GOLDMAN: Yeah. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. 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. 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? DAVIES: We need to take a break here. DAVIES: Adam Goldman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. In an archived version of her LinkedIn page, Ms. Jorge wrote she had a deep interest in the conservative movement and hoped one day to serve on the Supreme Court after attending law school. 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 Prince, a security contractor, and ends up being director of field operations at the conservative group known as Project Veritas. What does that tell us about Erik Prince? 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. But, yeah, this kind of actual infiltration and spying, I don't think I've run across that. She actually got a contract fundraising gig with the Democrats, right? GOLDMAN: Erik Prince is the well-known founder of Blackwater, the security contractors who were involved in the massacre in Iraq. 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. document.write ("&loc=" + escape(window.location)); 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. Mr. Later that year, Mr. if (document.mmm_fo) document.write ("&mmm_fo=1"); GOLDMAN: I was going to say, you know, talking to Republicans, moderate Republicans, I mean, moderate - these guys are pretty conservative, by the way - when we're describing it as moderate Republicans they were targeting. And he ends up giving, you know, $6,000 to Wyoming Democratic Party and also money to other political figures. Mr. Mark Gordon, who was viewed as a RINO in some Wyoming conservative circles. Erik Prince conducts business around the globe, but in a pending lawsuit, he says he does the bulk of his work from Wyoming. Prince noted he owned a home in Wyoming and had been connected to the state since 1992. That's how you found them, and that's what raised the question? if (document.MAX_used != ',') document.write ("&exclude=" + document.MAX_used); Other outlets, however, have continued writing about the contractor. 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 . 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. There is little publicly available information about the company, but multiple Prince ventures, including Blackwater, have been based out of Moyock, North Carolina. GOLDMAN: Yeah, I would say an active - sure, an active player in certain parts of Trump's world, yeah, or conservative - the conservative world. They broke into the DNC. 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. If you would like to purchase a subscription click here. And they will get, you know, negative information from public records. The Defense Department didn't go for it. "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 hadn't voted in Wyoming since 2000. And he comes from a wealthy, conservative family in Michigan, right? And the operatives had to give a - you know, had to give a cover story under duress. That was the idea. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross, who's off this week. 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. Ms. Jorge was eventually exposed and kicked out of the campaign office. Key figures in the operation are a former British spy named Richard Seddon and private security contractor Erik Prince, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump. 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. 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. During the 2018 meeting with Ms. Gore, according to one person familiar with it, Mr. 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. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. Regardless, Princes residency is not the real issue in the case. And this website is devoted to revealing the identities of Project Veritas operatives. Erik Prince, Betsy DeVos's brother, is also deeply steeped in far-right militancy. So flesh out the picture a bit. GOLDMAN: To my understanding, there was a disagreement in how Project Veritas should be run. 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. You know, in this recent story that you wrote with Mark Mazzetti of the Times, you introduce us to a couple. 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. Prince is separately under investigation by the Justice Department on unrelated matters, according to people familiar with the case. Neither party wants to be infiltrated like this. Most notably, Prince had incorrectly asserted under the penalties of perjury he had been registered to vote in Wyoming since 2017.. Beyond involving a different pool of jurors and a different judge, Prince may have a better chance of learning the identity of The Intercepts sources if the case stays in Wyoming, where there is no specific shield law protecting the confidentiality of reporters sources. And they - you know, I think they - it seemed like they were seeking revenge. 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. And last year, I learned that Beau and Sofia had been working out of this house in Georgetown. - trying to find, you know, damaging information on, you know, on political rivals, you know, using, you know, private investigative firms. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This is FRESH AIR. met with White House and Pentagon officials. It's not clear, though, if any of that was actually used in a way that thwarted anybody's candidacy or damaged their political reputation. 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. You know, Princes are pretty savvy. One of the documents indicates that Marti Halverson, a former Wyoming state lawmaker, provided a list of people for the operatives to target. Prince turned to Mr. Seddon to help train the Project Veritas operatives. And then Seddon - you know, he stays on. Prince recruited Mr. Seddon to join the conservative group Project Veritas to teach espionage skills to its operatives and manage its undercover operations. 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 also seems, to me, murky. Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, rejected the idea. And I think the end goal was make a video and, if necessary, try to get the White House to fire McMaster. If you already have a web account, but need to reset it, you can do so by clicking here. It is, instead, an entity dedicated to a specific political agenda.. Months later, in June 2019, a report said we are expecting a big haul, including new lines of intelligence on the Republican side of the house.. Mr. Seddon launched his privately funded spying effort after leaving Project Veritas in 2018. Mr. All rights reserved. GOLDMAN: Well, I don't know if he is primarily the guy. if (document.context) document.write ("&context=" + escape(document.context)); Prince a former C.I.A. DAVIES: So how did you come upon this couple, Beau and Sofia? Two weeks later, on Oct. 14, Prince submitted a new sworn statement in his defamation case, in which he acknowledged he had not registered to vote in Wyoming in 2017. And they stopped the - they would actually stop the operatives in a car. Mr. OKeefe and his group have taken aim at targets over the years including Planned Parenthood, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Democracy Partners, a group that consults with liberal and progressive electoral causes. 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. As education secretary, Ms. DeVos has been a vocal critic of teachers unions, saying in 2018 that they have a stranglehold over politicians at the federal and state levels. GOLDMAN: In some instances, they were on, you know, these social - these dating apps, right? Ms. Jorge, 25, did not respond to email addresses associated with her Liberty University account. Both operations were run by Project Veritas, a conservative group that has gained attention using hidden cameras and microphones for sting operations on news organizations, Democratic politicians and liberal advocacy groups. I know that, you know, one of the first instances of his association with this - or maybe the first instance of his association - was in an Intercept article in which O'Keefe had posted a picture of himself firing a pistol with a silencer on Instagram. Funneling money surreptitiously to campaigns through other donors known as straw man donations would violate federal campaign finance laws. Oct. 21, 2020. However, he ultimately did not challenge Barrasso in 2018 nor did he vote in those off-year elections, Prince acknowledged in Octobers revised declaration. 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.. 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.. 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