The first investigation by James O’Keefe’s new organization uncovered apparent political donation fraud, and Maryland’s top election official announced her resignation after the results were released this week.
The O’Keefe Media Group, launched by O’Keefe after he exited Project Veritas, released a video on March 28 showing multiple voters in Maryland and elsewhere saying they had not made all the donations attributed to them in Federal Election Commission records.
Cindy Nowe, for instance, was listed as donating nearly $19,000 across 1,009 donations to political candidates through ActBlue, a Democrat fundraising platform, in 2022.
But Nowe told O’Keefe that she only donated around $5 every once in a while.
“No, I don’t think so,” she said when presented with the records. “I wish I could have donated $18,000 to [President Joe] Biden’s presidency,” she added.
“Absolutely not,” Carolyn Lenz, an Arizona resident listed as donating $170,221 since 2017 across more than 18,800 individual donations, told the media group. “So that’s not you doing that?” she was asked. “No, it’s not,” she said.
Garland Riggs, another Maryland voter, told O’Keefe that the $230,000 he was listed as having donated in recent years was erroneous.
“No, that’s not us,” he said, adding that his wife has donated using ActBlue but “nowhere near” that amount. Riggs’ wife said she believed she donated under $1,000 a year.
ActBlue did not respond to a request for comment.
Maryland’s election administrator Linda Lamone announced her resignation after the O’Keefe Media Group video was released.
Lamone, who had declined to comment on the probe, said she will step down during a virtual Maryland State Board of Elections meeting on Wednesday.
“Today I’m announcing that I will be stepping down this summer as the administrator of elections for the state of Maryland,” Lamone said in prepared remarks.
“I love this job,” she added later. “It was not always easy. But through Republican and Democratic administrations, and through COVID, cyberthreats, redistricting, changing election dates, and changes in voting behavior we delivered for the voters of Maryland. I am so very honored that I was entrusted to do something with my life that matters to American democracy.”
Lamone, who has held the position since July 1997, did not give a reason for her resignation. She did not respond to a query.
R.C. Maxwell, a former Project Veritas employee who is now communications director for O’Keefe Media Group, got Lamone on the phone to ask for comment on the group’s video.
Maxwell said he sent the video to Lamone over email and asked whether she had a comment.
Lamone declined to comment and hung up.