Project Veritas To Conduct “Two-Dimensional” Audit Of James O’Keefe Expenses Looking For Problems
When I was in private practice prior to joining Cornell in 2007, almost half my practice was representing employees against stock brokerage firms. I was very familiar with the drill when a company wanted to get rid of someone, or defend an employment claim: Audit expense reports.
When I was in private practice prior to joining Cornell in 2007, almost half my practice was representing employees against stock brokerage firms (the other half was representing investors against stock brokerage firms). I was very familiar with the drill when a company wanted to get rid of someone, or defend an employment claim: Audit expense reports.
If you rounded up a $3.47 coffee to $3.50, they would turn it into the crime of the century. That could be the most expensive coffee you ever purchased. I had one matter where the company raked the employee over the coals (as a prelude to firing) because he put in for mileage from his home to a legitimate business meeting, and the company cried foul because he only was supposed to put in the mileage from the office to the meeting, which was closer.
So I always counseled people when they started new employment to account for every single penny. Every single one. Lax practices company-wide would be no defense when the company came after you.
So it comes as no surprise that Project Veritas raised issues as to the spending of James O’Keefe in various communications at the time James was removed from the company he founded. I saw where this was going, because I’ve seen this movie before.
Now it’s official. In a mass email this morning, Project Veritas announced an audit of James spending. The subject line on the email was:
Update: We hold everyone accountable, especially ourselves
You can read the full email here. The key portion was this:
An independent two-dimensional audit is being arranged to examine all of the issues, including those outlined below:
1) Breaking the Bylaws of the organization by unilaterally dismissing the CFO and co-opting another board member’s vote by saying that board member supported the dismissal (they did not).
2) Private inurement/fiduciary responsibility (using donations for private benefit). The board included in its statement what it is aware of so far which clearly warrants this internal audit to ensure your hard-earned, and graciously donated, money is utilized appropriately. We hope to know more details around this soon.
This is consistent with internal email leaked to the Post Millenial – that leak probably prompted the Project Veritas mass email:
An email obtained by The Post Millennial shows that Project Veritas has reached out to donors to ask them to stay with the company despite founder and CEO James O’Keefe having been pushed out by the board of directors. Project Veritas is a not-for-profit operating entirely on the generosity of donors.
“We hope that you might continue to give us a chance,” the email says, pleading with donors. “We can’t stress how separate the board’s role is from daily operations here at PV. We are still grinding and pursuing stories of great public importance.”
The email, sent by Bethany Rolando, who was one of the 16 signers of a letter sent to the Board of Directors reporting personal grievances against O’Keefe, offers the subject line “Update: We hold everyone accountable, especially ourselves.”
“We understand and share your frustrations,” the email reads. “We all love and respect James and hope he returns. This is difficult for everyone.”
The email states that “an independent two-dimensional audit is being arranged” to determine if financial wrong-doing has taken place, and if O’Keefe had broken administrative procedure.
What is a “two-dimenional” audit? I had not heard the term before, but it sounds more intense than a regular audit. The internet did not reveal a simple explanation for a two-dimensional financial audit (if any commenters find a good explanation, please post in comments with a link).
My guess is that the audit will be more intense, it will approach anything and everything James spent to see if there is a retroactive reason to have forced him out. Given that James spent so much of his time traveling for fundraising, and was a larger than life personality, don’t be surprised if the two-dimensional audit results are used by Project Veritas as an after-the-fact justification.
We’ve seen this movie before.
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Comments
The subhead made my comment for me.
Yeah, those rats are on their own. Everyone’s going i$ going to follow Jame$. The rats will die of starvation.
Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime. Thanks, Lavrentiy
“What is a “two-dimenional” audit? I had not heard the term before, but it sounds more intense than a regular audit.”
My first thought is that it’s what the rest of us would call “a spreadsheet.”
It’s probably just a regular audit that they wish to make sound more interesting.
I do audits for a living. Never heard of a “two dimensional” audit.
So then, it’s a “fancy” audit done by an unprofessional.
Like “kraken” evidence.
The word veritas is taking a hit on its meaning with these clowns in charge.
They look down your throat and up your ass at the same time.
I’m happy I wasn’t drinking anything when I read this. I’m still laughing. It’s a standard medical procedure though.
They will eventually find Jimmy Hoffa…
LOL. Almost spit my coffee on the keyboard.
And if they can see each other, they admit you.
Yeah, you’ve been in the Navy!
It’s in a fictional universe, where you get to make things up.
double secret probation
Or they could be talking about a model of auditing under accounting standards. But you know everything so it can’t be that.
Ingrate. I gave you my first thought, and you threw it back in my face.
Harumph.
Perhaps they meant “multi-faceted”.
Let’s see how long Project Veritas lasts without O’Keefe.
Exactly correct!! Indeed, before I even read your story, here’s my reply to PV’s early morning email: “Sorry, I’m an employment law attorney and know how this game works. I don’t believe you. I’ve followed James from the beginning. He’s as solid a person as I’ve ever seen. Goodbye.”
Double secret probation.
I don’t understand. O’Keefe is already out -why pursue him further? To “justify” the board’s position against him, to make themselves look better to the donors? Drag O’Keefe’s name through the mud? Their brand is already ruined as far as I’m concerned – I suspect my feelings are shared by others. Going after him further looks petty and vindictive. I don’t see the benefit to what I assume is a costly course of action.
These aren’t rhetorical questions – could someone explain? It really doesn’t make sense to me because he’s already out, unless they thought he was going to sue them. What is their gain?
It reeks of desperation. So full of themselves they overlooked that O’Keefe was PV, and without him they sink faster than the Titanic. So now they try to defame O’Keefe in a desperate attempt to stay solvent.
Well, it comes across as a bad look. Do these people not have mirrors?
Donors aren’t stupid.
Sadly, the rats will land on their feet, paid by the Soros gang.
The self-absorbed tend not to be self-aware.
So true. And really quite profound.
But useful idiots are.
This ends only two ways: a PV that is only 10% as effective as it was with O’Keefe (the Tea Party scenario) or a dead PV (the NRA scenario, just wait for it). Either way, the swampies win, and the swampies don’t care whether or not the new board members keep a job.
They’re auditing him because they can’t impeach him.
All of the above.
My guess is that, they believed that PV had “outgrown” dependence on O’Keefe’s name for their popularity; they were probably shocked by the reaction when they moved to oust him.
They quickly realized they may have made a minor miscalculation and are now desperately trying to find anything they can use to justify their perfidy, in the hopes that they can convince at least some donors to stay with them.
Good luck with that.
TL;DR, they need a new spokescandy, fast.
Because O’Keefe is WINNING.
The deluded idiots on the board thought that they could seize control of the company, strip authority from O’Keefe because of leftist BS about ‘hostile work environment’, and that he would have to just quietly accept it and walk away and they could just BS about how they ‘didn’t FIRE him’. They seemed utterly unprepared for any actual public backlash.
As I said in the previous post on this subject, their statement on his ‘expenses’ absolutely REEKS of last-minute desperation where they suddenly made 2 claims that they had made absolutely no mention of prior to the blowback – that he fired the CFO and that he had been ‘misusing’ funds, both of which are far more serious charges than a few idiots whining about how he was mean to them.
O’Keefe has won. Veritas has nothing without him. They have no work prepared to demonstrate they can do anything without O’Keefe, Not even the leftist Never Trump donors are going to touch them because they have nothing to offer.
O’Keefe has won the public relations battle.
It will be fun to see the video that O’Keefe makes when he runs a sting on the board.
This kind of thing also happens in business. Asset thieves. Someone starts a successful business, I grows and the founder brings in a partner. At some point the partner talks founder into bringing in another partner. Then they kick out founder. I new one founder who lost his house that way. I grew my businesses with retained earnings, slow but sure. Never borrowed to grow.
Seems pretty clear to me. The money spigot took a hard shutdown. They want to FUD as many donors as possible to get it turned back on.
That’s easy… major donors pulled their pledges back. Now PV is trying to justify it to the donors.
At some point, the majority of organizations, both private and public, get co-opted or infiltrated by bad actors who pretend to support the vision of the founders. They don’t really. They’re after subverting the mission and slowly brainwashing donors/supporters and lining their own pockets.
As far as I am aware nothing exists on a two-dimensional plane other than a drawing or a cartoon. Take that for what you will.
Project Veritas is done.
It should be don, hopefully O’Keefe is starting a new entity, reaching out to all donors to let them know that he will continue his good works under a new name.
Maybe call it James O’Keefe Enterprises. It will give a whole new meaning to the phrase – The JOKE’s on you!
Seriously though, he *is* Project Veritas, and whatever new entity he creates, will have the same impact that PV had under his direction.
I always like to figure out why I fired someone after I do it. It is so much easier than doing it before. If you do it before the person you are targeting may notice and ruin the surprise. Surprise party are so much more fun than regular parties don’t you agree?
It would be interesting if we knew the identities of the Board. Further investigation may shed light on who is pulling their strings.
It would be fun to watch O’Keefe do a sting on them. That would be really great.
You can find who the directors are by looing at PV’s Form 990. For the 2021 filing, the most recent I could find, the directors were named on page 7.
Have fun investigating.
After the fact justification seems apt. These guys forced out the star of the organization. I have no doubt they will find errors and omissions during his tenure. The way to handle it is an internal audit, uncover flaws in reporting guidance, problems with the ease of reporting, clear definitions as to what are illegitimate items. Then set new, updated guidelines and training. Recoup if egregious.
That’s not what appears to be going here. Instead the suspension and dismissal preceded the audit. An example of ‘verdict first then the trial’ Alice in Wonderland style injustice. IMO the folks doing it wanted him gone and now after the pushback are trying to justify their prior decision. The whole thing is tainted b/c they acted in haste and now seek not to repent at leisure but to justify at leisure. Unless they find he was knowing expensing child prostitutes I don’t care what they discover retrospectively b/c it isn’t the basis of their decision.
That would assume that they understand that child prostitution is bad.
I would hope “two dimensional audit” means give and take – i.e., so what if he recorded $3.50 for a $3.47 cup of coffee if he somehow made up the $.03 elsewhere. When I traveled, cars, hotels, gasoline were actuals with receipts. Food came out of a daily per diem. We had guys, usually accountants, who packed a box of breakfast bars and PB&J sandwiches, and ate at happy hour (Embassy Suites) to pocket the daily per diem. Us QA/Mfg types were all about drinks and dinner out and avoiding the stick-in-the-mud accountants.
The level of audit proposed for O’Keefe angers me in the sense that sending someone out into the field is rife with personal risk and dedication, especially if the man has a family. Times when I was sent out in the field for a multi-week job and my employer had me stay over the weekend because it was cheaper than airfare and paying me on a Friday and Monday to sit on an airplane between Seattle and Hartford – with a stopover in OHare. The company saved a few bucks by icing me in a hotel for the weekend, at the cost of me not being with my wife and children. Is there any pay or consideration for that? None.
If the auditors fail to turn up some BLM-grade financial fraud, the donors will revolt.
I think that O’Keefe should be organizing that donor revolt now. O’Keefe was caught like a deer in headlights, blindsided.
Desperation to try and justify outrageous actions is never a good look.
My guess at what they mean by a 2D audit is an accountant hired by the board, overseen by the board, given only numbers approved by the board, forbidden from checking with any information NOT from the board, and presenting their end report ONLY to the board. Bonus points if the accountant is a direct relative of a boardmember or a former employee.
O’Keefe and the public will never be given the numbers or conditions behind this audit. All we will see is the pre-written conclusion of the board listing unspecified financial issues and outright lies.
What is needed (and will never happen) is a full top-to-bottom audit of the whole company by a real independent auditor. I suspect the CFO that had been fired would be arrested shortly afterward.
I’m not sure what the board was thinking here. Did they expect O’Keefe to go quietly? Did they really think his supporters cared if he ate someone’s sandwich or took black cars to events?
And did no one consider the optics of doing this immediately after he outed Pfizer for some shady behavior?
For being stupid the board and Project Veritas deserves to crash and burn.
This is not just stupid, they are scheming, and I bet it is about how much money has been accumulated.
My sixth sense tells me that a 2 dimensional audit would be a paperless one. In that even one sheet of paper has height (and stacks considerably more so), an audit lacking the third dimension would of necessity be a digital one that is represented only on a computer screen.
Looking for evidence of crimes AFTER conviction and sentencing sounds like part of a smear strategy. Like they didn’t realize they had opened themselves up to a lawsuit until after he was railroaded.
My assumption is that big pharma threw a few million dollars at the problem. The only thing that makes sense is they were bribed. Otherwise this is the same as a pro football team firing all of the starting line. You only do this if you money isn’t coming from winning games.
Or the FBI stepped in and encouraged the board. I was never a conspiracy theorist, until the theories seemed probable than the “facts” published.
Sleeper agents on the board.
Yep, that was my impression as well, that the board had been planning to get rid of O’Keefe, but the Pfizer sting simply forced them to go off half-cocked and it was obvious what a joke the whole thing was.
The time to do this audit is before you force someone out.
Going looking for a crime after the fact looks an awful lot like a Dem tactic and should rightly cost them a lot of donors.
A witch hunt, a warlock trial, a Planned baby… fetal-baby.
Yup.
You should recall when the Arkansas Clinton Crime Family moved into the WH. One day soon there after they did a PR move of sending roses to all the staff with a note thanking them for all their hard work. Followed THAT SAME DAY by pink slips for the entire staff of the WH Travel Office. With orders to clear out their desks and leave immediately.
Now the TO was not staffed by political appointees, they were professionals who had worked for successive admins and knew the ins and outs of WH travel planning requirements – a rather specialized version of the travel planning agent business, it was rather unprecedented to fire them all – let alone any of them – and replace them with a private firm. Later Internal memos documented that the firing was at the personal request of Mrs. Clinton. Which she denied but the memos said otherwise. And strangely enuf the replacement firm was owned by a relative of the Clintons.
Now all this was likely only of interest to the fired workers – except the replacement firm managed to screw up since they had no experience arranging for travel and accommodations of the traveling circus that is the President, his staff, security, and accompanying PRESS CORPS. Ordinarily the WH PC was rather friendly to the Clintons – internal surveys conducted by their own member organization showed more than 90% of them voted for the Clintons after all. Screw with regular worker’s jobs? Not News. But screw up the press’s plane seats, or hotel reservations or meals? THAT they’ll notice,
It’s a really Bad Look for the Head Honcho’s Wife to fire non-political govt workers who know what they’re doing and replace them with a firm run by a distant relative who promptly messes up. Doing so when the Press Corps personal comfort is involved is Bad PR on a higher level.
Denials ensued, claims were made that the firing was for cause, a new internal memo – proven later in court to have been illegally backdated to before the firing – was produced to “prove” this wasn’t driven by a what it looked to be driven by, and audits (backdated but after the fact) were hurriedly started to cover exposed @ss. Best they could come up with was several occasions over the years the TO workers or boss had used their personal credit cards (for later reimbursement) to pay for things like food for the travelers or fuel for the planes when travel snafus needed fixing and govt cards were declined.
So, yes, the PV firing of JO’K followed by retroactive claims of financial wrong-doing to be “proven” later by a sketchy “audit” ipsounds very familiar.
“The time to do this audit is before you force someone out.”
Hard to do this, as Sam Bankman-Fried will tell you.
Obviously, a two dimensional audit is just shy of a three dimensional audit.
The worst possible case would be a five dimensional audit, wherein Marylyn McCoo would be called in to go through the records.
Up, up and away in my beautiful balloon
But she will damn sure let the sunshine in.
Interesting. The Apparatus succeeded in marginalizing Breitbart.com, but Andrew Breitbart kept going until he mysteriously died.
Can O’Keefe expense a food taster? Asking for my Tinfoil Hat.
Might as well do an audit as it will probably be needed for their bankruptcy filing
I think they mean internal and external. So they might be hiring detectives to find “witnesses” to collaborate “stories” of impropriety? Most of what I found on multi-dimensional audits pertain to medical and scientific audits of studies usually mapping out heat. That clears it up.
I’m sure the nature of his work involved buying lunch or dinner or otherwise spending money on his targets. That could be the external dimension. Lots of opportunity there for mischief.
Let them audit. 1,2 or 3 dimensional. Hell just use a Proctologist. I’m a donor, no more. If James sets up shop elsewhere, guess what, I’ll be a donor.
So they got rid of James and PV is going into the tank. Donors and followers are leaving in mass so they are trying to pin anything bad they can on James but I doubt that will work. James will go to some other place and start a new PV or another project . Guess what it will be a success because of the person James O’Keefe.
The new Veritas seems a lot like the old Pravda.
Give a bureaucrat power and that bureaucrat will begin to think he is more important than is the organization he serves.
I still don’t get it.
Did the Bulls fire Michael Jordan for sticking his tongue out or for exceeding his allotment of towels in the locker room? The only way that the Bulls administration would have fired Jordan is if it came to light that Michael was raping underage boys in the locker room before home games. And even then…
James was the Michael Jordan of so-called ‘ambush journalism’. Surely the board knew that he was their superstar, their ‘raison d’etre’, from whence all of their donations sprang. Every board member knew that PV would cease to exist as a force for truth if they lost James.
Didn’t James recently dunk hard on the multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical company named Pfizer? Did he not get one of their executives to volunteer, on videotape, that Pfizer was experimenting with gain-of-function research on the covid virus, for the explicit purpose of selling more vaccines when these new viruses were inevitably introduced into society at large?
Is this nefarious plan not one of the most wicked plans that men could ever possibly conceive? It’s the stuff of super-villains. Did this undercover video not take billions of future dollars out of the pockets of Pfizer execs? Would they not be mad, and insofar as they have been revealed as wicked as super-villains, would they not be highly motivated to use their considerable wealth to retaliate against James, legally or otherwise?
I have not one scintilla of evidence to suggest that this is some form of retaliation undertaken by Pfizer execs, but the timing of the events, alongside the obvious foolishness of PV firing their superstar is enough to do more than raise eyebrows.
I am not a lawyer, but cannot a civil lawsuit such as wrongful termination potentially lead to a criminal investigation? Say an investigation revealed that the board members were financially enticed by Pfizer to punish their superstar? Would this amount to a criminal conspiracy?
Something really stinks here. The notion that some sort of ‘reimbursement of expenses’ anomaly led to James’ termination is facially absurd. If it were financial chicanery, it would have to rise to the level of criminal embezzlement for which law enforcement would have gotten involved and the board would have fired him only after indictment.
Goodbye Project Veritas, hello Project Mendacium.
Erronius
… aaaaand “whistleblowers” who worked with O’Keefe at Veritas just released a montage video. “I Stand With James O’Keefe.”
One by one, right into the camera, starting with their own names.
He got Pfizered! Fires the CFO and rightfully so. Exposed Pfizer bigly. WEF, Soros, China money (you name it) money pours in. Suddenly there are disgruntled employees and the board finds need of an audit. Follow the money. They always kill the prophets.
Pfizer undercover video anyone?
As to the meaning of a ‘two dimensional audit’ I am guessing it refers to the two facets listed in donor wide email, viz:
“1) Breaking the Bylaws of the organization by unilaterally dismissing the CFO and co-opting another board member’s vote by saying that board member supported the dismissal (they did not).
2) Private inurement/fiduciary responsibility (using donations for private benefit). The board included in its statement what it is aware of so far which clearly warrants this internal audit to ensure your hard-earned, and graciously donated, money is utilized appropriately. We hope to know more details around this soon.”
The word “dimensional’ is added to make it sound more menacing.
Some commenters have wondered who the PV directors are. That’s disclosed in the Form 990 PV must file annually. The officers and directors are listed on page 7 of the 2021 Form 990, the most recent I’ve been able to find. Also shows that PV paid O’Keefe $396000 and change and $8600 and change in ‘related organization compensation”
Not a bad deal for O’Keefe. He’s not living in a cardboard box.
I’m with leoamery’s astute observation that they are auditing costs AND auditing treatment of staff. However 2D might just be woke-speak to do a total frame job while portraying themselves as vestal virgins beyond reproach. Great inputs from the employment law faction, btw.
A two-dimensional audit will reveal if he did or he didn’t. A three-dimensional audit reveals what he did or didn’t.