Project Veritas CEO Steps Down, Citing 'Past Financial Improprieties'
Hannah Giles, who had a role in a sting video targeting the left-leaning Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), takes part in an Oct. 21, 2009, news conference at the National Press Club in Washington.
The chief executive of Project Veritas, a self-identified “investigative journalism” organization that pushes far-right agendas, announced she is resigning because of “strong evidence of past illegality and past financial improprieties.”
— Hannah Giles (@HannahMGiles) December 11, 2023
“I am stepping down from all roles with Project Veritas and Project Veritas Action — effective immediately,” Hannah Giles wrote Monday on X (formerly Twitter). “Though I had high hopes when I joined the organizations, I stepped into an unsalvageable mess — one wrought with strong evidence of past illegality and past financial improprieties. Once such evidence was discovered, I brought the information to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. Thank you.”
Giles took over for founder James O’Keefe in June, when the group’s board uncovered “financial malfeasance” from O’Keefe, including “$14,000 on a charter flight to meet someone to fix his boat under the guise of meeting with a donor” and “$60,000 in losses by putting together dance events such as Project Veritas Experience.” O’Keefe is under investigation in New York for misusing Project Veritas funds.
Project Veritas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In September, Project Veritas laid off its employees amid its financial struggles.
Project Veritas is known for its heavily edited videos, like a video targeting Planned Parenthood in 2008, where O’Keefe and Lila Rose, the founder of an anti-abortion group, illegally recorded Planned Parenthood employees consulting Rose, who they believed to be a 13-year-old pregnant girl. The video was edited to remove parts of the conversation where the Planned Parenthood employees tell Rose to talk with her mother about the pregnancy.
Giles and O’Keefe worked together in 2009 on a hidden-video “sting” that purportedly showed employees of the progressive Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) agreeing to aid the pair in crimes. The two, who had been employed by conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart, ended up paying settlements to one of the ACORN staffers. The organization, however, lost much of its funding despite investigations that found no wrongdoing.
Last year, Project Veritas was ordered to pay $120,000 to a Democratic consulting firm for secretly recording employees at the firm to embarrass them.
