James Edward O'Keefe III (born June 28, 1984) is an American conservative political activist. He has produced secretly recorded undercover audio and video encounters, always selectively edited to misrepresent actual events, with figures and workers in academic, governmental and social service organizations, presenting his videos in ways that appears to be abusive or alleged illegal behavior by representatives of those organizations. He gained national attention for his release of video recordings of workers at ACORN offices in 2009, his arrest in early 2010 at the office of then-U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) in a failed attempt to record staff conversations, and the release of videos of conversations with two high-ranking, now former, NPR executives in 2011.



Due to his videos of ACORN workers allegedly aiding a couple in criminal planning, the U.S. Congress voted to freeze funds for the non-profit. The national scandal resulted in the non-profit also losing most private funding before investigations were completed. In March 2010, ACORN was close to bankruptcy and had to close most of its offices. Shortly after, the California State Attorney General's Office and the US Government Accountability Office released their related investigative reports. The Attorney General's Office found that O'Keefe had misrepresented the actions of ACORN workers and that the workers had not committed illegal actions. A preliminary probe by the GAO found that ACORN had managed its federal funds appropriately.



By selectively editing videos to match right-wing confirmation biases, O'Keefe gained support from conservative media and interest groups. In 2009, the late Andrew Breitbart commissioned the activist (then 25 years old), for the option to publish new videos exclusively on BigGovernment.com. In June 2010, O'Keefe formed a 501(c)(3) organization, Project Veritas, with the stated mission to "investigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud and other misconduct."



O'Keefe pled guilty in 2010 to one misdemeanor count of entering a federal building under false pretenses.