Report: James O’Keefe on the Verge of Being Ousted From Project Veritas as Board Attempts ‘Hostile Takeover’

James O’Keefe, the founder and chairman of Project Veritas, was put on paid leave from his non-profit journalism enterprise on Wednesday amid what some are calling an attempted “hostile takeover” being executed by certain board members.

The Project Veritas Board of Directors will reportedly decide whether to remove him from his leadership position in a meeting scheduled for Friday.

Project Veritas put out a statement in response to this news Wednesday evening, saying that the board is conducting an “internal evaluation to assure our long term success.”

“Like all newsrooms at this stage, the Project Veritas Board of Directors and Management are constantly evaluating what the best path forward is for the organization,” the statement read. “There are 65+ employees at Project Veritas dedicated to continuing the mission to expose corruption, dishonesty, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions,” the statement read. “To our supporters: We hear you, we care about you, and we will never give up.”

Project Veritas’ Official Response to Today’s News Reports

Despite what the Corporate Media tries to portray about our organization, know this: We have never been more motivated and dedicated to our mission than now. pic.twitter.com/sB7Cz97b5M

— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) February 9, 2023

Earlier Wednesday, according to New York Magazine’s Intelligencer, Veritas’ executive director, Daniel Strack sent an internal message to Project Veritas employees saying that O’Keefe would be taking “a few weeks of well-deserved PTO.”

In the message, Strack reportedly referred to what he called “a distracting time” at the organization and said that a board meeting had been held to discuss “the health of the organization.” Strack added that while “we have not come up with final solutions yet we have made a few immediate decisions.”

Strack was formerly the managing director (MD) at Goldman Sachs, but was ousted after less than three years. He reportedly joined Goldman in 2001, made MD in 2013 and left the company in September of 2016.

According to reports, O’Keefe recently fired two top Project Veritas executives—Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) Barry Hinckley and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Tom O’Hara—due to their alleged insubordination. O’Hara, according to his Project Veritas bio, has over 25 years of experience in business, accounting, financial and reporting operations. He joined the organization in October of 2018.

Hinckley, who has pronouns in his LinkedIn bio, became CSO at Project Veritas in November of 2022.

According to the Intelligencer, the board of directors then voted to rehire the executives, and put O’Keefe on paid leave.

Reportedly, Project Veritas is divided between “a group of employees who are perceived to be loyal to O’Keefe, including his communications adviser, R.C. Maxwell, and the board, which has been dissatisfied with what it perceives as O’Keefe’s mismanagement.”

A letter dated February 6 was circulated at Veritas featuring eleven pages of testimonies from anonymous employees criticizing O’Keefe, with one staffer allegedly calling him a “power-drunk tyrant.”

Hinckley, according to the Intelligencer, later wrote a message to the staff saying he had “stood up to a bully” and had lost his job as a result.

An anonymous source from the pro-O’Keefe camp, shared his version of events with a Veritas insider. The source alleged that Matt Tyrmand, a member of the board, O’Hara, and Hinckley led “a six-and-a-half hour struggle session versus James where they subjected him to...

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