At the time, Prince was exploring the possibility of mounting a Republican primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. And they said, well, you know, she worked for Project Veritas. They had a private security firm. They were going to bug it. And Beau eventually divorced his wife. Presiding Judge Johnson, who is based in Cheyenne, has himself signaled some uncertainty about whether Wyoming is the right place for Princes case to be heard; in early November, Johnson asked the parties to submit additional briefs on either transferring the case to another district or delving further into the issues related to jurisdiction. So what exactly was the plan to (laughter) catch McMaster saying something he shouldn't? The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. That's a strawman campaign donation. Neither party wants to be, you know, exposed to this kind of spycraft - right? But he was extremely wealthy conservative in Wyoming named Foster Friess, who had actually run for governor in '18. ', Death toll keeps rising in Greece's deadliest train crash, US Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies before Senate Judiciary Committee, Lineup announced for this years Capitol Hill Block Party, There's no shortage of salt for NYC roads, Temple University students march and protest to demand better safety. And they were doing this - it appears that they were doing this from the house where Beau and Sofia lived with others. In fact, I wrote a memo about what I had found. There was a massacre at a plaza in Iraq. And we've written about that. And so Sofia's picture was up there. For example, Rolling Stone published an investigative piece in October, The New York Times broke the news of Princes potential run on Oct. 8, 2017, in another interview with Breitbart a few days later, identified the site as the Prince ranch in a 2019 article, asserting Prince participated in a plan to dampen turnout among Black voters, Powered by Creative Circle Media Solutions. 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. 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.. DAVIES: What was on those videos? And it's not clear to us if he was making any money off of this. 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'd been recruited and trained in an operation led by a former British spy and security contractor Erik Prince, an avid supporter of Donald Trump. So flesh out the picture a bit. Prince recruited Mr. Seddon to join the conservative group Project Veritas to teach espionage skills to its operatives and manage its undercover operations. McMaster? McMaster was thwarting the president's agenda - right? 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. DAVIES: Adam Goldman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. So he's certainly moved in this world before. zoneId = '8'; One target in particular was Gov. The job put her in a position to gain valuable information about which Republican candidates the group was supporting with independent advertising. After Mr. We know that political operatives will gather opposition research as it's called - right? They targeted The Washington Post. 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. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. GOLDMAN: These were videos - you can find them on Project Veritas', you know, website or on YouTube now. And they admitted doing, you know - engaging in political activity while working for these government institutions, which Project Veritas asserted was, you know, wrong or even, you know - I can't remember if they said it was illegal or not. 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. GOLDMAN: Yeah, and the Justice Department prosecuted a number of individuals. If he enters the race, he would be challenging Republican incumbent John Barrasso in the 2018 primaries, with the encouragement of Steve Bannon. I mean, he - it seems that - it's our understanding that Prince introduced Seddon to Project Veritas. That's a name some people will know. 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. What was going on there? GOLDMAN: It's not clear to me. 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. 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. Now, you mentioned Project Veritas. Where we're not - what we hadn't really seen was an actual British spy, somebody trained in clandestine activities, launching a secret operation using undercovers with false - basically false cover stories to infiltrate political circles, gather information and collect it for whatever purpose, I guess, because ultimately, as our story says, this appeared to be a paper play. - not quick-hit videos or, you know, shorter-term operations, which I think people say Mr. O'Keefe wanted to do. Those contentions have become a key point of early proceedings in the case. While he has not been actively involved in Wyoming politics specifically, Prince comes from a political family he is the brother of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and is an active political donor. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross, who's off this week. 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. Mr. Halderman was copied on several messages providing updates about the Michigan operation, and in one message, he gave instructions to Ms. Jorge. 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. 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. And as part of this effort, Richard Seddon was brought on to handle training and really professionalize Project Veritas' undercover operations. 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. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. Emails sent to Mr. Seddon went unanswered. He owns a home on a lot adjoining his familys Double E Ranch in Wapiti. Prince a former C.I.A. That was certainly a catalyst. 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. Adam Goldman reports on the FBI and national security for the Times and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for national reporting on Russia's meddling in the presidential election. Sofia makes a contribution - a small contribution to a woman she had befriended who ran, unsuccessfully, for the Wyoming state legislature. What was this about? So, you know, this is not something I had ever done as a - you know, this is not something journalists do. So it was a fascinating moment in time last year when I realized what I suspected Beau and Sofia were doing. James OKeefe, the head of Project Veritas, last year at a White House social media summit. I'm not sure that just because he's a conservative, this is something he wanted to help. However, after the Powell Tribune questioned some apparent inaccuracies in his Sept. 16 statement, Prince acknowledged misstating a couple of his connections to the state. Neither party wants to be infiltrated like this. And as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press summarizes, New York provides absolute protection from forced disclosure of materials received in confidence by a professional journalist, including the identity of a source.. There's an annual one, Nellie T. Ross Banquet, and I believe it's in Cheyenne every February. How Times reporters cover politics. The parties are currently awaiting a ruling from Judge Johnson, who could choose to allow the case to proceed in Wyoming; permit some more limited fact-gathering about the appropriate jurisdiction; transfer the case to New York; or throw it out entirely. DAVIES: Let me reintroduce you again. Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/politics/erik-prince-project-veritas.html. In early 2017, Prince reportedly welcomed James OKeefe and others from the conservative group Project Veritas, which describes itself as an army of guerrilla journalists. That February, OKeefe tweeted an image of himself taking aim with a silenced handgun amid snowy mountains, saying the team was undergoing intense training from a classified location as we make Project Veritas the next great intelligence agency. The Intercept ultimately identified the site as the Prince ranch in a 2019 article. 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. But her picture was on this website. DAVIES: Right. 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. Of course, everybody's familiar with Watergate, right? Let me reintroduce you. You know, they were angry too, right? DAVIES: So an active player in the Trump world. We are speaking with Adam Goldman. And so we're all familiar with that, I think, to some extent. Erik Prince decides that Project Veritas needs something new. 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. There was a year-long lease that was signed that allowed Project Veritas to put its operatives in that fancy house. So they were interviewing people who wanted to become operatives. You know, she used that to hobnob with people. Park County records show he also skipped Augusts primary election, but Prince said he had intended to vote in Wyoming this year. Prince said he learned he wasnt registered when I went to cast my early vote for the general election in late September. 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. This is FRESH AIR. 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. It's not clear to us why Prince decided to help Project Veritas. Funneling contributions through a third party is a feature of the federal election code and most state election codes. 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 operatives at Project Veritas, the conservative sting video shop run by James O'Keefe, The New York Times reports, citing documents and people involved in the subsequent operations to discredit perceived "deep state" enemies of former President Donald Trump inside the U.S. government. And they would find people, and they would go out with them. 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. Were just trying to hold them accountable for this industrial espionage.. He added, With Trump getting 70 percent of the vote, it shows how the Democrats have been able to control our elections with putting on a Republican coat., Mr. Gordon took office in January 2019. For his part, Prince swears he never met with anyone from Wagner Group a denial The Intercept included in its reporting. 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. He is married to an American diplomat, Alice Seddon, who is serving in the American consulate in Lagos, Nigeria. And Mr. O'Keefe disclosed that Foster Friess had actually given Project Veritas money. 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