And so we're all familiar with that, I think, to some extent. DAVIES: Let's talk about some of the people who are behind this. The Intercept, however, has stood behind its reporting and has described the suit as an improper attempt to learn the identity of its sources. Prince also allowed Project Veritas to use his familys Wyoming ranch for training. Prince registered to vote in Park County back in 1992, but that registration lapsed after he failed to vote in the countys 2002 elections, according to county records. The companys principal office is listed as being at the Prince familys ranch in Wapiti, though the mailing address is a property in Virginia. And it was interesting to hear some of these Wyoming Republicans, you know, thank us for our reporting, you know, being The New York Times, because Trump has, you know, vilified us. What are traditional political dirty tricks? met with White House and Pentagon officials. DAVIES: That's the Government Accountability Office. She was involved in that. Efforts to locate Mr. Thomas were unsuccessful. GOLDMAN: Well, some people have speculated this was some sort of back channel to Russia because there was a - I believe there was a Russian investment manager there who has ties to Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. You know, we had - we talked to many, many people who worked there, and, you know, they described Seddon as wanting to do more long-term operations - right? document.write ("&loc=" + escape(window.location)); [I] was a Wyoming resident for many years, he told Brietbart. Prince, the former head of Blackwater Worldwide and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, has at times served as an informal adviser to Trump administration officials. And his son - he brought his son, who was a former army officer, on board to help. In a book published in 2018, Mr. OKeefe wrote that Mr. Trump years earlier had encouraged him to infiltrate Columbia University and obtain Mr. Obamas records. At the time, Ms. Spanberger was running to unseat a sitting Republican congressman in a race both parties considered important for control of the House. During a meeting in a Las Vegas suburb last April of employees of Ms. Gores organization, the Wyoming Liberty Group, Mr. Seddon pitched a proposal to build a website where other so-called preppers could buy their own supplies and communicate with each other in the event of what he called a Black Swan moment a major terrorist attack, another pandemic or a civil war. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Mr. James OKeefe, the head of Project Veritas, last year at a White House social media summit. Regardless, Princes residency is not the real issue in the case. 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. Erik Prince Helped Raise Money for Conservative Spy Venture, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/us/politics/erik-prince-spy-operation-trump-democrats.html. I believe he was involved in an effort to battle pirates in Somalia. They also did the secret interviews at the airport in Cody in the - at the Prince hangar. 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. I mean, if the idea was to get inside information, which would be useful to, you know, Republicans and conservatives, did they succeed? 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. Last year, the House Intelligence Committee made a criminal referral to the Justice Department about Mr. If you're a print subscriber, but do not yet have an online account, click here to create one. But "one of the most brazen operations of the campaign" was an attempt to take down H.R. After Mr. Gordon won a close Republican primary battle against Mr. Friess, the billionaire, in August 2018, Mr. Friess blamed his loss on Democrats switching parties on Election Day to vote for Mr. Gordon. Blackwater founder Erik Prince used the rise of Donald Trump to stage an unlikely comeback that apparently included funding spy training for far-right propagandist James O'Keefe and his Project. But then they got reversed stung by the Post, which was quite a moment. But, yeah, this kind of actual infiltration and spying, I don't think I've run across that. Mr. Seddon launched his privately funded spying effort after leaving Project Veritas in 2018. One February 2019 report said that a new undercover will be joining the team and tasked with targeting Mr. Harshman. McMaster, Trump's second national security adviser. At the time, Prince was exploring the possibility of mounting a Republican primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. The life of Erik Prince has been a complicated globe-trotting journey complete with extensive mercenary activities, spying on American citizens, brokering arms deals with despotic regimes and essentially taking advantage of any situation he can in order to line his personal pockets. They targeted The Washington Post. GOLDMAN: I was going to say, you know, talking to Republicans, moderate Republicans, I mean, moderate - these guys are pretty conservative, by the way - when we're describing it as moderate Republicans they were targeting. 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. You know, was it effective? These two are conservatives, right? We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. Funneling money surreptitiously to campaigns through other donors known as straw man donations would violate federal campaign finance laws. There's an annual one, Nellie T. Ross Banquet, and I believe it's in Cheyenne every February. Female undercover operatives tried to entrap FBI agents, sometimes using fake dating app profiles, and State Department employees, the Times reports. The McMaster operation was aborted after he, unrelated to Project Veritas, resigned under pressure from Trump. They received training for covert operations at a ranch near Cody owned by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, where Maier's mother works as a cook. '&charset='+document.charset : (document.characterSet ? Erik Prince conducts business around the globe, but in a pending lawsuit, he says he does the bulk of his work from Wyoming. And then, you know, they both end up giving to the DNC. if (document.MAX_used != ',') document.write ("&exclude=" + document.MAX_used); They targeted somebody from the Justice Department, and I wrote they also targeted FBI employees. GOLDMAN: These were videos - you can find them on Project Veritas', you know, website or on YouTube now. GOLDMAN: Well, they - you know, they - Beau is from Cody, Wyo., so he had some Wyoming roots. DAVIES: Right. Citing his ties to the state, his attorneys opted to file Princes defamation case against The Intercept in Wyomings U.S. District Court in May. document.write ("'><\/scr"+"ipt>"); if( width > 480 ){ Sofia makes a contribution - a small contribution to a woman she had befriended who ran, unsuccessfully, for the Wyoming state legislature. So, you know, this is not something I had ever done as a - you know, this is not something journalists do. Mr. DAVIES: So an active player in the Trump world. Project Veritas has said its activities are legal and protected by the First Amendment, and the case is scheduled to go to trial in the fall. 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. Remind us who he is. DAVIES: Let me reintroduce you again. So what I'm saying is from Richard Seddon's standpoint, the fact that she had a picture up on Project Veritas Exposed, that was a real risk they were taking, right? And I think the end goal was make a video and, if necessary, try to get the White House to fire McMaster. He's proposed similar things in other countries, hasn't he? They've targeted CNN. Over two years, Mr. Seddons undercover operatives also developed networks in Colorado and Arizona, and made thousands of dollars in campaign donations posing as Democrats, both to the Democratic National Committee and individual campaigns. contractor who is best known as the founder of the private military firm Blackwater and whose sister, Betsy DeVos, was Mr. Trump's education secretary has drawn. GOLDMAN: Project Veritas is founded by James O'Keefe. You'd have to ask Mr. O'Keefe. He gave the examples of Jones Creek and CMNS Systems. However, neither of those entities appear to be registered to do business in Wyoming; the only reference the Tribune could find to a company named CMNS Systems was an LLC formed in Delaware in August months after Prince filed his suit. 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. Prince had hired a former MI6 officer to help train the Project Veritas operatives, The Intercept wrote, but it did not identify the officer. You know, again, as when Barbara Ledeen, the staffer for the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was run by Chuck Grassley, you know, was trying to find Hillary Clinton's missing emails, and Prince gets involved in that, too. Mr. Seddon was a longtime British intelligence officer who served around the world, including in Washington in the years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. So it was a fascinating moment in time last year when I realized what I suspected Beau and Sofia were doing. Two weeks later, on Oct. 14, Prince submitted a new sworn statement in his defamation case, in which he acknowledged he had not registered to vote in Wyoming in 2017. And Glenn Beck, Beau's uncle, gave a toast. Mr. Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Thomas were on the list. At the time, Prince was exploring the possibility of mounting a Republican primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. And, of course, this was really weird because they work for Project Veritas. var width = jQuery(window).width(); 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. Blackwater Worldwide founder Erik Prince is considering a Republican primary challenge to Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, a senior member of the Senate GOP leadership team, in a race that could pit the party's establishment against insurgents inspired by allies of President Donald Trump. GOLDMAN: Yes, very wealthy and very conservative. Was he primarily the guy who got this thing moving? Prince declined to comment. So flesh out the picture a bit. His attorneys allege the outlet is trafficking in lies, showed an obvious and intentional disregard for the truth and effectively made Prince out to be a traitor. But I didn't reveal that I knew Beau and Sofia had lived at that house at the time because we were working - concurrently, we were working on this larger story about them. Ms. Jorge was eventually exposed and kicked out of the campaign office. The Intercept, however, wants the complaint dismissed. Mr. When does he do this, and do we know why? Prince declined to comment. Mr. GOLDMAN: She was very active. And this is FRESH AIR. 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. Prince noted he owned a home in Wyoming and had been connected to the state since 1992. Many conservatives have gleefully pounced on Project Veritass disclosures, including one particularly influential voice: Donald Trump Jr., the presidents eldest son. DAVIES: Did any of these result in resignations, firings, criminal investigations GOLDMAN: You know, and in the end, the people who were involved, I think, were, you know, slightly humiliated. The whole thing was completely - was really weird. It seems like the Democrats have figured out this party switch deal to their advantage, Mr. Friess wrote in an email obtained by Wyofile, a political news site in Wyoming. By Derek Royden - July 2, 2021 2466 SOURCE NationofChange 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.. Trump, of course, wanted to pull out. (SOUNDBITE OF GOGOL BORDELLO'S "NOT A CRIME"). Mark Gordon, who was viewed as a RINO in some Wyoming conservative circles. Along with gathering intel, Maier and LaRocca sought to bait individuals associated with Better Wyoming into making statements they could secretly record and hand over to their clients. This is when there was the special Senate election in Alabama, right? And I think the Intercept geolocated that photo and determined it was Erik Prince's ranch. The Trump Foundation gave $20,000 to Project Veritas in 2015, the year that Mr. Trump began his bid for the presidency. However, he ultimately did not challenge Barrasso in 2018 nor did he vote in those off-year elections, Prince acknowledged in Octobers revised declaration. Anyone can read what you share. So he had pitched this idea of a private security force to largely replace American troops in Afghanistan. But I don't know how close they are. Of course, everybody's familiar with Watergate, right? They provide additional insight into the ambition of the operation to use undercover operatives to target Republicans seen as insufficiently conservative, as well as to, as one document describes it, research, penetrate and infiltrate the radical left networks.. Reached by phone, Ms. Halverson said: Frankly, I have nothing to say on the subject. She then hung up. And, you know, eventually she starts using this to meet other prominent Democrats in the state. DAVIES: When Richard Seddon and Erik Prince got connected with Veritas and cooperated on some of these operations, what was the effect on Veritas? //]]>-->. GOLDMAN: No. 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. DAVIES: But Sofia was just - she was active. You know, they targeted the teachers unions. So he's certainly moved in this world before. And that was their logo. State records show Moyock Medical Supplies was formed in Wyoming by an associate of Princes on April 15 two days after The Intercept published its article. Prince and Mr. Seddon met in August 2018 with Susan Gore, a Wyoming heiress to the Gore-Tex fortune, Ms. Gore became the projects main benefactor. Published October 16, 2017. And, you know, I'm not sure when the relationship started. That was the idea. Prince, saying he lied about the circumstances of his meeting with a Russian banker in the Seychelles in January 2017. That includes a pair of donations he made in March and October, in which he apparently listed his address as a post office box in Middleburg, Virginia. And they targeted - Project Veritas had a whole series. Mr. Seddons role in the teachers union operation detailed in internal Project Veritas emails that have emerged from the discovery process of a court battle between the group and the union has not previously been reported, nor has Mr. Princes role in recruiting Mr. Seddon for the groups activities. But it was not her real name. You know, there was one exercise, I believe, where they had a cop - you know, a local cop who was there. DAVIES: Right. And then as I sort of gathered - started to gather information on this, I knew this was going to be a story. But what is clear is if Beau and Sofia made these campaign contributions - right? WASHINGTON During the summer of 2018, as Richard Seddon, a former British spy, was trying to launch a new venture to use undercover agents to infiltrate progressive groups, Democratic campaigns and other opponents of President Donald J. Trump, he turned for help to a longtime friend and former colleague: Erik Prince, the private military contractor. DAVIES: We need to take a break here. 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. A document that month said that Mr. Seddons operatives had identified three potential sources in the new governors administration and have begun accelerated cultivations with a view to early recruitment., Later in January, the operatives wrote that they had successfully recruited another source with a role in the new governors administration, adding that the source has agreed to provide insights, help expose corruption and assist with eventual placement of undercovers.. If he enters the race, he would be challenging Republican incumbent John Barrasso in the 2018 primaries, with the encouragement of Steve Bannon. Fast-forward to 2007, and Erik Prince was living in McLean, Virginia, and spending time on his Middleburg property, Blackwater Ranch, designed as a family retreat just as his parent's home in Cody had been originally. O'Keefe did not respond to the substance of the Times' report but did accuse the newspaper of running a "smear piece" on Project Veritas. But they thanked us for bringing, you know, putting some sunlight on this. 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. This is FRESH AIR. Given Mr. Princes extensive personal and professional ties to Wyoming, it is certainly plausible that some or all of [The Intercepts] sources to the extent they exist at all were located in Wyoming, Princes legal team wrote. Erik Prince, the founder of controversial private military firm Blackwater and a supporter of former President Donald Trump, jumped into the COVID-19 business late last year with a deal to . So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. Erik Prince, the former head of Blackwater Worldwide and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, has at times served as an informal adviser to Trump administration officials. And they - you know, I think they - it seemed like they were seeking revenge. - trying to find, you know, damaging information on, you know, on political rivals, you know, using, you know, private investigative firms. Is that what these interviews were about? Key figures in the operation are a former British spy named Richard Seddon and private security contractor Erik Prince, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump. - 500, 1000. But, you know, his sister is Betsy DeVos, and she was Secretary of Education during the Trump administration. Mr. Seddon was not. Mr. Princes role in the effort, which has not been previously disclosed, sheds further light on how a group of ultraconservative Republicans employed spycraft to try to manipulate the American political landscape. If Judge Johnson concludes he lacks jurisdiction to hear the case in Wyoming, Princes attorneys say the suit should be transferred to the Southern District of New York, where The Intercept is based. If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free web account by clicking here. GOLDMAN: Yeah, I think they nearly tripled the number of people they hired. This item is available in full to subscribers. And Las Vegas was the - you could almost say it was the pinnacle, the apex of their operation. 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? GOLDMAN: Yeah, and the Justice Department prosecuted a number of individuals. 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. I think it was called "Deep State Exposed" or "Deep State Uncovered." There was a year-long lease that was signed that allowed Project Veritas to put its operatives in that fancy house. GOLDMAN: Yeah, I would say an active - sure, an active player in certain parts of Trump's world, yeah, or conservative - the conservative world. People have probably heard of this organization. McMaster. And I realized they were giving money to Democrats in Wyoming, Arizona and Colorado. 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