Project Veritas CEO Quits and Slings Mud on Her Way Out, Leaving Org ‘As Good as Dead’
James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, left the group earlier this year. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais.
Project Veritas CEO Hannah Giles resigned from the political organization on Monday, leveling serious accusations on her way out in a announcement posted to X, formerly Twitter.
“I am stepping down from all roles with Project Veritas and Project Veritas Action – effective immediately,” she wrote. “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.”
Mediaite spoke with several recently departed Project Veritas staffers moments after Giles’ announcement. They said her exit from the group founded by famed right-wing activist James O’Keefe came as little surprise.
Bobby Harr, the former lead investigative reporter for Project Veritas, said Giles “knew what she was walking into when she took over as CEO.”
“She promised us everything and delivered next to nothing,” he said. “While PV may have been an ‘unsalvageable mess,’ her skills as a leader are even less. She had no business being in that role from the beginning and she knows it.”
Another former Project Veritas staffer who asked to remain anonymous to candidly discuss internal details said the alleged “past illegality and past financial improprieties” Giles referenced in her announcement refer to the “unresolved lawsuits, the Westchester DA looking into James [O’Keefe’s] spending, and the overall results from the internal audit.”
O’Keefe’s attorney Jeffrey Lichtman rejected Giles’s claims in a comment to Mediaite: “My reaction to her statement is shock: she’s either demented or a grifting liar. She told me repeatedly that a PV board member had forcefully told law enforcement that no such financial irregularities existed at PV during James’ leadership. Now, after spending the millions left in the bank account, she changes her story, quits and goes home.”
Mediaite reported in September that Project Veritas was on the brink of collapse after Giles told staffers in an internal meeting that the non-profit was “bankrupt.” Giles’s reign at Project Veritas was short-lived: she took the helm in June following the messy departure of O’Keefe, who left in February. An internal audit reported by the Washington Post in September accused O’Keefe of using Project Veritas funds to cover lavish personal expenditures.
In the months since, the former staffer told Mediaite that the remaining employees have been “busy liquidating the Mamoroneck office, selling supplies and equipment to empty the building.”
Staffers, the source said, are not upset by her departure. The overall sentiment is: “Pretty much she said ‘peace out’ and left them in the dust, unsure of what is going on.”
Giles did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
Kalen Eriksson, a former senior producer at Project Veritas, said the group’s death has been months in the making: “Project Veritas was fatally shot in February when James decided to walk away instead of face up to a couple management checks, allowing a misinformed audience to cannibalize it for social media clout. In August, Hannah put PV in a coma it will never wake up from when she fired the staff that actually did the work PV existed for.”
“Now, she’s run out of money the coma-induced company can pay her, she’s cut and run, leaving PV as good as dead,” he said.
Harr echoed that sentiment.
“The end of PV was when Hannah got rid of all of the journalists. We were the lifeblood of the organization. We put the meat on the table. Period. PV has been done for a long time now. This is merely a formality.”
