Writers, activists and investigative journalists honored by wife of Justice Clarence Thomas
Yesterday I received a great honor.
I am proud to say that at an event in Washington, D.C., I received an inaugural Impact Award. I was also given the opportunity to give a few remarks which you can read below.
Recipients included myself, Sean Hannity, Larry Arn of Hillsdale College, Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, and several other powerful advocates of liberty.
Oh, and there was one other big winner on Wednesday: you, Jim, and the writers and contributing editors at your Internet magazine Conservative Base and bi-monthly print magazine The Chief of Police Magazine. Because part of our team’s award belongs to you.
It’s because of your continued support, your tirelessness, and your courage, that our team is able to hold the mainstream media accountable.
On behalf of our entire team, thank you for always having our back. And thank you for continuing to help Project Veritas get the truth out to the American people, no matter what.
The fight for truth is not an easy one. Our opposition is relentless, and with each Project Veritas success, they fight back harder.
Similarly, every time you and I expose the media; we can expect their coverage of us to become increasingly outlandish and unfair. But as you and I know, that is the price of our success.
Thank you for making our impact possible, and for being such a major part of what we do.
You can read what I said while accepting the award below.
James O’Keefe
“And there is a conflict of visions between the people who manufacture consent – the propagandists, the mainstream media, the people who don’t believe in the power of free people – and the citizen press, the free press, who does. We believe that if people are informed, they’ll make the best decisions for them and their families. And that’s the war. But people are afraid – I mean, really afraid. And the fear, I’ve realized, and other historians have realized, comes down to the fact that they’re afraid for their reputations. And as D’Souza has said, they fear the humiliating power of the press.
“It is this fear of humiliation from the press that is so big, that many people would rather give up their lives than their reputations. That’s not an exaggeration. When I recruit people at Veritas, people tell me that.
“And next door is the Department of Justice. After all that when down in 2016, there weren’t really very many people – even though there was a lot of discussion behind the scenes – that were willing to come forward and face the spotlight. Why? Because moral courage requires basically putting your reputation on the line. It requires putting yourself on the line – and put our reputations on the line, we must.
“JFK wrote in Profiles in Courage that you’re going to face personal animosity, you’re going to face personal defamation. It hurts, but it is necessary, it is a necessary part of triumph. It is not probable; it is definitely going to happen. There are some of my heroes, people like James Damore, who gave up everything he had at Google to give you guys the truth. People like David Daleiden who was raided by the Attorney General of California because he chose to investigate Planned Parenthood. These people gave up everything and what the enemy wants is they want us to stop. They just want one thing: they want us to stop, to deter other people from doing what we do. They want to make a lesson out of me, in response, I’m going to make a lesson out of them. We are going to hit them back so hard, you have no idea, because, as Dan said earlier, it is a boxing-match.
“Why do we do it? It is so outside the comprehension – why would you do this? These people like Daleiden and Damore are miraculous, they’re freaks of nature. What would compel someone to do it? Because we cannot deny our conscience. There are things greater than praise from the mainstream press. Look at history – patriots – patriots not even in this country. Overseas, Solzhenitsyn went through a hell you can’t fathom. He said, “I can’t deny my soul, I have to develop my soul”.
“From that point of view, the people that are against us – on the other side of the war – they don’t follow their conscience, and in many ways, they’re the ones that are tortured and abused.
“So I encourage people to put their reputation on the line, it’s necessary, and I encourage people the follow the words of American patriot Thomas Paine who said, “let them call me rebel, I’m not concerned, I would suffer the misery of devils — if I were to make a whore of my soul. Thank you.”
