It’s time once again to check in on everyone’s favorite sociopath performance artist James O’Keefe III, who sadly has not sailed away on his dildo boat or been hauled off to jail in his underoos, again. Yet!
O’Keefe and his former “nonprofit” Project Veritas (which he allegedly looted) just settled a libel lawsuit brought by Robert Weisenbach, a postmaster from Erie, Pennsylvania. O’Keefe, whose active fantasy life and sticky fingers ALLEGEDLY got him ousted from Veritas last year, accused Weisenbach of doing the “ballot harvesting” and the vote fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
O’Keefe’s greatest hits include having to pay ACORN $100k for libelslandering its employees — that one, you’ll remember, was broken by this very website, Wonkette! — buying Ashley Biden’s stolen diary (an ongoing saga), pretending to be a telephone repairman to break into a US senator’s office, and paying a woman to pretend to be a child sex abuse victim of Senate candidate Roy Moore in order to double bankshot gotcha a reporter from the Washington Post, who did not bite.
WE BROKE THAT ONE.
His latest magnum fictus was based on the claim that a postal worker named Richard Hopkins had overheard the “Anti-Trump” postmaster demanding that employees backdate mail-in ballots that arrived too late at the Erie General Mail Facility.
On November 6, two days after the election, O’Keefe posted an interview with Hopkins as a pixelated “whistleblower,” swearing that “Rob the postmaster” was telling workers to separate ballots, and showing a picture of a smiling Weisenbach that looks to have been ripped from a Facebook page. “The fraud is happening as we speak … they are going to be collecting and backdating ballots in Pennsylvania tomorrow according to our whistleblower,” O’Keefe heaved.
IT WAS THIS ONE.
But, you do not fuck with the Postal Service's Office of Inspector General, they get stuff done. (Just ask Steve Bannon.)
Two agents arrived at the Erie post office on the very same day, and generally inspected, at which time Hopkins immediately recanted his doofy claim. Turns out Hopkins wasn’t even working the day he said he overheard these conversations, whoops! Also, as it turns out, Weisenbach is a registered Republican who voted for Trump. D’oh! That must have made for awkward conversation with his stalkers.
But James O’Keefe did not get where he is in this life by letting little things like “facts” and “law” slow him down. He’s a busy man, with serious concerns, like “grifting stupids out of their money with ridiculous lies.” In little Jimmy’s defense, he’d already come up with a super cool title for his little book report, and you could hardly expect him to walk away from Operation “Diamond Dog” just ‘cause it was bullshit. So he went ahead with the plan, and furiously fapped out tweets about hashtag ballot harvesting, hashtag backdategate, and hashtag mail fraud, which were in turn lapped up and re-Tweeted, until they emerged from the mouth of human remora Lindsey Graham, who called for a DOJ investigation. Even the former rapist-in-chief got in on the action.
A frothing mob of suckers sicc’ed themselves on the mailman, who was put on leave from his job as he and his family were assailed with death threats, eventually forced to flee their home after one particularly rabid Trump fan had to be subdued by police in the driveway.
And lest you think O’Keefe ruins people’s lives for free, the intrepid “journalist” also set up multiple fundraising accounts, netting more than $350,000.
This is O’Keefe’s game, and he played it well enough that Project Veritas raked in $22 million in 2020, which is a lot of suckers. But because he’s a walking criminal liability, and possibly because he abused employees, or maybe because he spent ridiculous amounts on limos and musical theater, James himself was separated from his own nonprofit in 2023. Sad! Unfortunately the dollar amount won by the postmaster is undisclosed, but we can leave you with the apology:
"Mr. Hopkins has since come to learn that he was wrong — neither Mr. Weisenbach nor any other USPS employee in Erie, Pennsylvania engaged in election fraud or any other wrongdoing related to mail-in ballots. With this update, Project Veritas is aware of no evidence or other allegation that election fraud occurred in the Erie Post Office during the 2020 Presidential Election."
Well, that’s nice to know.
O’Keefe has now pinned the retraction to his Twitter TL, perhaps hoping to imply to the world that he somehow uncovered this pile of shit, rather than popped a squat and planted it himself, but it was probably court-ordered.
Hey, you know who’s never had to settle a libel case, except in our own favor?
OPEN THREAD!
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Tonight the Empire State Building is in red in celebration of the Lunar New Year. If you would like to check the ESB lights calendar for yourself: esbnyc.com/about/tower-lights/calendar
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I think I've set some kind of record on the number of times I've been suspended then unsuspended by Venmo in a short period of time. BTW FUCK VENMO!
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