His contributions to the 2022 Whitney Biennial, on view through Sept. 5 three fanciful portraits of Erik Prince, the financier and founder of the private security firm Blackwater depict a. I mean, people did shoot guns. If you already have a web account, but need to reset it, you can do so by clicking here. They also did the secret interviews at the airport in Cody in the - at the Prince hangar. Prince turned to Mr. Seddon to help train the Project Veritas operatives. But Trump would, from time to time, cite Project Veritas videos in his, you know, comments, public comments and speeches, right? Neither party wants to be infiltrated like this. Attorneys for the outlet say The Intercept has no particular connection to the state and Princes ties are uncertain. She was doing outreach to, you know, Democratic figures in Wyoming. Project Veritas tax filings list Mr. Halderman as a project manager.. I knew something was off immediately. 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. This is FRESH AIR. And he was pitching that plan, but it never got anywhere. 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. Mr. 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 are speaking with Adam Goldman. if( width > 480 ){ DAVIES: And then Beau and Sofia married, right? 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. 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? - not one expose every year. 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. - 500, 1000. And another individual named Barbara Ledeen, who worked for a prominent senator, his committee - Chuck Grassley - she admitted her involvement, and she had actually said she had met with a Project Veritas operative. Part of it involved a rented, rather large house in Georgetown in Washington, D.C., right? And Las Vegas was the - you could almost say it was the pinnacle, the apex of their operation. DAVIES: Let me reintroduce you again. He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. They've targeted CNN. Prince declined to comment. document.write ("<\/scr"+"ipt>"); If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free web account by clicking here. Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Thomas were on the list. So there has been - the two have interacted, I think, even before Trump was president. GOLDMAN: It's not clear to me. Erik Prince, Betsy DeVos's brother, is also deeply steeped in far-right militancy. You mentioned that he was recruited by Erik Prince. But, you know, his sister is Betsy DeVos, and she was Secretary of Education during the Trump administration. There's a long backstory there. Amid his globe-trotting, however, Prince says he does most of his work from Wyoming and calls Park County home. 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. 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. officer who went on to win an important House seat in Virginia as a Democrat. He's, you know, the private military contractor. The companys principal office is listed as being at the Prince familys ranch in Wapiti, though the mailing address is a property in Virginia. 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. 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. I don't know. 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. 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. AMY GOODMAN: In Wyoming. 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. Seddon left the project in 2018, before O'Keefe started releasing low-impact "unmasking the deep state" videos. DAVIES: So an active player in the Trump world. met with White House and Pentagon officials. Funneling contributions through a third party is a feature of the federal election code and most state election codes. 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. GOLDMAN: Richard Seddon is a former MI6 spy. What are traditional political dirty tricks? DAVIES: Right. The Intercept, however, has stood behind its reporting and has described the suit as an improper attempt to learn the identity of its sources. (SOUNDBITE OF FRANK ZAPPA'S "EAT THAT QUESTION"). 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? 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. However, in all of the 74 campaign donations hes made since 2002 including a $3,042.86 donation to the Wyoming Republican Party in 2016 Prince has been identified with a Virginia address. Mr. Seddon wrote that Ms. Jorge copied a great many documents from the file room, and Mr. OKeefe bragged that the group would be able to get a ton more access agents inside the educational establishment.. 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. 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. But the effort is a glimpse of a vigorous private campaign to try to undermine political groups or individuals perceived to be in opposition to Mr. Trumps agenda. The financial document also listed the names of others who gave much smaller amounts to Project Veritas last year. GOLDMAN: I don't know if misrepresenting yourself to - and getting a job at a Democratic organization is a crime. GOLDMAN: Yeah, and the Justice Department prosecuted a number of individuals. You know, they were angry too, right? Comments ( 40) Last week, the New York Times reported that Erik Prince is considering running to represent Wyoming in the United States Senate. 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. There was a massacre at a plaza in Iraq. During a meeting in a Las Vegas suburb last April of employees of Ms. Gores organization, the Wyoming Liberty Group, Mr. Seddon pitched a proposal to build a website where other so-called preppers could buy their own supplies and communicate with each other in the event of what he called a Black Swan moment a major terrorist attack, another pandemic or a civil war. Did it expand the number of people that they had? DAVIES: Right. 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. DAVIES: Let's talk about some of the people who are behind this. zoneId = '8'; Emails sent to Mr. Seddon went unanswered. 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. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. Currently, Prince leads a Hong Kong-based firm providing security, logistics, insurance and infrastructure services in parts of Africa and other high-conflict areas. During the 2018 meeting with Ms. Gore, according to one person familiar with it, Mr. Given Mr. Princes extensive personal and professional ties to Wyoming, it is certainly plausible that some or all of [The Intercepts] sources to the extent they exist at all were located in Wyoming, Princes legal team wrote. But "one of the most brazen operations of the campaign" was an attempt to take down H.R. I have a Wyoming drivers license, I am a Wyoming resident, and exploration is underway, Prince said of his potential Senate bid. But I didn't reveal that I knew Beau and Sofia had lived at that house at the time because we were working - concurrently, we were working on this larger story about them. Mr. 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. Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/politics/erik-prince-project-veritas.html. New details reveal the ambitions of an operation intended to infiltrate opponents of Donald Trump, including moderate Republicans as well as progressives and Democrats. zoneId = 'Array'; That was certainly a catalyst. And, yeah, people steal lawn signs. 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. She went to meetings. The Powell Tribune was unable to learn Prince's voter history from 2002 and 2017. You know, again, as when Barbara Ledeen, the staffer for the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was run by Chuck Grassley, you know, was trying to find Hillary Clinton's missing emails, and Prince gets involved in that, too. GOLDMAN: Project Veritas is founded by James O'Keefe. Prince had hired a former MI6 officer to help train the Project Veritas operatives, The Intercept wrote, but it did not identify the officer. You know, this is something we haven't seen, right? 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. 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? What were they trying to get? Female undercover operatives tried to entrap FBI agents, sometimes using fake dating app profiles, and State Department employees, the Times reports. McMaster. Prince recruited Mr. Seddon to join the conservative group Project Veritas to teach espionage skills to its operatives and manage its undercover operations. Mark Gordon, who was viewed as a RINO in some Wyoming conservative circles. DAVIES: Right. Published October 16, 2017. One of the documents indicates that Marti Halverson, a former Wyoming state lawmaker, provided a list of people for the operatives to target. She said the support she got from other teams was 'overwhelming. Let me reintroduce you. We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. They were certainly using attractive women to lure people out on dates. Blackwater founder Erik Prince arranged for political activist James O'Keefe's conservative group Project Veritas to receive more than one round of "training in intelligence and elicitation. 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