And this is FRESH AIR. GOLDMAN: I think - yeah, I think the latest is - you know, he's worked - his latest adventure is in Libya. Several of them confirmed their donations. 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. Erik Prince, the founder of private military company Blackwater, whose sister Betsy DeVos was Trump's education secretary, trained the spies Their job was to find out who was disparaging Trump. Mr. Seddons recruitment of Mr. GOLDMAN: These were videos - you can find them on Project Veritas', you know, website or on YouTube now. 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. 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. Mr. Seddon owns a cabin that he keeps stocked with guns, food and other supplies as preparation for a cataclysmic event in the United States. So it was a fascinating moment in time last year when I realized what I suspected Beau and Sofia were doing. 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. But "one of the most brazen operations of the campaign" was an attempt to take down H.R. GOLDMAN: Well, that's a great question and one we struggle with at the Times in trying to put this in context. 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. } I mean, he - it seems that - it's our understanding that Prince introduced Seddon to Project Veritas. She was involved in that. And Las Vegas was the - you could almost say it was the pinnacle, the apex of their operation. According to the documents, Mr. Seddons operatives also aimed to dig up information on Steve Harshman, the Republican speaker of the House in Wyoming at the time, who was also seen by some conservatives as not sufficiently supportive of Mr. Trump. I mean, if the idea was to get inside information, which would be useful to, you know, Republicans and conservatives, did they succeed? 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. DAVIES: Right. 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. Did it help, you know, Project Veritas raise more money? And as I was reporting this, somebody said, well, you know, her picture, you know, she's on that website. "He's a very nice man," Prince said of Barrasso in the Breitbart interview. We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. We'll talk more about his stories on undercover operations by conservatives to infiltrate Democratic and progressive groups after a short break. 1-307-754-2221. (Last week, Trump pardoned the four Blackwater guards who were convicted of crimes in connection with the killings in Baghdad.). Im not ashamed of the methods that we use or the recordings that we use, he said. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. 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. What was going on there? document.write ('&cb=' + m3_r); The Defense Department didn't go for it. And, I mean, they were both active, but she was literally, you know, infiltrating these Democratic groups. Prince said he thought hed registered to vote when hed obtained a Wyoming drivers license in October 2017. But I don't know how close they are. 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. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. 'https://powellbanners.creativecirclemedia.com/www/delivery/ajs.php':'http://powellbanners.creativecirclemedia.com/www/delivery/ajs.php'); Between 1992 and 2001, Prince often listed Park County as his home, consistent with his voting records. What were they trying to get? 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. Richard Seddon, in 2018, I guess, decided to stop working with Project Veritas. GOLDMAN: They were thwarting the president's agenda. The companys principal office is listed as being at the Prince familys ranch in Wapiti, though the mailing address is a property in Virginia. Prince, a contractor close to the Trump administration, contacted veteran spies for operations by Project Veritas, the conservative group known for conducting stings on news organizations and other groups. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. In a Jan. 15 order, U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson of Cheyenne tossed out Prince's defamation lawsuit against The Intercept. zoneId = '8'; GOLDMAN: Richard Seddon is a former MI6 spy. GOLDMAN: Well, I don't know if he is primarily the guy. You'd have to ask Mr. O'Keefe. DAVIES: Right. Oct. 21, 2020. To win his case, Prince will ultimately have to show the story was false and he may also have to prove the publication knew the story was false or showed a reckless disregard as to whether it was accurate. At the time, Prince was exploring the possibility of mounting a Republican primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. They had a private security firm. Mr. DAVIES: They'd gotten formal training in this. And I certainly don't think he thought he was going to get dragged into this. 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. Prince might have approached for money for Mr. Seddons venture besides Ms. Gore. The Times previously reported that, in 2016 and 2017, Mr. Later that year, Mr. I mean, people did shoot guns. Mr. One February 2019 report said that a new undercover will be joining the team and tasked with targeting Mr. Harshman. We're speaking with New York Times reporter Adam Goldman, one of a team of Times reporters who've been writing about an effort by conservatives to train operatives in undercover operations to infiltrate progressive groups, unions and the offices and campaigns of Democratic and moderate Republican candidates and elected officials. Adam Goldman, welcome back to FRESH AIR. 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 McMaster operation was aborted after he, unrelated to Project Veritas, resigned under pressure from Trump. 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 then as I sort of gathered - started to gather information on this, I knew this was going to be a story. He was dismayed, three former Project Veritas employees told the Times, with "O'Keefe's desire to produce quick media content rather than to run long-term infiltration operations." As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. But I think - you would think that Democrats and Republicans would all be united, that this is a bipartisan issue, right? Mr. OKeefe and others shared social media photos of taking target practice with guns at the ranch, including one post from Mr. OKeefe saying that with the training, Project Veritas will be the next great intelligence agency. Mr. This is FRESH AIR. How Times reporters cover politics. Their names are Beau Maier and Sofia LaRocca, and they're in Las Vegas for a Democratic primary debate. 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. Erik Prince, founder of private security contractor Blackwater and brother of former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, recruited a former British spy in 2016 to professionalize the undercover. Two other employees, Gaz Thomas and Samuel Chamberlain, were also identified in emails and appeared to play important roles in the Michigan operation. During the 2018 meeting with Ms. Gore, according to one person familiar with it, Mr. 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.. 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. Both Project Veritas and Mr. And Beau's mom is the ranch cook at the Erik Prince family's ranch near Cody, Wyo. I also think that - I think recently, too, O'Keefe, did a photo op or made a video with Donald Trump. And Prince comes up in the special council report - Robert Mueller's report. It is, instead, an entity dedicated to a specific political agenda.. This is FRESH AIR. They targeted somebody from the Justice Department, and I wrote they also targeted FBI employees. 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. if (document.referrer) document.write ("&referer=" + escape(document.referrer)); Mr. Seddon launched his privately funded spying effort after leaving Project Veritas in 2018. And then I started Googling them and doing some research on them. 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 we had never seen something like that. The New York Times published an article chronicling a Wapiti, Wyoming-based espianoge effort. Prince, saying he lied about the circumstances of his meeting with a Russian banker in the Seychelles in January 2017. For example, Rolling Stone published an investigative piece in October asserting Prince participated in a plan to dampen turnout among Black voters in the 2016 election. He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. Not saying this is the case with Mr. O'Keefe, but it's sort of hard to fundraise that way if you're only doing one thing a year or if it's - you know, there are long periods of silence between each expose. 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. This is FRESH AIR. GOLDMAN: Yeah, I think they nearly tripled the number of people they hired. DAVIES: What are Erik Prince's contacts or associations with Donald Trump and the Trump family? And Beau eventually divorced his wife. DAVIES: Right. I mean, we know that Erik Prince was trying to sell a plan to the Trump administration to put these - for him, in fact, to put a private, you know, army of a bunch of mercenaries in Afghanistan and sort of take over those responsibilities from the government, sort of, in some ways, replace the U.S. forces on the ground there. 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. DAVIES: Right. GOLDMAN: It's not clear to me. 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. There's an annual one, Nellie T. Ross Banquet, and I believe it's in Cheyenne every February. DAVIES: What did you learn about how Beau and Sofia met? And so, you know, I can't tell you right now it hasn't, that somebody else isn't doing this. So I thought to myself, why are they giving money to these people, these Democratic politicians? There was a year-long lease that was signed that allowed Project Veritas to put its operatives in that fancy house. 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 . And Glenn Beck, Beau's uncle, gave a toast. - trying to find, you know, damaging information on, you know, on political rivals, you know, using, you know, private investigative firms. GOLDMAN: Well, again, this is a little murky. There were steps taken to advance this plan, but in the end, it didn't happen because McMaster was fired. The documents also show that, beyond Ms. Gore, other prominent Republicans in Wyoming were involved in Mr. Seddons spying operation. He owns a home on a lot adjoining his familys Double E Ranch in Wapiti. var m3_u = (location.protocol=='https:'? But, you know, over 18, they - it grew closer. 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. McMaster. He is not registered in Park County or [Wyoming] presently, unless he is not going by Erik Dean Prince and has changed his name, Park County Elections Deputy Pat Cole said in a Sept. 17 email; he said Prince hadnt voted in Wyoming since 2000. The next year, during a presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump claimed without substantiation that videos released by Mr. OKeefe showed that Mrs. Clinton and President Barack Obama had paid people to incite violence at rallies for Mr. Trump. Prince and Mr. Seddon said the goal of the private spying operation was to gather dirt both on Democrats and RINOs slang in conservative circles for Republicans in name only. The plan was to begin in Wyoming, they said, and expand operations from there.
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