegations of monetary misconduct and different odd habits surfaced. For example, O’Keefe reportedly used greater than $20,000 of donor cash to placed on an out of doors manufacturing of the musical “Oklahoma!” during which he starred.
Regardless of his unusual habits—or maybe due to it—O’Keefe just isn’t a fringe determine on the suitable, and he has connections to a number of the strongest individuals in Republican politics.
In 2016, it was revealed that the nonprofit Trump Basis paid O’Keefe $10,000. Throughout that very same marketing campaign cycle, Mission Veritas launched movies attacking presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
And in 2021, as he ready to launch his in the end unsuccessful presidential run, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis featured O’Keefe on the signing of a invoice purporting to forestall censorship of right-wing views on social media.
A trademark of O’Keefe’s work is deceptively edited movies purporting to indicate individuals on the left within the worst mild doable. O’Keefe, who was an apprentice of the now-deceased right-wing smear artist Andrew Breitbart, has surfaced repeatedly with movies claiming to indicate malfeasance on the left, which incessantly dissolves after the faintest trace of scrutiny.
O’Keefe’s drive to assault the left even led to a run-in with the legislation. In 2010, he was arrested whereas attempting to achieve entry to the cellphone traces of former Sen. Mary Ladrieu, Democrat of Louisiana. O’Keefe later pleaded responsible to misdemeanor expenses and was sentenced to probation and group service.
And at different occasions, O’Keefe’s actions simply led to nationwide embarrassment and humiliation. The identical yr as his arrest, O’Keefe reportedly tried to lure CNN correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a ship strewn with intercourse toys and pornography in an try and seduce her.
O’Keefe is a clown who likes to play dress-up whereas dishonestly attacking the left. His antics led to his downfall and ouster, however he clearly desires to proceed to be a participant in conservative circles.
However regardless of his cringe-inducing habits, O’Keefe has at all times had a stable following, and the suitable selected to embrace his deceptions and mediocre work. So his bid to be related as soon as once more does stand an opportunity of succeeding.
He’s exactly the form of whack job the conservative motion depends on repeatedly.
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