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, you know, there were a whole range of people they went after. Last month, Project Veritas made public secretly recorded video of a longtime ABC News correspondent who was critical of the networks political coverage and its emphasis on business considerations over journalism. As further evidence of his ties to Wyoming and the business he conducts in the state, Princes initial declaration said he owned several operating entities registered to his residence in Wapiti. And they stopped the - they would actually stop the operatives in a car. GOLDMAN: In some instances, they were on, you know, these social - these dating apps, 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. He's a reporter for The New York Times. - 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. And last year, I learned that Beau and Sofia had been working out of this house in Georgetown. 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.. 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. And there was, you know, another individual from the Emirates who was there. Many conservatives have gleefully pounced on Project Veritass disclosures, including one particularly influential voice: Donald Trump Jr., the presidents eldest son. Efforts to locate Mr. Thomas were unsuccessful. The New York Times published an article chronicling a Wapiti, Wyoming-based espianoge effort. Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/politics/erik-prince-project-veritas.html. And as part of this effort, Richard Seddon was brought on to handle training and really professionalize Project Veritas' undercover operations. met with White House and Pentagon officials. Mr. What did they show? The Intercept, however, wants the complaint dismissed. She was involved in that. //]]>-->. A spokesman for the firm said that Alston & Bird has never contributed to Project Veritas on its own behalf, nor is it a client of ours. The spokesman declined to say on whose behalf the contribution was made. And, you know, and he is - you know, he's an international businessman. GOLDMAN: Yeah. } GOLDMAN: Well, I don't know if he is primarily the guy. 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. And as I was reporting this, somebody said, well, you know, her picture, you know, she's on that website. And the operatives had to give a - you know, had to give a cover story under duress. I also think that - I think recently, too, O'Keefe, did a photo op or made a video with Donald Trump. And he was pitching that plan, but it never got anywhere. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. Prince a former C.I.A. I think Trump pardoned at least one. DAVIES: Right - Erik Prince, the security contractor who we'll talk more about. James OKeefe, a conservative activist, founded Project Veritas. Were just trying to hold them accountable for this industrial espionage.. 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 . In a YouTube video, Mr. OKeefe described the lawsuit as frivolous and pointed to a portion of the deposition in which David Hecker, the president of AFT Michigan, said that one of the goals of the lawsuit was to stop Project Veritas from doing the kind of work that it does., Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement: Lets be clear who the wrongdoer is here: Project Veritas used a fake intern to lie her way into our Michigan office, to steal documents and to spy and they got caught. 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. You know, they targeted the teachers unions. "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. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. 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. DAVIES: Adam Goldman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. GOLDMAN: It's my understanding that they met during a training at the Prince ranch in Wyoming in the spring of '17 and then grew closer over time. zoneId = 'Array'; GOLDMAN: What - the training they got was when they worked for an outfit called Project Veritas. But I think - you would think that Democrats and Republicans would all be united, that this is a bipartisan issue, right? Wapiti resident Erik Prince is one of several people associated with a Wyoming-based effort to infiltrate political campaigns and get "dirt" to sabotage candidates. Im not ashamed of the methods that we use or the recordings that we use, he said. 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.. When a muckraking news site published a story alleging private security contractor and Blackwater founder Erik Prince had offered his services to a Russian mercenary firm, the connections to Wyoming were not obvious; the state was never mentioned in the piece. 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. 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 . document.write (document.charset ? There was eventually litigation about that, wasn't there? After Mr. There's a long backstory there. Seddon left the project in 2018, before O'Keefe started releasing low-impact "unmasking the deep state" videos. McMaster was thwarting the president's agenda - right? 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. I believe he was involved in an effort to battle pirates in Somalia. 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. So what exactly was the plan to (laughter) catch McMaster saying something he shouldn't? Beau picks up - starts working this marijuana legalization angle to try to make contacts with people - elected officials who are, in fact, pushing this bill to legalize marijuana. Erik Prince, founder of the private security firm Blackwater, filed a defamation lawsuit against The Intercept last month over an article published in 2020 that examined his efforts to sell. The Trump Foundation gave $20,000 to Project Veritas in 2015, the year that Mr. Trump began his bid for the presidency. She was doing outreach to, you know, Democratic figures in Wyoming. You know, they were angry too, right? And then I started Googling them and doing some research on them. And, you know, they targeted somebody from the State Department, and they targeted somebody from GAO. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. DAVIES: Right. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. The scope of that investigation is unclear. Erik Prince, founder of the private military firm Blackwater, helped raise money for a political-intelligence operation run by Richard Seddon, a former British spy. And they both say they didnt interview anyone in the state for the article. Attorneys for the outlet say The Intercept has no particular connection to the state and Princes ties are uncertain. Prince declined to comment. I mean, he - it seems that - it's our understanding that Prince introduced Seddon to Project Veritas. This is when there was the special Senate election in Alabama, right? In 2018, an operative working for Project Veritas infiltrated the campaign of Abigail Spanberger, who went on to win a congressional seat. I don't know. DAVIES: They targeted ACORN. She went to meetings. Is this stuff a crime? 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. 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. We know that political operatives will gather opposition research as it's called - right? And they would find people, and they would go out with them. There was a year-long lease that was signed that allowed Project Veritas to put its operatives in that fancy house. You know, O'Keefe has clearly raised a lot of money, you know, millions of dollars. 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. Anyone can read what you share. That's a name some people will know. 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. But if the case was transferred to New York, that states laws could apply. GOLDMAN: These were videos - you can find them on Project Veritas', you know, website or on YouTube now. DAVIES: Right. 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. GOLDMAN: Erik Prince is the well-known founder of Blackwater, the security contractors who were involved in the massacre in Iraq. And, you know, Seddon was out at the farm. 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. Mr. And, you know, we've talked to people who have given to them, including people who gave smaller donations - right? 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. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. So flesh out the picture a bit. And, you know, eventually she starts using this to meet other prominent Democrats in the state. 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. If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free web account by clicking here. His contributions to the 2022 Whitney Biennial, on view through Sept. 5 three fanciful portraits of Erik Prince, the financier and founder of the private security firm Blackwater depict a. 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. Their reporting on the department won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. The woman was claiming she had been impregnated by the Senate candidate, thinking that The Washington Post would be so excited to get dirt about a conservative that they would publish a bogus story. With @Project_Veritas's special training, we will be the next great intelligence agency. The Times previously reported that, in 2016 and 2017, Mr. The year after the sting, Democracy Partners sued Project Veritas, and its lawyers have since deposed Mr. OKeefe. And so, you know, I can't tell you right now it hasn't, that somebody else isn't doing this. According to its latest publicly available tax filing, Project Veritas received $8.6 million in contributions and grants in 2018. Last year, the House Intelligence Committee made a criminal referral to the Justice Department about Mr. DAVIES: So an active player in the Trump world. DAVIES: Let's talk about some of the people who are behind this. They make significant political contributions, right? They were critical of Donald Trump and his agenda. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. You know, this is something we haven't seen, right? GOLDMAN: Project Veritas is founded by James O'Keefe. But, you know, over 18, they - it grew closer. He said that he did not think so. For example, a 2017 meeting he attended with a crown prince of the United Arab Emirates and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin became a part of the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, whom he has served as informal adviser. Prince is under investigation by the Justice Department over whether he lied to a congressional committee examining Russian interference in the 2016 election, and for possible violations of American export laws. O'Keefe writes about it in his book. Ms. Jorge was eventually exposed and kicked out of the campaign office. In 2016, a Project Veritas operative infiltrated Democracy Partners using a fake name and fabricated rsum and made secret recordings of the staff. DAVIES: What did you learn about how Beau and Sofia met? 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. So he's certainly moved in this world before. The emails refer to other operations, including weekly case updates, along with training activities that involved operational targeting. Project Veritas redacted specifics about those operations from the messages. If you already have a web account, but need to reset it, you can do so by clicking here. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross, who's off this week. He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. Between 1992 and 2001, Prince often listed Park County as his home, consistent with his voting records. Their attorneys wrote that the story did not focus its efforts on or in Wyoming, nor would it have any reason to do so . 1-307-754-2221. And we actually - I, you know, I - Mark and I reached out to our - one of great political reporters, Jonathan Martin, and asked him, you know. In more recent years, Prince has remained a mover and shaker and a controversial figure on the international stage. No one tells Project Veritas who or what to investigate, he said. 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. DAVIES: Let me reintroduce you again. I mean, if the idea was to get inside information, which would be useful to, you know, Republicans and conservatives, did they succeed? The Intercept, however, has stood behind its reporting and has described the suit as an improper attempt to learn the identity of its sources. Erik Prince, the failson face of privatized war If the face long associated with modern mercenaries were more successful at his business, we might already live in a much more dystopian world. Regardless, Princes residency is not the real issue in the case. And Prince comes up in the special council report - Robert Mueller's report. Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Thomas were on the list. GOLDMAN: Yeah. He said that numerous sources were coming to the group providing confidential documents, insights into internal processes and wearing hidden cameras to expose corruption and misconduct.. Prince is separately under investigation by the Justice Department on unrelated matters, according to people familiar with the case. Valued at roughly $12 million by the Park County Assessors Office, the property includes a 17,470-square-foot residence that ranks among the largest in the area; county records show Prince owns a smaller home on an adjoining 10-acre parcel. That's a strawman campaign donation. 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