Ida Leaves Project Veritas’s New York Office in Shambles

The “Wall of Shame,” where Project Veritas displays corrections and updates made to news stories following its attempts to punk journalists, appeared mostly intact but surrounded by walls showing signs of water damage.

While Project Veritas is of course a notorious disinformation shop that has repeatedly demonstrated it will go to any rock bottom to cook up a damaging smear or self-promoting narrative, faking this level of damage seems rather out of its competency. But we’ll concede it’s possible the video was selectively shot to showcase the worst of the damage or that more was recoverable than they let on.

Notably, Project Veritas tried to frame CNN as participating in a conspiracy to promote awareness of climate change in a selfish scheme to reap fearmongering profits. Climate change is in fact real and is associated with the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Ida. Earlier this year, the National Hurricane Center took steps towards indicating it considers the U.S. hurricane season as now beginning in mid-May, instead of the historic date of June 1. Better observations may be responsible the more fierce hurricane seasons we’ve seen. But carbon pollution has played an inarguable role in heating up the oceans to help storms gain steam and pushed sea levels upward, resulted in more storm surge. It’s also made fierce rainstorms like what the remnants of Ida reportedly did to Project Veritas’ office more likely.

In the video, O’Keefe explained that on the night of Sept.1, Project Veritas staffers were so excited watching a live stream of a Sacramento, California school board meeting during which an “antifa” teacher has fired thanks to their efforts that they somehow missed rising floodwaters until some employees’ cars were already in 3 feet (1 meter) of water. He also tried to portray the forces of Ida as yet another nefarious attack against his organization, saying that Project Veritas is a “very resilient organization with perhaps the most resilient of any organization anywhere, and we often find ourselves rising from the ashes, like a phoenix, repeatedly over the last decade.”

“Continually attacked by external forces since the beginning, when we were nothing but a laptop and a Yeti microphone in the second floor of an old carriage house,” O’Keefe added.

O’Keefe then asked for donations.

For those looking to help out with those stricken by Hurricane Ida, the New York Times has a list of local and national organizations contributing to relief efforts here. We’ve compiled a list of organizations already helping in the Gulf Coast, which was hit hard by the storm but risks being overshadowed by New York. You can also help tribes that are reeling and have received scant attention.