Today it was reported that Project Veritas has fired all of its reporters and shuttered its operations months after the group ousted its founder, James O’Keefe, claiming that he created a hostile work environment and consumed an outsized portion of company resources.
The news was broken by former Project Veritas employee Bobby Harr, who is now an independent reporter. Harr wrote that Project Veritas suspended its operations, effective immediately, on September 21.
Harr claimed that CEO Hannah Giles, who was involved in the ACORN sting video with O’Keefe and returned to the company in his absence, reportedly cited “financial ruin” as the reason for the final layoffs, and reported that all investigations have been halted.
BREAKING: Project Veritas suspends all operations effective immediately.
CEO @HannahMGiles and Jen Kiyak of Human Resources cite financial ruin as reason for additional layoffs on 9/20/23 leaving merely a handful of employees left.
All investigations halted as of today.
— Bobby Harr (@BobbyHReports) September 20, 2023
Reporting from The Post Millennial indicates those remaining employees who were not fired in August were terminated in a mass firing on Wednesday, adding that those who remained until that point were mostly administrative staff, or those charged with fundraising.
A post that was briefly published, then deleted, on the official Project Veritas X/Twitter account on August 17 read “SOS Hannah Giles just fired us all.” The company did not comment on the post’s meaning.
Another source told the outlet that “the donations dried up” after O’Keefe left the group. The source claimed Project Veritas’s board was “desperate to bring Hannah on board because they thought it would be cute but the problem is she’s a charlatan and a fraud.”
O’Keefe has not responded directly to the statement, nor has his new O’Keefe Media Group (OMG), but he did share a statement provided to MediaIte by his lawyer on X, formerly Twitter.
“It appears that in the few months since Project Veritas ousted James, it continued to spend money at the same rate, blowing through the many millions of dollars James had previously raised for it – despite PV having no new sources of fundraising,” said attorney Jeffrey Lichtman to the outlet. “This is highly suspect and we would welcome a full audit of PV’s finances to learn where that money was actually spent.”
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) September 21, 2023
Project Veritas commissioned an outside firm to create a lengthy report on O’Keefe’s alleged wrongdoing after he was ousted. The company chose not to make it public, but it was later leaked by former Project Veritas employees.
The report made a series of unfounded claims about O’Keefe, including that he instructed employees to engage in illegal behavior and routinely belittled subordinates. It is unclear how much money Project Veritas spent on the report after ousting O’Keefe.
