James O'Keefe blew Project Veritas donors' cash on private helicopter flights and other luxuries: audit

The results of a financial audit of right-wing nonprofit organization Project Veritas allege that founder James O'Keefe spent donors' cash lavishly on expenses including a $12,000 private helicopter flight and hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of luxury black-car trips.

The Washington Post, which obtained a copy of the audit, reports that O'Keefe's big-ticket spending of donors' money was a key factor that led to his ouster as leader earlier this year.

The audit found that many of the pricey travel arrangements demanded by O'Keefe were actually ways for him to get donors to pay for visits to his girlfriend Alexandra Rose, who is the star of the Netflix real estate-focused reality show "Selling the O.C."

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"O’Keefe allegedly pressed staffers to set up donor meetings in California so he could justify visits to Rose as work trips, leading him to waste time in meetings with minor donors," reports the Post. "In another incident, O’Keefe allegedly demanded employees buy her what Project Veritas executives described to auditors as 'many expensive bottles of tequila.'"

Current Project Veritas CEO Hannah Giles, a onetime ally of O'Keefe, tells the Post that O'Keefe's donor-funded lifestyle was simply not acceptable for the leader of a nonprofit organization.

“If you’re Bobby Axelrod from ‘Billions,’ it’s fine to live like that,” she said. “When you’re paying your bills from a little old lady’s Social Security checks, we’re going to have problems.”