James Edward O’Keefe III was born in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States to James O’Keefe II and Deborah O’Keefe. James II is a materials engineer while Deborah is a physical therapist.

Raised in Westwood, Bergen County, James III has one younger sister. He graduated from Westwood High School in Westwood and Rutgers University in New Brunswick, Middlesex County, New Jersey.

James III is an author, a political activist and a provocateur. Here are 13 more things about him:

1. From 2002 to 2006, he attended Rutgers University where he earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy.
2. In 2006, he and Lila Rose secretly recorded encounters in Planned Parenthood clinics in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, USA and Santa Monica, Los Angeles County in which she posed as a girl aged 15 impregnated by a male aged 23.
3. In 2007, he called several Planned Parenthood clinics, posed as a donor and secretly recorded the conversations. 
4. In September 2009, he and Hannah Giles published edited hidden camera recordings in which she posed as a prostitute and him as her boyfriend in an attempt to elicit damaging responses from Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) employees.
5. In January 2010, he and three other men were arrested in the Hale Boggs Federal Complex in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. On May 26, 2010, the four men pleaded guilty to entering federal property under false pretenses. In August 2010, he planned a staged encounter with CNN correspondent Abbie Boudreau but Project Veritas executive director Izzy Santa warned her that he was planning to seduce her and film it on hidden cameras. In September 2010, he founded Project Veritas, an organization that aims “to investigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions in order to achieve a more ethical and transparent society”.
6. On March 8, 2011, he released a heavily edited video of a discussion with National Public Radio‘s Ronald Schiller and Betsy Liley, which was secretly recorded by his partners Ken Larrey and Shaughn Adeleye.
7. On March 5, 2013, he agreed to pay $100,000 to former ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera for breaking state law prohibiting surreptitious recording. On June 18, 2013, Threshold Editions published his book “Breakthrough: Our Guerilla War to Expose Fraud and Save Democracy“.
8. In August 2014, he dressed up as Osama bin Laden and crossed the U.S.–Mexico border in Texas, USA in both directions.
9. On March 16, 2016, he tried to call Open Society Foundations under the assumed name of Victor Kesh and forgot to hang up after recording the voicemail. Several more minutes of audio were recorded, revealing that he was attached to Discover the Networks and planning to create embarrassing videos or other recordings of targeted groups.
10. On January 16, 2018, St. Martin’s Press published his book “American Pravda: My Fight for Truth in the Era of Fake News“.
11. On November 6, 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a court-ordered search of his apartment in Mamaroneck, Westchester County, New York, USA.
12. On January 25, 2022, Post Hill Press published his book “American Muckraker: Rethinking Journalism for the 21st Century“.
13. He was 38 years old when he said in a speech posted online on February 20, 2023 that he has been removed as the leader of Project Veritas.