Florida bars Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe from fundraising due to criminal conviction

The following article by Shawn Boburg was posted on the Washington Post website December 8, 2017:

James O’Keefe, the conservative founder of a charity that specializes in undercover videos targeting journalists and liberals, has been personally barred from seeking donations in Florida due to his criminal record, officials said.

The ban is part of a wave of scrutiny by regulators in several states after New York officials threatened last week to prohibit Project Veritas from raising money in that state. The charity did not disclose O’Keefe’s 2010 conviction for entering a federal building under false pretenses, as required, New York officials said.

While Project Veritas’s deceptive techniques and splashy videos have attracted attention and acclaim from far-right activists, as well as criticism from others, its past problems with regulators have gained little notice. The charity has previously been sanctioned or denied a license to seek donations in Utah, Mississippi, Wisconsin and Maine, records show, due partly to misstatements and failures to disclose O’Keefe’s conviction for entering a U.S. senator’s office with two men who were posing as telephone repairmen to make a secret recording. Continue reading “Florida bars Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe from fundraising due to criminal conviction”