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. And, yeah, people steal lawn signs. (SOUNDBITE OF GOGOL BORDELLO'S "NOT A CRIME"). One of the documents indicates that Marti Halverson, a former Wyoming state lawmaker, provided a list of people for the operatives to target. Adam Goldman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. He'll be back to talk more about his stories on undercover operations by conservatives to infiltrate democratic and progressive groups after this short break. You know, was it effective? At the time, Prince was exploring the possibility of mounting a Republican primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. And as I was reporting this, somebody said, well, you know, her picture, you know, she's on that website. var m3_u = (location.protocol=='https:'? Why are they there? And so, you know, I can't tell you right now it hasn't, that somebody else isn't doing 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. 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. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and our guest is Adam Goldman. DAVIES: Let's talk about some of the people who are behind this. And Prince comes up in the special council report - Robert Mueller's report. We still don't know everything about it, and we're trying to learn more about exactly who was behind this and if money was paid and so on. They need some spy training and covert military, paramilitary training at his ranch. You'd have to ask Mr. O'Keefe. But her picture was on this website. DAVIES: Let me reintroduce you again. 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. 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. Other outlets, however, have continued writing about the contractor. So he had pitched this idea of a private security force to largely replace American troops in Afghanistan. Mr. Mr. Set some context for us here. Prince appears to have become interested in using former spies to train Project Veritas operatives in espionage tactics sometime during the 2016 presidential campaign. And his son - he brought his son, who was a former army officer, on board to help. The documents give new details about efforts to manipulate the politics of Wyoming. DAVIES: Now, one of the more well-known operations - because, well, you reported on this - was an effort to embarrass Trump's national security adviser, H.R. And, you know, Seddon then reached out to, you know, a family - an old friend who had worked at the FBI. I think it was called "Deep State Exposed" or "Deep State Uncovered." People have probably heard of this organization. We are speaking with Adam Goldman. Prince noted he owned a home in Wyoming and had been connected to the state since 1992. 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. And ultimately, it did blow up in their face. DAVIES: But the idea was that these public officials or FBI agents were secretly - they were part of the deep state. 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? Mr. Seddon wrote that Ms. Jorge copied a great many documents from the file room, and Mr. OKeefe bragged that the group would be able to get a ton more access agents inside the educational establishment.. Presented with the details of the operation, Ledeen told the Times she was just a messenger, "not part of a plot.". Wagner which The Intercept described as a semi-private military force that operates in countries or conflicts where the Russian government seeks plausible deniability for its activities reportedly turned down Princes offer. And, you know, typically they would have a male individual working for Project Veritas who would accompany these women on these dates as sort of, like, security. However, the story quoted a former U.S. Treasury official who suggested simply making an offer to assist Wagner might have violated current U.S. sanctions in place against the Russian firm. Did it expand the number of people that they had? 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. They had a - someone came to the Post. From 1986 through the present, hes made roughly 100 contributions totaling more than $630,000 to Republican causes and Congressional candidates, according to Federal Election Commission records. 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. In a Jan. 15 order, U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson of Cheyenne tossed out Prince's defamation lawsuit against The Intercept. Prince declined to comment. Princes parents, Elsa Prince and the late Edgar Prince, bought the 940-acre Double E Ranch in the Wapiti Valley in the early 1990s. document.write ("'><\/scr"+"ipt>"); And then they married last week. Last week, our guest, reporter Adam Goldman, co-authored a story about a couple who ingratiated themselves with Democrats in Wyoming, often making substantial political contributions to ensure their access to valuable information. 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. 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. And it's a fascinating story. So we had never seen something like that. With @Project_Veritas's special training, we will be the next great intelligence agency. DAVIES: Do we know of connections between Project Veritas and James O'Keefe and Trump, Donald Trump or the Trump family? GOLDMAN: Yes, very wealthy and very conservative. We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. Remind us who he is. McMaster. And this is FRESH AIR. DAVIES: Right. The document is dated December 2018 and said that Mr. Talbott was another of the names of corrupt individuals from Marti.. Mr. And as part of this effort, Richard Seddon was brought on to handle training and really professionalize Project Veritas' undercover operations. Is he actually providing those kinds of services? James OKeefe, the head of Project Veritas, last year at a White House social media summit. 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. But he was extremely wealthy conservative in Wyoming named Foster Friess, who had actually run for governor in '18. I believe he was involved in an effort to battle pirates in Somalia. Why were they targeting H.R. And Mr. O'Keefe disclosed that Foster Friess had actually given Project Veritas money. And I realized they were giving money to Democrats in Wyoming, Arizona and Colorado. var width = jQuery(window).width(); I think Trump pardoned at least one. - where you have people in your organization who aren't who they say they are, you know, collecting intelligence, if that's what you want to call it. Female undercover operatives tried to entrap FBI agents, sometimes using fake dating app profiles, and State Department employees, the Times reports. Prince invited Project Veritas operatives including Mr. OKeefe to his familys Wyoming ranch for training in 2017, The Intercept reported last year. So somebody was just waiting - and it turned out to be me and Mark - to come along and make the connection between the Sofia de LaRocca (ph) out in Wyoming and "Maria," quote, unquote, on the Project Veritas Exposed website. Connor Wroe Southard. They used a code name LibertyU for their operative inside the organization, Marisa Jorge, who graduated from Liberty University in Virginia, one of the nations largest Christian colleges. The McMaster operation was aborted after he, unrelated to Project Veritas, resigned under pressure from Trump. NY Times reporter Adam Goldman describes an undercover effort, headed up by an avid Trump supporter, that trained conservatives in espionage techniques and sent them to dig up dirt on progressives. You know, they targeted the teachers unions. The scope of that investigation is unclear. Mr. Seddon directed an undercover operative to secretly tape the unions local leaders and try to gather information that could be made public to damage the organization, documents show. I mean, if the idea was to get inside information, which would be useful to, you know, Republicans and conservatives, did they succeed? As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. 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. 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. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. They went after a Democratic staffer in Washington. 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. 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. DAVIES: Coming up, rock critic Ken Tucker reviews new songs by veteran artist Tom Jones, Jackson Browne and John Mayer. Several of them confirmed their donations. Princes attorneys responded that, if the judge has any doubts about Wyoming being the appropriate venue for the case, they should be allowed to learn the identity of The Intercepts confidential sources. Prince said he thought hed registered to vote when hed obtained a Wyoming drivers license in October 2017. Erik Prince doesn't live in the state, he's from the same party as the incumbent, Sen. John Barrasso, and he's best known for founding a private security firm, Blackwater, that was kicked out of . Previously, he covered national security for The Washington Post and worked on the investigative team at the Associated Press, where he and his colleagues revealed the New York Police Department's Muslim spying programs. Prince took on the role of celebrity pitchman, according to interviews and documents, raising money for Mr. Seddons spying operation, which was aimed at gathering dirt that could discredit politicians and activists in several states. Sofia makes a contribution - a small contribution to a woman she had befriended who ran, unsuccessfully, for the Wyoming state legislature. DAVIES: They'd gotten formal training in this. Last year, Project Veritas submitted a proposed list of witnesses for the trial over the lawsuit. DAVIES: So an active player in the Trump world. Prince said he regularly host[s] customers, investors, employees and other business associates at my Wyoming ranch.. He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. Prince a former C.I.A. So I thought to myself, why are they giving money to these people, these Democratic politicians? This couple, Beau and Sofia - they spent real time and effort trying to ingratiate themselves with Democrats and progressives. It's not clear to me how close he is to Trump. if (document.MAX_used != ',') document.write ("&exclude=" + document.MAX_used); DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And then on a parallel but different track, you know, Sofia is trying to make her way through the Young Democrats of Wyoming, the Wyoming Democratic Party, you know, building her bona fides as an eager, young Democrat. GOLDMAN: Well, I think it was - our latest story revealed, you know, at least one person who had been working for the Democrats thought that Sofia likely might have gotten some damaging information about Democratic efforts to help, you know, moderate Republicans. And there was, you know, another individual from the Emirates who was there. We're going to take a break here. This is FRESH AIR. Was he primarily the guy who got this thing moving? And his supporters have vilified us. The group has also become intertwined with the political activities of Mr. Trump and his family. AFT Michigan sued Project Veritas in federal court, alleging trespassing, eavesdropping and other offenses. Their attorneys wrote that the story did not focus its efforts on or in Wyoming, nor would it have any reason to do so . And they would secretly record them, you know, and create content and then eventually, you know, release a video, like they did in several instances. That same day Oct. 9, 2017 Prince obtained a Wyomings drivers license, which he touted in another interview with Breitbart a few days later. That was certainly a catalyst. DAVIES: Adam Goldman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. DAVIES: So how did you come upon this couple, Beau and Sofia? In 2017, Prince invited O'Keefe and Project Veritas employees to his family's Wyoming ranch and arranged for an unnamed former British MI6 officer to provide training for the group, The . We know that political operatives will gather opposition research as it's called - right? But I don't know how close they are. 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. Mr. Seddon and Ms. Gore did not respond to messages. 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. 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: Yeah. document.write (document.charset ? So O'Keefe's Instagram photo, you know, led people to realize that, you know, Prince had played a role, at least in letting Project Veritas use the ranch for training. Efforts to locate Mr. Thomas were unsuccessful. DAVIES: That's a really fascinating example of the power of, you know, database reporting now because you knew they were doing the thing in Georgetown, but their campaign contributions in Wyoming have to be publicly reported. Well, that and - by the way, at some point - I don't know the time period. 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? 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? And it's not clear to us if he was making any money off of this. And I certainly don't think he thought he was going to get dragged into this. GOLDMAN: Well, that's a great question and one we struggle with at the Times in trying to put this in context. And, of course, this was really weird because they work for Project Veritas. But before the parties get to the lawsuits merits, The Intercept is contending, among other arguments, that Wyoming is not the right place for the case to be heard. Ms. Jorge was eventually exposed and kicked out of the campaign office. Their names are Beau Maier and Sofia LaRocca, and they're in Las Vegas for a Democratic primary debate. 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. Trump, of course, wanted to pull out. DAVIES: That's the Government Accountability Office. Reached by phone, Ms. Halverson said: Frankly, I have nothing to say on the subject. She then hung up. And we're speaking with New York Times reporter Adam Goldman. 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 . Erik Prince, a political novice and former Navy SEAL who made a fortune in contracting security services to the U.S. Military, said in an interview with Breitbart that he will announce in the coming weeks whether he will challenge Barrasso in the Republican primary. And they received what was essentially clandestine training at a ranch in Wyoming that's owned by the family of Erik Prince. And last year, I learned that Beau and Sofia had been working out of this house in Georgetown. Why did they want to embarrass him and get him out of the government? In 2018, an operative working for Project Veritas infiltrated the campaign of Abigail Spanberger, who went on to win a congressional seat. If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free web account by clicking here. Even if it is true that Prince now genuinely considers himself a Wyoming resident, it cannot be said that [The Intercept] could fairly anticipate being [hauled] into court in Wyoming, the attorneys wrote in a September filing. 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. 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. She and Mr. Over the past year and a half, The New York Times has reported on an effort by conservatives to train operatives in undercover spy techniques to infiltrate progressive groups, political campaigns, unions and the offices of Democratic and moderate Republican elected officials. 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. 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. 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. After Mr. It's a conservative group, and they conduct undercover operations, for instance, to expose bias or what they would describe as, you know, wrongdoing primarily in liberal circles. GOLDMAN: Yeah. GOLDMAN: Yeah. So he's certainly moved in this world before. 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