if( width > 480 ){ And this photo of James O'Keefe, who's, you know, the founder of Project Veritas, firing a weapon with a silencer, apparently, at Erik Prince's ranch - were they being trained in firearms there? 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. Wyoming is not the place for security contractor Erik Prince to sue a New York-based publication, a federal judge says. GOLDMAN: Yeah. GOLDMAN: Project Veritas is founded by James O'Keefe. (SOUNDBITE OF GOGOL BORDELLO'S "NOT A CRIME"). DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. 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. 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. One of the people involved in the McMaster plot was Barbara Ledeen, a longtime Republican staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee before retiring, she says, earlier this year. But "one of the most brazen operations of the campaign" was an attempt to take down H.R. Prince appears to have become interested in using former spies to train Project Veritas operatives in espionage tactics sometime during the 2016 presidential campaign. document.write ("'><\/scr"+"ipt>"); 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. Presented with the details of the operation, Ledeen told the Times she was just a messenger, "not part of a plot.". Erik Prince decides that Project Veritas needs something new. But (laughter) this seemed to be the training out in Wyoming. You know, he's a businessman. 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. DAVIES: Right. And Beau eventually divorced his wife. Of course, everybody's familiar with Watergate, right? Were just trying to hold them accountable for this industrial espionage.. 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. Prince submitted his own declaration to presiding U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson in September, disputing The Intercepts reporting and laying out some of his bona fides as a Wyomingite. Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, a private security contractor firm used extensively by the administration of George W Bush, is said to be "seriously considering" challenging Wyoming. zoneId = 'Array'; And I think the Intercept geolocated that photo and determined it was Erik Prince's ranch. They targeted NPR. They targeted The Washington Post. You know, I think part of Mr. O'Keefe's motto - I think it's important for him to have regular and consistent content - right? 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 invited Project Veritas operatives including Mr. OKeefe to his familys Wyoming ranch for training in 2017, The Intercept reported last year. officer who went on to win an important House seat in Virginia as a Democrat. The Powell Tribune was unable to learn Prince's voter history from 2002 and 2017. She was attending, you know, Democratic fundraisers. 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. So he's going to pop up in all sorts of different places. Fast-forward to 2007, and Erik Prince was living in McLean, Virginia, and spending time on his Middleburg property, Blackwater Ranch, designed as a family retreat just as his parent's home in Cody had been originally. In 2016, a Project Veritas operative infiltrated Democracy Partners using a fake name and fabricated rsum and made secret recordings of the staff. GOLDMAN: Richard Seddon is a former MI6 spy. According to Prince, the tech adviser determined that the emails were not authentic.. 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. So he's certainly moved in this world before. In 2018, Ms. Jorge infiltrated the congressional campaign of Ms. Spanberger, posing as a campaign volunteer. document.write (document.charset ? He's, you know, the private military contractor. DAVIES: Coming up, rock critic Ken Tucker reviews new songs by veteran artist Tom Jones, Jackson Browne and John Mayer. 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. if (document.referrer) document.write ("&referer=" + escape(document.referrer)); In August 2017, Ms. Jorge wrote to Mr. Seddon that she had managed to record a local union leader talking about Ms. DeVos and other topics. Of course. And we've written about that. 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. He was leading training. I'm not sure that just because he's a conservative, this is something he wanted to help. Using a different alias the next year, the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former C.I.A. 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 . And Prince comes up in the special council report - Robert Mueller's report. You know, she attended that. Prince and Mr. Seddon met in August 2018 with Susan Gore, a Wyoming heiress to the Gore-Tex fortune, Ms. Gore became the projects main benefactor. GOLDMAN: Beau does. if (document.MAX_used != ',') document.write ("&exclude=" + document.MAX_used); There's a long backstory there. 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. They also did the secret interviews at the airport in Cody in the - at the Prince hangar. After Mr. 1-307-754-2221. And Las Vegas was the - you could almost say it was the pinnacle, the apex of their operation. 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 . Erik Prince, founder and CEO of Blackwater Worldwide, in 2008. At the time, Prince was exploring the possibility of mounting a Republican primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. 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. It's a conservative group, and they conduct undercover operations, for instance, to expose bias or what they would describe as, you know, wrongdoing primarily in liberal circles. 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. 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. That's how you found them, and that's what raised the question? GOLDMAN: Yeah, I think they nearly tripled the number of people they hired. 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. We'll talk more about his stories on undercover operations by conservatives to infiltrate Democratic and progressive groups after a short break. Richard Seddon, in 2018, I guess, decided to stop working with Project Veritas. The document is dated December 2018 and said that Mr. Talbott was another of the names of corrupt individuals from Marti.. At the time, Prince was exploring the possibility of mounting a Republican primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. Emails sent to Mr. Seddon went unanswered. GOLDMAN: The Georgetown house in D.C. was used as a base to, you know, essentially launch these undercover operations in the summer of '18, I guess, into the fall and maybe later. What kind of inroads did they make? Mr. Seddon launched his privately funded spying effort after leaving Project Veritas in 2018. What did they show? Erik Prince conducts business around the globe, but in a pending lawsuit, he says he does the bulk of his work from Wyoming. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. Comments ( 40) Last week, the New York Times reported that Erik Prince is considering running to represent Wyoming in the United States Senate. 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. I don't know. Mr. I knew something was off immediately. DAVIES: And then Beau and Sofia married, right? A former British spy and Republican mega-donor Erik Prince, a founder of the private military contractor Blackwater (now rebranded as "Academi) and brother to former U.S. Education Secretary. GOLDMAN: It's not clear they're actually being trained in firearms training. 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