I want to personally salute every veteran in the OMG family and to thank you for your brave and selfless service. On this Veterans Day, I hope you feel the love and admiration of this grateful nation.
It’s been a busy week for the OMG staff, and a very busy month. We shared a story today about the ActBlue meeting in Boston that we tried to report on, and we’re working on that bombshell report from Congress detailing the efforts the government went to in 2020 to censor and deplatform voices on the right — including yours truly.
ACTBLUE WANTED TO ARREST US — FOR JOURNALISM
When we booked a room at The Colonnade in Boston during the ActBlue fundraising conference last month, our goal was to get answers about these excessive and mysterious donations that no one can explain. We met an interesting rent-a-cop/security guard named Patterson who made it clear he didn’t want us on the property, and, in his mind, that included the Boston public sidewalk.
UNCOVERING MORE OF THE CENSORSHIP INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
We’re about to release our report on the Election Integrity Project, a shadowy cabal of university censors and government officials. Rep. Jim Jordan first shared the bombshell report from Congress on Monday, and in the report, we learned that countless voices on the right were being silenced during the 2020 election. But we also learned that much of the content that was flagged for removal turned out to be true. They even censored jokes. The federal government censored your jokes. What a scary thought. Check out the story on our website at okeefemediagroup.com.
TWO YEARS AGO THE FBI SHOWED UP
The FBI showed up at my Door with a battering ram, looking into the matter of the President’s daughter’s diary. Footage of one of the raids against my colleague, Eric Cochran, was captured by Eric’s camera.
The trauma of injustice changes you. It strengthens you, but at the risk of disheartening you. Just a month prior, our HQ was completely destroyed by a hurricane, and thing after terrible thing before that for 15 years. It has been the case that every few months , there have been seemingly discouraging event with impossible odds to overcome. The attacks from all directions with unrelenting force have always been directionally proportional to the amount of impact made over the target. The solution to avoid this, is to avoid being brave and doing anything at all, or simply betray the people who do. There’s an incentive to hurt the people who are. The system rewards it. It’s not that people can’t do it or don’t know what to do. It’s that they fear the consequences if they do it well. Which is why I believe the choice for honest Americans is the matter of willpower, not ability. Doing the right thing has become a liability. Leadership has become a liability:
I’ve found people feel a profound of spiritual shame and regret knowing their own cowardice, but desiring a life free of the physical pain that comes with being courageous.
There were 100 seminal events and this was just one, two teas ago today, but it made me question everything I believed in. For me, 24 hours after the raid I was in shock, and the fear set in. Fear is a dangerous drug. Are they planting drugs? Are they leaking to the NYT? (Yes). Are they putting child porn on my phone? Am I able to raise the millions to pay all the lawyers? Temporarily I sometimes sense the fear that can paralyze a man, yet the fear component I never focused on. It goes away after a few days when you’re hot on the lead of the next big story.
The FBI agent asked if wanted to call my lawyer. I unlocked the phone and did that, but he then snatched the phone out of my hands, and he put the phone in an evidence bag, presumably with the settings changed so they could have access to everything journalistically on the device. Protection of sources is paramount, and with that alter-ego naked before the feds, It felt like a raping of the 1st amendment and the ultimate deterrent to anybody who sought to do true investigative reporting and against anybody who lead such an effort. And it chilled out sources and whistleblowers, as it was designed to do. There could be no redress of grievances, no amount of money as restitution, once that rubicon is crossed. The agent then asked, “do you have any questions Mr. O’Keefe?” They had put me in handcuffs, which I presumed was because I was under arrest – like they did in 2010 in Orleans. I said nothing, but as I looked into his eyes, I thought of saying, “May your children forgive you.”
There will be more pain. I’m certain of it, but I choose not to focus on it. Hunger, the talent, the strength and the humility to go out and get the next story in video that people need to see. That’s what matters.
The quest is to the find the good people who aren’t focused on the fear. And to pray to God that the courage to continue remains, and to not lose heart in the process.
