(Satire) Objective News Alert: Conspiracy Theorists at Project Veritas Misrepresent the Facts and Break the Law Yet Again

Project Veritas, the Info Wars-inspired conservative political activist organization founded and led by James O’Keefe released a series of videos this week purporting to show proof of widespread voter and election fraud in battleground states across the country. As is their modus operandi, Project Veritas has released only small, heavily edited two to three minute videos on their YouTube channel of what they are calling “video and eyewitness evidence of voter fraud and election interference.” These videos are very heavily edited and show only very small segments of interviews with purported election officials and postal workers in Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

It all started this past Tuesday: Election Day. The Veritas Visuals YouTube channel released a very grainy, poorly developed and heavily edited video of O’Keefe visiting the Broward County Supervisor of Elections Peter Antunacci at his office. Antunacci warmly greets O’Keefe and the interview takes place in Antunacci’s office. In the video, Antunacci runs through a small number of isolated, anecdotal examples of potential ballot and voter registration fraud. Doppelgänger Satire has completed our own thorough investigation into Florida voter fraud as well and can report that these claims by Antunacci represent the only outstanding claims of voter or ballot fraud in the entire state of Florida. These three claims represent a potential 0.0000003% risk to the Florida Presidential Election of 2020. It is clear that these examples both fail to properly represent any other possibilities across any other state and do not represent a large enough claim to have any measurable impact on the outcome of any election outside of the local middle school. There is clearly nothing to see here.

In addition, a quick background check by Doppelgänger Satire revealed a checkered past for Antunacci. This past includes several associations with major Italian crime families in the New York Area. This information, combined with O’Keefe’s associations with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the 1980’s make for a volatile and suspicious mix. Could this conversation represent an alignment between the IRA and the Italian mob in New York to interfere in the American Presidential election and take control of the country? If so, it would certainly explain why Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani, Ex-New York City Mayor and the man who prosecuted the Italian mob in the 1970’s, is so interested.

The second video, released the day after the election shows a video conference interview between O’Keefe and a mysterious and heavily edited voice who claims to be an employee at the Barlow branch post office in Traverse City, Michigan. The voice claims that supervisors at the post office directed workers to separate ballots that arrived in the mail from the rest of the mail so that they can be manually stamped with the previous day’s date which was election day. The voice also claims that he knows other workers at other local offices that are doing the same thing and even one local Postmaster that was seen improperly stamping ballots themselves. At the end of the video, O’keefe places a call to the voice’s supervisor, Jonathan Clarke. Unfortunately, O’Keefe and Mr. Clarke are disconnected before the interview could be completed. This section was clearly selectively edited to make it look like Mr. Clark was avoiding the conversation.

The third video was released on November 5, 2020. It purports to be an interview between O’Keefe and another postal worker in Erie, Pennsylvania. The postal worker’s voice is extremely similar in pitch to the postal worker interviewed in the previous video. As of the time of this article, Doppelgänger Satire has been unable to confirm that the voices in the second and third videos are actually different people. The supposed witness, whose face was fully blurred so no clear identification could be made, claimed that he overheard the local postmaster scolding a supervisor that morning for marking ballots with the proper date instead of the date of the election, November 3rd. The witness also claimed that there was an order in place at that time to post mark all ballots with the November 3rd date regardless of the date that they arrived at the processing facility. Like the previous video, this one also ends with O’Keefe calling a supervisor; in this case the Postmaster Robert E. Weisenback Jr. Unfortunately, the call was disconnected before Mr. Weisenback could completely clarify the situation. There was no evidence that O’Keefe received consent to record Mr. Weisenback Jr. per Pennsylvania law and as such the entire video should be considered invalid by the public on its face.

The fourth video was posted on November 6th. The video purports to be an interview between O’Keefe and another postal worker employed in Coraopolis, PA. Once again, this postal worker had a voice that sounded extremely similar to the other postal workers in this video series. The claims are suspiciously very similar to the first video from Traverse City, MI where postal workers were advised to post mark any ballots for November 3rd by leadership regardless of the day they arrived at the facility. Only this time, the witness was only claiming that the ballots were to be collected separately from the rest of the mail; a stark difference indeed. The eyewitness also claimed that he once witnessed a fellow carrier be reprimanded by the postmaster (James Malia) for expressing a political opinion by supporting President Trump. Like the other videos, O’Keefe contacted James Malia for clarification/comment and refused to clearly identify himself as a right-wing hack. Mr. Malia politely referred O’Keefe to the public relations team and ended the call. Again, there is no evidence that O’Keefe received the required consent from Mr. Malia per Pennsylvania Law. As such, this entire video should also be considered invalid on its face.

The final propaganda video (God willing), was released later that same day, November the 6th. It purports to unmask the witness from the second video in Erie, Pennsylvania. The witness, a man named Richard Hopkins, is shown walking the streets carrying unidentifiable papers and wearing some sort of uniform while on the phone with O’Keefe. Mr. Hopkins claims that he was interviewed the day before by the leadership at the USPS and that they asked many of the same questions that O’Keefe asked during the questionable second video. This is clear evidence of a complete and comprehensive investigation on the part of the USPS and should close the matter. While talking to O’Keefe, Mr. Hopkins is also seen entering multiple private properties and leaving a portion of the papers at each one. One can only speculate as to what the papers themselves contain. We have also discovered during our extensive vetting process that it is illegal to videotape a postal worker without the explicit permission of the Postmaster. The cameraman also clearly violates the requirement that they must also remain in public areas at all times.  It is unclear at this time if this constitutes breaking and entering in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 

It is clear to us here at Doppelgänger Satire that the sole purpose of O’Keefe’s work is to push this great country closer to the brink of civil war by driving dangerous uncertainty into the results of what could be the most critical election in United States history. As of the time of this publication, these videos have received millions of views across YouTube, Twitter and other popular social media networks. We at Doppelgänger Satire feel that it is our objective duty and responsibility to ensure that the spread of this vile and disingenuous information be limited as much as possible. A link to the Project Veritas YouTube channel can be found Here. 

Furthermore, Doppelgänger Satire cannot allow ourselves to be associated with anyone doing any actual investigative journalism. In addition, it is not clear that O’keefe received the consent of the second party during his recorded conversation with the postman in Pennsylvania and may represent a violation of Pennsylvania State Law. Doppelgänger Satire will not be a party to any organization that violates unfair laws in the pursuit of truth, justice and transparency for the American people. To be on the safe side and for our part, we have reported O’Keefe and his Project Veritas terrorist organization to all 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States of America.