The so-called truthteller

James O'Keefe in Dallas, Texas, November 29, 2017, courtesy of Jae S. Lee/Dallas Morning News.

Project Veritas head mocks Washington Post handling of hoax

By Emily Schmall

Published 2:00 pm, Thursday, November 30, 2017

DALLAS — The founder of a conservative nonprofit caught attempting to entice The Washington Post to report a false sex assault allegation against Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore mocked the newspaper’s handling of the hoax and said his group was aiming to expose media bias.

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe spoke Wednesday night on the Southern Methodist University campus in University Park, Texas, sponsored by the conservative Young Students for Freedom, a national nonprofit co-founded in the 1960s by William F. Buckley. Answering audience questions after the speech, O’Keefe was dismissive of the significance of a Post story chronicling the attempted hoax.

“I don’t have an opinion on it honestly. I can’t speak intelligently about it. The Washington Post seems to want a Nobel Prize for vetting a source correctly. Our work is sort of changing human nature and making people cautious,” he said.

Asked if having someone posing as a fake sex assault victim might be insulting to actual sex assault victims, O’Keefe said: “I have no comment on that, I’d like to move onto the next question please.” When pressed for an answer, members of the audience shouted down the reporter.

Project Veritas has used disguises and hidden cameras to uncover supposed liberal bias among journalists. In a story Monday, The Post described how a woman affiliated with the group told Post reporters Moore had impregnated her at age 15 and she had an abortion — all of which is false.

The Post was the first news media organization to report accusations that Moore sought to date teenage girls as young at 14 when he was in his 30s. The allegations have roiled the special election campaign for the Senate seat in Alabama. Moore has denied them and said the media is out to get him.

O’Keefe did not deny that his group was behind the hoax aimed at the Post, and said “our cover was blown.”

In an interview, O’Keefe said the effort was part of a broader project to use deception as a means to gain access to news organizations including the Post, The New York Times, CNN and others.

In May 2010, O’Keefe and three other men pleaded guilty in federal court to a misdemeanor in a scheme in which they posed as telephone repairmen in Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office.

Emily Schmall is an Associated Press writer.

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