Yesterday afternoon, several alert C&C readers quickly sussed out that my legal trip to New York this week was to defend James O’Keefe and O’Keefe Media Group in federal court in the Southern District of New York. The clue was a tweet by James O’Keefe saying that. As you know, I don’t usually comment about my clients or cases here, both for their privacy and to make sure I don’t inadvertently influence the case. (For example, I’d never want a C&C post to be somehow used as an exhibit against my client.)
So I can say a few things, since yesterday Mr. O’Keefe generously and publicly thanked us for helping defeat Project Veritas’s request for an injunction that would have shut down OMG, if it had been granted. I won’t continue this trend, but I will seize this rare opportunity to give you a taste of the flavor of a post-pandemic litigator’s life.
James O’Keefe, just outside the White Plains courthouse after the hearing
The stakes were as high as they get. Among a long laundry list of overreaching demands, Project Veritas had asked the Court to indefinitely forbid OMG from accepting money from anyone who had ever given even a dollar to Project Veritas (even though that unfortunate enterprise is now on life support owing to self-inflicted injuries).
Had it been granted, the injunction Project Veritas requested would have destroyed OMG and sidelined James through the election. I will not speculate on the timing, except to note PV’s lawsuit was filed back in May 2023, but for its own reasons Project Veritas waited a full year to strike in May 2024, only then seeking “emergency” injunctive relief.
You can do the math.
The hearing began promptly at 9:00am on Monday. After a brief skirmish over PV’s failure to serve Mr. O’Keefe properly (multiple mistakes), the smart, efficient judge agreed service was no good but said she would like to hear from him directly anyway, if possible. After I made a hasty hallway call to OMG offices, James voluntarily agreed to drive down to the courthouse and testify, even though he didn’t have to.
An injunctive hearing is like a little trial. Normally, both sides get to put on a case. But PV consumed the entire day with their half-dozen witnesses, including PV board member and former president (after James) Joseph Barton, James’ former executive assistant, PV’s I.T. manager, and OMG’s operations director.
Current Project Veritas president and board member Ben Wetmore, himself a lawyer, was listed as a PV witness but was, inexplicably, a no-show. It was probably a good decision; he escaped a withering cross-examination I took particular pains to prepare.
When instead, former PV president Barton testified, he claimed that James had breached certain provisions of his PV employment agreement, mostly by diverting PV donors to OMG, through telling them to stop giving money to PV. Barton claimed to have many such voice mails on his phone. But under cross, Barton could not name a single donor James allegedly diverted away from PV. Barton also admitted those alleged voice mails, which would have been
explosive evidence if true, were not provided as evidence for the hearing.
When asked why not, he said nobody asked him to bring the voice mails.
Breaking normal protocol again discussing my cases, I describe yesterday's critical victory in Project Veritas vs. O'Keefe.
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