# Project Veritas A right-wing undercover-sting organization founded in June 2010 by [[James O'Keefe]]. Its method is the hidden-camera "exposé": operatives pose as donors, dates, job applicants or sources, record targets saying compromising things, and release edited clips online. The formula made it one of the most recognizable brands in the post-[[Andrew Breitbart]] right-wing media world — and, repeatedly, the subject of findings that the clips were deceptively edited or the premise was invented. It belongs in the vault as the institutional form of [[Dirty Tricks]]: a donor-funded nonprofit whose product is political damage. ## The method, by its best-known operations | Year | Operation | What happened | |---|---|---| | 2009 | ACORN (before the group was formally founded) | O'Keefe and Hannah Giles released videos of ACORN staff that were later found to be selectively edited; ACORN lost its funding and dissolved in 2010. O'Keefe paid a fired ACORN employee $100,000 in a 2013 settlement | | Jan 2010 | Sen. Mary Landrieu's office | O'Keefe and three associates arrested entering her New Orleans office under false pretenses; he pleaded to a misdemeanor and got probation | | Mar 2011 | NPR | Edited footage of an NPR fundraiser presented his remarks out of sequence; NPR's CEO resigned anyway | | Nov 2017 | [[Roy Moore]] | A Veritas operative approached the [[Washington Post]] with a false story that Moore had impregnated her as a teenager, apparently to discredit the Post's real reporting on Moore. The Post exposed the sting; that reporting was part of its 2018 Pulitzer | | 2020 | Election fraud videos | Claims involving Rep. Ilhan Omar's district and an Erie, Pennsylvania postal worker, whose account he recanted to postal inspectors. In February 2024 O'Keefe settled the Erie postmaster's suit, acknowledging he knew of no evidence of fraud there | | 2020–21 | Ashley Biden's diary | Two people stole the diary of Joe Biden's daughter and sold it to Project Veritas for $40,000; both pleaded guilty in 2022. The FBI searched O'Keefe's home in 2021. Veritas never published it | | Jan 2023 | Pfizer | A Pfizer employee recorded on a date talking about "mutating" the virus later said he had been lying to impress his date | The recurring element is not a false fact in every case; it is **editing and pretext** — the target is lured into a performance and the clip is shaped to make the performance look like a confession. ## Money and the courts Project Veritas has been funded largely through donor-advised pass-throughs; [[DonorsTrust]] alone gave it more than $6.6 million between 2011 and 2019, and the [[Trump Foundation]] also donated. It has been expensive to its donors in court: in September 2022 a federal jury found it violated wiretapping law in a sting on the Democratic consulting firm Democracy Partners and awarded $120,000. ## The collapse and after | Date | Event | |---|---| | Feb 2023 | The board removes O'Keefe over spending — including a $14,000 charter flight connected to his boat and $150,000 on car services; staff described him as a "power-drunk tyrant." He starts O'Keefe Media Group | | 2023 | Settlements with underpaid employees and a harassment claim describing a "highly sexualized" workplace | | Sept 2023 | Most staff laid off; operations largely suspended. Hannah Giles, briefly CEO, resigns in December calling it "an unsalvageable mess" | | Feb 2025 | Trump's Justice Department says it will not charge Project Veritas over the Ashley Biden diary | | 2025–26 | The organization publishes again under new leadership, with stings on [[Letitia James]]'s residency, EPA staff and Democratic officials (its own claims), and fundraises for "2026 investigations." A New Hampshire legislator tied to the group proposes legalizing one-party secret recording in the state | > [!note] What changed in 2025 > The diary case was Project Veritas's biggest legal exposure. The decision not to charge came weeks into the second Trump administration — the same pattern of dropped cases against allies the vault tracks in [[Trump Retribution Doctrine]], seen from the other side. ## See Also - [[James O'Keefe]] — founder - [[Andrew Breitbart]] — the media patron of the early stings - [[Dirty Tricks]] · [[Disinformation Lexicon]] - [[Leadership Institute]] · [[Richard Mellon Scaife]] · [[DonorsTrust]] — the training and money side - [[Laura Loomer]] · [[American Spectator]] — related operatives and outlets - [[Fusion GPS]] — which analyzed a different sting operation's videos (Center for Medical Progress) and found them heavily edited - [[Right-Wing Media Timeline]]