And, of course, this was really weird because they work for Project Veritas. Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/politics/erik-prince-project-veritas.html. They make significant political contributions, right? Months later, in June 2019, a report said we are expecting a big haul, including new lines of intelligence on the Republican side of the house.. In an archived version of her LinkedIn page, Ms. Jorge wrote she had a deep interest in the conservative movement and hoped one day to serve on the Supreme Court after attending law school. And Prince comes up in the special council report - Robert Mueller's report. Anyone can read what you share. DAVIES: They targeted ACORN. They - you know, there's a wide range of targets, and many of them have been exposed. (Last week, Trump pardoned the four Blackwater guards who were convicted of crimes in connection with the killings in Baghdad.). DAVIES: They'd gotten formal training in this. We're still trying to fully understand how Project Veritas, which is founded by James O'Keefe, actually came into contact with Erik Prince. Their reporting on the department won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. She went to meetings. Well, that and - by the way, at some point - I don't know the time period. Prince recruited Mr. Seddon to join the conservative group Project Veritas to teach espionage skills to its operatives and manage its undercover operations. However, lawyers for the publication say they should not have to reveal who told them about Princes alleged meeting with Wagner Group or where they were told it occurred. And if they were given money, if the money was distributed by this former spy, Richard Seddon, and they pulled from that pot of money, which was part of that operation, that could also be problematic. One celebrated alum: Betsy DeVos's brother, Erik Prince, 49, the swashbuckling military contractor who has come to the serious attention of investigators looking into the Trump team's alleged. Last year, Project Veritas submitted a proposed list of witnesses for the trial over the lawsuit. Blackwater founder Erik Prince arranged for political activist James O'Keefe's conservative group Project Veritas to receive more than one round of "training in intelligence and elicitation. He's a former British intelligence officer who served in Washington, D.C., and in Pakistan and eventually leaves the British Secret Intelligence Service and develops some relationship with Erik Prince, a security contractor, and ends up being director of field operations at the conservative group known as Project Veritas. And this is FRESH AIR. Prince had hired a former MI6 officer to help train the Project Veritas operatives, The Intercept wrote, but it did not identify the officer. GOLDMAN: The Georgetown house in D.C. was used as a base to, you know, essentially launch these undercover operations in the summer of '18, I guess, into the fall and maybe later. GOLDMAN: You know, individuals - we're not exactly sure who was behind this effort - but it's clear that they believe that, you know, H.R. Separately, Ms. Gore unsuccessfully tried to raise money for the project from Foster Friess, a billionaire Wyoming businessman, during a January 2019 meeting, three people said. He's a former British intelligence officer who served in Washington, D.C., and in Pakistan and eventually leaves the British Secret Intelligence Service and develops some relationship with Erik. And as we quoted an expert in our story, you know, if there's a sudden pattern of somebody giving money to the Democrats and they had never done that before, you know, that could also raise suspicions. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. But, you know, his sister is Betsy DeVos, and she was Secretary of Education during the Trump administration. //]]>-->. People have probably heard of this organization. GOLDMAN: Richard Seddon is a former MI6 spy. He was the one who replaced Michael Flynn after he was fired. WASHINGTON Erik Prince, the security contractor with close ties to the Trump administration, has in recent years helped recruit former American and British spies for secretive. Our understanding of the operation is that Mr. Seddon, while employed, in fact, at Project Veritas, was involved in this. officer who went on to win an important House seat in Virginia as a Democrat. That got a lot of attention, was investigated by Robert Mueller. GOLDMAN: Well, that's a great question and one we struggle with at the Times in trying to put this in context. The former Navy SEAL gained fame for the supporting role his Blackwater firm played in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the security contractor became infamous when its employees killed 14 Iraqi civilians and wounded 17 others in Baghdad in 2007. While he has not been actively involved in Wyoming politics specifically, Prince comes from a political family he is the brother of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and is an active political donor. ', Death toll keeps rising in Greece's deadliest train crash, US Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies before Senate Judiciary Committee, Lineup announced for this years Capitol Hill Block Party, There's no shortage of salt for NYC roads, Temple University students march and protest to demand better safety. I know that, you know, one of the first instances of his association with this - or maybe the first instance of his association - was in an Intercept article in which O'Keefe had posted a picture of himself firing a pistol with a silencer on Instagram. But "one of the most brazen operations of the campaign" was an attempt to take down H.R. This is FRESH AIR. Neither party wants to be infiltrated like this. Mr. Seddon regularly updated Mr. OKeefe about the operation against the Michigan teachers union, according to internal Project Veritas emails, where the language of the groups leaders is marbled with spy jargon. One of the undercover operatives also got a job working for a consortium of wealthy liberal donors the Wyoming Investor Network which had made a strategic decision to support Republican moderate candidates over those more closely aligned with Mr. Trumps agenda, the documents say. GOLDMAN: Yeah, I would say an active - sure, an active player in certain parts of Trump's world, yeah, or conservative - the conservative world. That's a name some people will know. What's interesting about that Instagram post - and you can see it yourself, it's still out there - they like to describe themselves as journalists. The ex-undercover British spy, Richard Seddon, trained conservative operatives first at the Prince family ranch in Wyoming, then at a large, $10,000-a-month house near Georgetown University. Female undercover operatives tried to entrap FBI agents, sometimes using fake dating app profiles, and State Department employees, the Times reports. James OKeefe, a conservative activist, founded Project Veritas. I'm not sure that just because he's a conservative, this is something he wanted to help. According to its latest publicly available tax filing, Project Veritas received $8.6 million in contributions and grants in 2018. There is little publicly available information about the company, but multiple Prince ventures, including Blackwater, have been based out of Moyock, North Carolina. if (!document.MAX_used) document.MAX_used = ','; Mr. An attorney for The Intercept reportedly told Princes lawyer in the spring the piece was one in a series of planned articles concerning Mr. Princes activities, though it has not published any further pieces to date. We are speaking with Adam Goldman. Copyright 2021 NPR. It argues the article was not defamatory and the challenged statements would be protected as opinion based on disclosed facts., The dispute over jurisdiction could have a direct impact on the case. GOLDMAN: In some instances, they were on, you know, these social - these dating apps, right? You know, a big question about the stories that you've described is, is this activity illegal, what the couple did in Wyoming, you know, presenting themselves as - dishonestly as active Democrats in order to get information? He recruited a British commando to help - this guy Gaz Thomas, who I guess had knew Seddon through his days at MI6. At the time I signed my [September] declaration I believed Jones Creek and CMNS to be Wyoming entities, but I have subsequently learned they are not; I believe they are Delaware entities, Prince wrote in the document, which he signed from California. The documents give new details about efforts to manipulate the politics of Wyoming. The website for Mr. OKeefes coming wedding listed Donald Trump Jr. as an invited guest. And by the way, as we began reporting this, we started learning more about Beau's connection to people. Was he primarily the guy who got this thing moving? As the founder of Blackwater USA, now Academi, a private military company, Prince headed the organization. GOLDMAN: Yeah, I think they nearly tripled the number of people they hired. You know, he's a businessman. DAVIES: Right. How Times reporters cover politics. GOLDMAN: It's not clear they're actually being trained in firearms training. document.write (document.charset ? That's how you found them, and that's what raised the question? '&charset='+document.charset : (document.characterSet ? Funneling money surreptitiously to campaigns through other donors known as straw man donations would violate federal campaign finance laws. DAVIES: Right. In a Jan. 15 order, U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson of Cheyenne tossed out Prince's defamation lawsuit against The Intercept. In particular, you know, Sofia targeted a employee with the GAO. They also did the secret interviews at the airport in Cody in the - at the Prince hangar. I believed that to be true at the time that I signed my declaration, Prince wrote, but I have since come to learn that I was mistaken.. You know, they were angry too, right? And we've written about that. The Trump Foundation gave $20,000 to Project Veritas in 2015, the year that Mr. Trump began his bid for the presidency. Overall, how do conservatives regard Project Veritas? The training was done by a guy - a lot of the training was done by a guy named Richard Seddon, S-E-D-D-O-N. Who is he? I have always understood him to be a resident of Northern Virginia, the lead writer of The Intercepts April story, Matthew Cole, wrote in a declaration. And they thought McMaster had fired, you know, several people who the president had brought on and - or Mike Flynn, his former - his first national security adviser had brought on. All rights reserved. They targeted somebody from the Justice Department, and I wrote they also targeted FBI employees. She actually got a contract fundraising gig with the Democrats, right? Between 1992 and 2001, Prince often listed Park County as his home, consistent with his voting records. Adam Goldman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. And, you know, they targeted somebody from the State Department, and they targeted somebody from GAO. For example, the co-authors of the piece in dispute, Cole and Alex Emmons, say theyre New York and Washington, D.C., residents whove never been to Wyoming. She said the support she got from other teams was 'overwhelming. Back in December, county commissioners approved a rezoning request for a multi-billionaire to develop an exclusive guest ranch in the southernmost part of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. contractor who is best known as the founder of the private military firm Blackwater and whose sister, Betsy DeVos, was Mr. Trumps education secretary has drawn scrutiny over the years for Blackwaters record of violence around the world and his subsequent ventures training and arming foreign forces. This is FRESH AIR. GOLDMAN: Well, as we started reporting on Erik Prince and Richard Seddon, I became deeply interested in learning who, in fact, was working for this organization. And so Sofia's picture was up there. Read more about the operation and its cast of characters at The New York Times. Although he owns a home in Wapiti, Prince is not generally known as a Wyoming businessman. I mean, if the idea was to get inside information, which would be useful to, you know, Republicans and conservatives, did they succeed? And we're speaking with New York Times reporter Adam Goldman. Seddon left the project in 2018, before O'Keefe started releasing low-impact "unmasking the deep state" videos. Prince is separately under investigation by the Justice Department on unrelated matters, according to people familiar with the case. And they targeted a reporter, a Washington - a very good Washington Post reporter named Stephanie McCrummen, who - they picked up on it very, very, very quickly GOLDMAN: And figured out that this woman was not who she said she was. But what is clear is if Beau and Sofia made these campaign contributions - right? DAVIES: You know, the other thing that I wanted to just clarify to the extent I can is how much of a driving force Erik Prince was in this. if (document.mmm_fo) document.write ("&mmm_fo=1"); If you already have a web account, but need to reset it, you can do so by clicking here. They need some spy training and covert military, paramilitary training at his ranch. - not quick-hit videos or, you know, shorter-term operations, which I think people say Mr. O'Keefe wanted to do. ADAM GOLDMAN: They went there after making sizable donations to the DNC, the Democratic National Committee - $10,000 each - at the request of a Colorado businessman who was a - he's a fundraiser for the Democrats and basically said, if you make this donation, you can come and hang out in Las Vegas. Mr. DAVIES: We need to take a break here. Meanwhile, Prince is once again registered as a Park County voter. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. Prince a former C.I.A. I knew something was off immediately. Prince noted he owned a home in Wyoming and had been connected to the state since 1992. And in the end, you know, O'Keefe would release them and, you know, make a big deal out of them. (SOUNDBITE OF FRANK ZAPPA'S "EAT THAT QUESTION"). And he ends up giving, you know, $6,000 to Wyoming Democratic Party and also money to other political figures. Beyond involving a different pool of jurors and a different judge, Prince may have a better chance of learning the identity of The Intercepts sources if the case stays in Wyoming, where there is no specific shield law protecting the confidentiality of reporters sources. GOLDMAN: Beau does. Ms. Jorge was eventually exposed and kicked out of the campaign office. And last year, I learned that Beau and Sofia had been working out of this house in Georgetown. Mr. Seddon and Ms. Gore did not respond to messages. Project Veritas tax filings list Mr. Halderman as a project manager.. Published October 16, 2017. And that one was made public. Why were they targeting H.R. And they were deeply critical of Trump. "Somebody who had his calendar conveyed to me that he goes to Tosca all the time," she said, and she passed the information on to a man she believed to be a Project Veritas operative with a fake name. The plan was reportedly to send a female operative to Tosca, a restaurant McMaster frequented, to engage him in drinks and conversation and record him disparaging Trump or making other inappropriate remarks on camera. There was a year-long lease that was signed that allowed Project Veritas to put its operatives in that fancy house. They'd been recruited and trained in an operation led by a former British spy and security contractor Erik Prince, an avid supporter of Donald Trump. But when I learned about Beau and Sofia last year - there's a website, Project Veritas Exposed. if (document.MAX_used != ',') document.write ("&exclude=" + document.MAX_used); This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause. Prince have ties to President Trumps aides and family. GOLDMAN: Yes, the Government Accountability Office. The list included John Cox, then the director of the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, and Scott Talbott, then the director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. GOLDMAN: Well, again, this is a little murky. In 2018, an operative working for Project Veritas infiltrated the campaign of Abigail Spanberger, who went on to win a congressional seat. WASHINGTON A British former spy recruited by Erik Prince, the security contractor close to the Trump administration, played a central role in a secretive effort to hire dozens . Prince noted he owned a home in Wyoming and had been connected to the state since 1992. Why did they want to embarrass him and get him out of the government? You know, she attended that. This couple, Beau and Sofia - they spent real time and effort trying to ingratiate themselves with Democrats and progressives. For his part, Prince swears he never met with anyone from Wagner Group a denial The Intercept included in its reporting. GOLDMAN: I don't know if misrepresenting yourself to - and getting a job at a Democratic organization is a crime. In that deposition, Mr. OKeefe defended the groups undercover tactics, saying they were part of a long tradition of investigative journalism going back to muckraking reporters like Upton Sinclair. Mr. He was asked whether he had provided any of the groups secret recordings of Democracy Partners to the Republican National Committee or any member of the Trump family. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross, who's off this week. This espionage operation was aimed at perceived enemies of Trump and included a planned sting operation against former national security adviser H.R. Defendants wrote and published a false and defamatory article about a Wyoming residents Wyoming-based business activities knowing that it would cause harm principally in Wyoming, New York attorney Matthew Schwartz charged in one filing. His attorney did not provide an on-the-record response to questions about his clients voting history while elections officials in Virginia said any requests for voter information must be made in person, at the location where the individual registered. Last year, the group received a $1 million contribution made through the law firm Alston & Bird, a financial document obtained by The New York Times showed. GOLDMAN: Well, they - you know, they - Beau is from Cody, Wyo., so he had some Wyoming roots. It also seems, to me, murky. You know, Princes are pretty savvy. 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