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As RedState reported earlier, James O’Keefe has departed from Project Veritas after what he said is a vote among the board to oust him as CEO.

(READ: James O’Keefe Resigns From Project Veritas in Stunning Move)

It was clear that this separation wasn’t amicable, and by the video posted of him reading his resignation letter, O’Keefe isn’t done; he’s just done doing it under the Project Veritas banner.

BREAKING VIDEO: James O'Keefe addresses Project Veritas staff as he exits from the organization he founded following a high-profile board dispute. "Our mission continues on. I'm not done. The mission will perhaps take on a new name…" pic.twitter.com/0fZov5AXa3

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) February 20, 2023

According to O’Keefe, this plan to get rid of him featured board members attempting to find any reason they could to push O’Keefe out, including going to Project Veritas employees to collect grievances about him. O’Keefe presented a text message conversation between a board member and a PV journalist, where the journalist was offered a raise if Project Veritas was restructured without O’Keefe at the top.

The timing of this ousting is not a good look seeing as how Project Veritas had just dropped its biggest sting of all time. They’d gotten a Pfizer executive to admit that the company was altering the coronavirus in order to sell more vaccines, something Pfizer got incredibly rich off of during the pandemic.

The board’s actions are incredibly odd and very sudden, at least in the mind of the public. In fact, it’s the public the board now has to worry about.

What’s been going on behind Project Veritas’s walls is unclear. The private conversations that were had between board members and external players are still a mystery and may remain one for some time. However, the board’s swiftness in expelling O’Keefe, mixed with the timing, plus the reading of this resignation letter that throws the board’s motives into an unsavory light, has effectively buried Project Veritas going forward.

For one, O’Keefe and Project Veritas are pretty synonymous. Since he arrived on the scene, with Andrew Breitbart himself being his loudest proponent, O’Keefe has always been the frontman of every story Project Veritas released. While it’s been some time since I worked for Project Veritas myself, O’Keefe was in constant contact during the sting Lawrence Jones and I performed on then-Enroll America Director Chris Tarango. I imagine that with the Pfizer sting being so high-profile, O’Keefe was just as tuned in.

With O’Keefe’s name associated with undercover stings, his departure from Project Veritas will be viewed by the public as the frontman leaving the band. While the band might still be around, interest in it will decrease dramatically.

Secondly, the nature of O’Keefe’s departure is going to sour the public view of Project Veritas. O’Keefe is largely a beloved figure by the right-leaning public and his treatment at the hands of the board will instinctively cause O’Keefe’s fans to sour against the brand. They will view the board, now in full control, as villains.

The bottom line is that O’Keefe had the lion’s share of trust from the public, and with his ousting that trust will go with him. The shady method by which the board ousted this conservative hero simply makes it look untrustworthy. It really doesn’t help matters that this move came after the Pfizer sting, which is going to cause some intense speculation in and of itself.

Put all this together and it’s safe to assume that Project Veritas is dead. Unless the board can come up with a response that not only fills in a lot of the gaps and puts forward information that makes O’Keefe’s words look like the raving of a grifter, there’s hardly any way that the company recovers.

Moreover, the moment O’Keefe returns with his new venture is the moment people will forget about Project Veritas. He’ll not only have people willing to participate in his stings, but he’ll have investors lining up to help him based on his name alone.

It’s highly likely that Project Veritas is, for all intents and purposes, a dead organization walking. Its recovery is highly unlikely at this juncture.