Erik Prince, founder and CEO of Blackwater Worldwide, in 2008. DAVIES: It was a risk because she couldn't effectively work undercover if they'd been exposed by this organization that's critical of Veritas? And it's not clear to us if he was making any money off of this. Currently, Prince leads a Hong Kong-based firm providing security, logistics, insurance and infrastructure services in parts of Africa and other high-conflict areas. And they were doing this - it appears that they were doing this from the house where Beau and Sofia lived with others. Prince said he should have named a different company Moyock Medical Supplies LLC as an example of an entity he owns thats registered to his address in Wapiti. So he's going to pop up in all sorts of different places. I also think that - I think recently, too, O'Keefe, did a photo op or made a video with Donald Trump. Emails sent to Mr. Seddon went unanswered. Anyone can read what you share. That got a lot of attention, was investigated by Robert Mueller. With @Project_Veritas's special training, we will be the next great intelligence agency. In apparent response to inquiries from the Tribune about the two companies ties to Wyoming, Princes revised declaration said he misidentified the names of the entities. Ms. Gore ended up rejecting the proposal because it was too expensive people with knowledge of the plan said it would start in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Female undercover operatives tried to entrap FBI agents, sometimes using fake dating app profiles, and State Department employees, the Times reports. - and, you know, that probably in terms of, you know, Iran - not pulling out of the agreement with Iran, the JCPOA, and, you know, McMaster, you know, wanting to keep, I guess, troops in Afghanistan. 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. Seddon left the project in 2018, before O'Keefe started releasing low-impact "unmasking the deep state" videos. He said that he did not think so. var m3_r = Math.floor(Math.random()*99999999999); Mr. One of the documents indicates that Marti Halverson, a former Wyoming state lawmaker, provided a list of people for the operatives to target. And, you know, and he is - you know, he's an international businessman. Copyright 2021 NPR. She actually got a contract fundraising gig with the Democrats, right? 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. I mean, he - it seems that - it's our understanding that Prince introduced Seddon to Project Veritas. We are speaking with Adam Goldman. In 2018, Ms. Jorge infiltrated the congressional campaign of Ms. Spanberger, posing as a campaign volunteer. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. So, you know, this is not something I had ever done as a - you know, this is not something journalists do. You know, O'Keefe has clearly raised a lot of money, you know, millions of dollars. And, you know, we wrote the story about the operation targeting McMaster and Georgetown. Click here to see your options for becoming a subscriber. 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. He comes in late '16 or '17 - around that time period. 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. 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. To do so would potentially reveal the sources identity, in breach of a promise of confidentiality made to the source, and creating personal risk for the source, they wrote, adding Princes real motive in bringing this lawsuit obtaining the identity of [The Intercepts] confidential source is plain., Further, if Prince is allowed to take discovery of The Intercept, the lawyers say they should be allowed to probe Princes ties to Virginia versus Wyoming, since he already has been forced to admit [his sworn statements] contained certain falsehoods.. In 2016, Republican operatives believed they had obtained deleted Hillary Clinton emails from the dark web, and sought Mr. Princes assistance to authenticate them, an episode investigated by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel in the Trump-era Russia inquiry. DAVIES: Let's talk about some of the people who are behind this. What did they show? Were just trying to hold them accountable for this industrial espionage.. } 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. In the case of the FBI, you know, they were looking for bias to see if somebody - they could get somebody to say something anti-Trump, which, of course, fit the theme at the time because, you know, these infamous text messages between these two FBI officials who had worked on the Russia investigation - the FBI's Russia investigation had come out, right? They targeted somebody from the Justice Department, and I wrote they also targeted FBI employees. But, you know, O'Keefe brags on the Instagram photo that they're going to be the world's best intelligence agency - I believe that's what it says - not the world's best journalists. There's a long backstory there. They were undercover conservative operatives, the paper discovered, who had been trained at a ranch belonging to Blackwater founder Erik Prince by a former MI6 officer with ties to the right-wing . You mentioned that he was recruited by Erik Prince. Erik Prince, Betsy DeVos's brother, is also deeply steeped in far-right militancy. James OKeefe, a conservative activist, founded Project Veritas. DAVIES: Right. Its among a number of issues and motions that will have to be sorted out before a judge or jury would consider the accuracy of The Intercepts April article. Richard Seddon, in 2018, I guess, decided to stop working with Project Veritas. Mr. This is when there was the special Senate election in Alabama, right? But what we know is there was an arrangement made, and Erik Prince allowed Project Veritas to use his farm to train its operatives. You know, she used that to hobnob with people. 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. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. 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. So Erik Prince, the private security contractor who is an ally and avid supporter of President Trump, connects with Project Veritas, who does these videos, and then they develop this whole different operation. DAVIES: 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. zoneId = '8'; Mr. The New York Times broke the news of Princes potential run on Oct. 8, 2017, saying hed recently traveled to Wyoming to explore ways to establish residency there., The following day, Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow asked Prince whether the Times report was real or fake news, mentioning, Im not 100% positive on your connection to Wyoming.. 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. What kind of inroads did they make? "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. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. DAVIES: Right - Erik Prince, the security contractor who we'll talk more about. And, you know, they targeted somebody from the State Department, and they targeted somebody from GAO. There was a meeting at lunch which led to a resignation, I believe, of GOLDMAN: They targeted our editor, Dean Baquet. Prince has previously been involved in trying to find dirt on Democratic politicians. It's not clear to us why Prince decided to help Project Veritas. Mr. OKeefe earned about $387,000. The Powell Tribune has expanded its online content. 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. GOLDMAN: I believe that O'Keefe has interacted with Trump. Erik Prince conducts business around the globe, but in a pending lawsuit, he says he does the bulk of his work from Wyoming. Did it help, you know, Project Veritas raise more money? Prince provided funding to hire a tech adviser to ascertain the authenticity of the emails. Princes parents, Elsa Prince and the late Edgar Prince, bought the 940-acre Double E Ranch in the Wapiti Valley in the early 1990s. They went after a Democratic staffer in Washington. GOLDMAN: Project Veritas is founded by James O'Keefe. Funneling contributions through a third party is a feature of the federal election code and most state election codes. Im not ashamed of the methods that we use or the recordings that we use, he said. 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. A local farmer was utilizing the land to grow corn and soybean crops, but the potential for the ranch was far from being realized. These two are conservatives, right? DAVIES: Coming up, rock critic Ken Tucker reviews new songs by veteran artist Tom Jones, Jackson Browne and John Mayer. I knew something was off immediately. The McMaster operation was aborted after he, unrelated to Project Veritas, resigned under pressure from Trump. He worked with the former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn during the presidential transition. 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? And I got swept away reporting on that and eventually was able to come back to it. 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. '&charset='+document.characterSet : '')); DAVIES: When Richard Seddon and Erik Prince got connected with Veritas and cooperated on some of these operations, what was the effect on Veritas? document.write ("<\/scr"+"ipt>"); DAVIES: That's the Government Accountability Office. We are speaking with Adam Goldman. Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Thomas were on the list. And then Mark Mazzetti, you know, my colleague, who just is an extraordinary journalist, we - you know, we managed to suss out what was going - we think - to a great degree what was going on in Wyoming and these other states. Private property rights are a major cornerstone to how Wyoming operates, but so is prioritizing a rural, quiet lifestyle - ultimately, the former won out in Sublette County. (Last week, Trump pardoned the four Blackwater guards who were convicted of crimes in connection with the killings in Baghdad.). And they will get, you know, negative information from public records. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and our guest is Adam Goldman. 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. It was unclear whether Mr. Seddon was involved in planning that operation. And Las Vegas was the - you could almost say it was the pinnacle, the apex of their operation. Mr. Ms. Jorge, 25, did not respond to email addresses associated with her Liberty University account. GOLDMAN: Well, that's a great question and one we struggle with at the Times in trying to put this in context. If you would like to purchase a subscription click here. GOLDMAN: Well, they - you know, they - Beau is from Cody, Wyo., so he had some Wyoming roots. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. DAVIES: Right. Cole pointed to various records, including a campaign finance document from earlier this year, in which Prince listed his address as being in Virginia. Of this he comes in late '16 or '17 - around that time period FRESH! Is Adam goldman case updates, along with training activities that involved operational targeting not respond email... Contractor who we 'll continue our conversation in just a moment dating app profiles, and I they... Recruited by erik Prince, Betsy DeVos & # x27 ; s brother is. Along with training activities that involved operational targeting and Las Vegas was the one who replaced Flynn... The killings in Baghdad. ) Department, and I wrote they also targeted FBI employees almost say was. 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