Inside the Project Veritas CPAC Party: Whistleblowers, a Marriage Proposal, and James O’Keefe Dancing to Billie Jean
ORLANDO — After a day of speeches from Republican Party stars decrying “cancel culture,” the results of the 2020 election, and the handful of lawmakers who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, hordes of young conservative activists and reporters made their way to the afterparties. The Heritage Foundation threw an early evening shindig*, a pre-game of sorts for the evening’s main festivity: The Project Veritas party.
Project Veritas founder and president James O’Keefe kicked off the event with a series of speeches from his “whistleblowers” — former employees of media outlets, tech companies and even the USPS who accused their employers of impropriety, ranging from liberal bias to voter fraud.
O’Keefe’s whistleblowers include former United States postal worker Richard Hopkins, former Google employee Zach Vorhies, and former CNN employee Cary Poarch.
The Project Veritas “insiders,” as they’re often referred to as, were paraded out at the bash — held at The Capitol Grille in Orlando on Friday night — and delivered speeches to a boisterous crowd.
“There’s going to be a thousand of these in a year,” O’Keefe told me.
After Bo Snerdley, longtime producer for Rush Limbaugh, delivered an emotional ode to the recently deceased talk radio host, a man by the name of Tom Sauer climbed onto a makeshift stage fashioned from a Capitol Grille dining chair. He asked his girlfriend to come forward, and proposed. She said yes.
O’Keefe spoke at CPAC earlier in the day. On stage, he announced his plan to sue CNN for labeling his group an “activist organization.” That would double his legal efforts, which already count a suit against the New York Times, which Project Veritas has sued for labeling the group “deceptive.”
“You know, we already sued The New York Times for defamation and you know what, we’re gonna go ahead and sue the hell out of CNN for what they said,” O’Keefe said at CPAC Friday. “It’s about time we go on offense and sue the shit out of them.”
By 10:30 p.m., O’Keefe was dancing (quite well?) to Billie Jean. A few Trumpworld figures and CPAC speakers were spotted by Mediaite: former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, David Bossie, Spectator U.S. writer Amber Athey, Townhall reporter Julio Rosas, and wildly unsuccessful congressional candidate Kim Klacik.
*Mediaite did not attend the Heritage Foundation party, but someone who did described it thusly: “Open bar, solid Beef and fish sliders, many beautiful women fawning over their voter fraud expert Hans von Spakovsky.”
