People Magazine issues retraction of FOUR false claims against Project Veritas

The piece, titled "Was Ashley Biden’s Diary Stolen? How the President’s Daughter Got Caught in Legal Fight After a Leak," was updated on January 7.

The first retraction issued by People was in regards to a misquoting of O’Keefe in a 2018 Politico profile.

The original paragraph stated that O’Keefe "acknowledged 'selectively' editing some of the group’s videos." In the Politico piece O’Keefe sarcastically said he edits videos, using air quotes.

The updated version of the People piece now reflects this sarcasm, by stating: "…where he also sarcastically referred to the claim he 'selectively' edits some of the group’s videos.

"I actually had said this in the Politico Magazine article, I referenced Katie Couric. I don't know why she hasn't been branded with a scarlet letter for her doctored tape involving a 2016 documentary about guns. And people still read Rolling Stone even though they published a 9000 word account of the campus rape at University of Virginia, where a rape did not occur. And we have a whole wall of 350 some odd retractions and corrections and articles questioning our ethics. Yet we're somehow branded for editing tapes," said O’Keefe.

The second retraction refers to an undercover reporting operation on The Washington Post.

The People piece originally states: "The Washington Post reported how the group apparently tried to trick their reporters into printing a false sexual assault allegation against a conservative politician."

The line refers to a Washington Post piece titled: "A woman approached The Post with dramatic — and false — tale about Roy Moore. She appears to be part of undercover sting operation."

In the piece, The Washington Post’s executive editor Martin Baron said that "the intent by Project Veritas clearly was to publicize the conversation if we fell for the trap" and was part of a "scheme to deceive and embarrass us."

"Even The Post understood the intent of Project Veritas was never to trick The List into reporting false information, we were there to pose as something that we were not in order to get these reporters to open up to us to, to reveal things to us they otherwise would not," said O’Keefe, who added, "which is our MO, our modus operandi in all of our undercover investigations that we've done into CNN, into The New York Times, into Twitter, into Facebook, and this was a distinction lost upon the media who wanted to ascribe intent to us."

O’Keefe said that their attorney requested that People remove the false statement, and the article has been updated to say: "The Washington Post reported how the group apparently tried to trick their reporters by peddling a false sexual assault allegation against a conservative politician.’

"That's called undercover journalism," O’Keefe added.

The next correction People made was in reference to a section that said "James O’Keefe…pleaded guilty after pretending to be a telephone company employee to ender then-Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office."

"False. That is factually incorrect. They've printed more corrections in this one article than we've printed corrections in the last 10 years. You can't make the sh*t up. So this is false according to the people that prosecuted me."

"The prosecutors in this case admitted in this document signed by a United States attorney that I was trying to quote, 'orchestrate conversations,' also known as talk to people, which is what journalists do. I had my iPhone with me. Orchestrate a conversation," O’Keefe continued. "Do you see how — do you see how they describe certain thing, again, you have to — you have to twist it a little bit to understand what exactly they're referencing, orchestrated conversations. But even the prosecutors admitted that there was me not dressed up like a telephone man. So this People Magazine had to print a third update."

This update states: "James O’Keefe… pleaded guilty after entering then-Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office under false pretenses."

The final retraction issued in the People piece came in regards to a paragraph that stated: "It appears the case began after Project Veritas started corresponding directly with the Biden’s: The New York Times reported last month that Ashley’s attorney reached out to federal prosecutors when Project Veritas sent a message in October 2020 seeking an on-camera interview with then-presidential candidate about the diary. The Biden campaign called it extortion."

But in this case, the Biden campaign never even called it extortion," said O’Keefe.

He continued on to state that after Project Veritas decided not to do the Ashley Biden story because they could not authenticate it nor verify if the contents occurred, they continued to try to "corroborate it by reaching out to the Biden campaign requesting an interview because that's really the ethical responsible thing to do."

"Because on the off chance, maybe there was something newsworthy, and it was our ethical obligations to reach out. But The New York Times doctored, selectively edited, the thing that we sent to the Biden campaign to make it look more nefarious, they edited out the sentence 'This is done in good faith.' They edited out certain parts of that letter requesting a comment, and they characterized our request for comment as quote, 'seeking leverage,'" said O’Keefe.

They requested that this be retracted, and the paragraph now states that "Ashley’s lawyers called the request 'extortionate.'"