James O’Keefe is out at Project Veritas. He was Project Veritas. I don’t see how it survives without its founder and motivator.
Of course, there probably are two sides to any story, blah, blah, blah. He took some lady’s sammich! He spent money on dance stuff, he paid for his wedding which actually turned out to be a staff party, blah, blah, blah. I assume there will be some mud slinging, but it will be by people you’ve never heard of who fed off James’ notariety and grand persona.
I don’t know James well, but I’ve met him several times, most recently in Wisconsin at an event. He entered onto the stage like a rock star with teenage girls (now in their 60s and 70s) swooning. Kemberlee used to work for James in the early days of Project Veritas, and James was her reference when we hired her in 2014.
In his 40+ minute video, it was touching to hear him talk about how he started Project Veritas in his parents’ garage, and of his struggles to build the organization and the support from his parents. One part jumped out at me and hit me, when he addressed how fundraising was one of the issues over which he clashed with the Board and executives.
Fundraising drives so much of conservative non-profit world. I get it, you need donations to pay the bills, but I’ve observed that fundraising for many organizations becomes an end in itself.
So when James talked of how he pushed back against the fundraising philosophy of those against him in the organization, he paraphrased Howard Roarke:
“I don’t build to have donors, I have donors to build.”
That hit hit close to home. That’s our philosophy.
We are not slick fundraisers. Until Ilana started pitching in last summer, we didn’t even have a “development” plan or department or person. Our donors have been almost entirely readers and fans of the website, people I know, and people who know people I know.
We raise money to build Legal Insurrection, and its CriticalRace.org and new EqualProtect.org projects. We build to keep access to this website free, and not to stratify readers with different access levels, and to make our resources at the CRT and EPP websites free for others to use. We build to help people under attack.
We’ll never let fundraising be the purpose of Legal Insurrection. For all our team, Legal Insurrection is a labor of love.
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