Leslie Brown, the woman who appeared in a Project Veritas video about Facebook who made incendiary comments that debuted Thursday, has been fired.
That’s according to a text message received by Project Veritas CEO James O’Keefe. Project Veritas made the announcement here.
“Journalist: I mean, they were able to fire him without having to worry about discrimination.
Brown: Due diligence, right. Because he’s a white man. Yeah, white man. No problem. You can’t do it that easily if there are other issues.
Journalist: Oh, it’s easier when they’re-
Brown: White men.
Journalist: Yeah, no protected class.
Brown: No one has the white man’s back anymore.”
Brown, a senior HR executive, claimed she had been fired just hours after the video debuted. Brown also clarified her connection with the social media giant, resulting in her changing her employer on her LinkedIn page from Facebook to US Tech Solutions, a sub-contractor for Facebook.
US Tech Solutions told Project Veritas only the client (Facebook) can make hiring/termination decisions.
“Any contractor hiring/termination is confidential information and we cannot comment to a third party on it. We will be happy to respond to Leslie directly if she has any questions about her temp assignment with US Tech,” said Manoj Agrawal, CEO of US Tech Solutions.
However, O’Keefe said in a statement that he had a conversation Friday with Agarwal that reaffirmed Facebook was the one who terminated Brown.
In a text message received by James O’Keefe, CEO of Project Veritas, Brown confirmed she has been fired from her job.
“I have now been fired from my temp agency because of this video and I’ve received death threats. Thank you for absolutely screwing up my life.”
It came to light after the video was released that Brown in fact worked for US Tech Solutions, a sub-contractor for Facebook.
In a phone conversation with Agarwal, O’Keefe pressed for a comment or reason of the termination.
O’Keefe: Leslie Brown is an employee at your company, uh, and has done work with Facebook. And she was on a tape today saying, uh, some comments that, you know, we can confirm with her that she has in fact been terminated from your company I’d like a comment from you about why she was terminated.
Agarwal: We’re a contracting agency, they work for our clients. So I don’t really know… It’s the clients that make the call, not us. They hire the contractors.
O’Keefe: Understood, and you guys work with Facebook, correct?
Agarwal: Yes, Facebook is one of our clients, I will call them, but I don’t handle that …
In an email to, Agarwal reaffirmed his comments saying only the client (Facebook) can make hiring/termination decisions.
“Any contractor hiring/termination is confidential information and we cannot comment to a third party on it. We will be happy to respond to Leslie directly if she has any questions about her temp assignment with US Tech.”
Hours later, Facebook issued the following statement:
“The individual who made those comments has never been a Facebook employee, but was a temporary contractor employed through one of our partners and is no longer on assignment with Facebook. While such comments are disgusting and unacceptable at any time, they were made prior to the work she did on the Facebook contract, and we were unaware of them.”
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Jason M. Reynolds has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist at outlets of all sizes.
Photo “Leslie Brown” by Project Veritas.
Editors’ note: Neil McCabe, The Tennessee Star and Star News Network National Correspondent, also serves as a contract communications manager for Project Veritas.
