DAVIES: Right. I'm not sure that just because he's a conservative, this is something he wanted to help. What are traditional political dirty tricks? And, you know, Seddon was out at the farm. He did not respond to follow-up phone messages or an email. 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. I mean, he - it seems that - it's our understanding that Prince introduced Seddon to Project Veritas. He was leading training. }else{ Now, you mentioned Project Veritas. There was a billionaire in - well, a very - I don't know if he was a billionaire. And that one was made public. You know, he's a businessman. DAVIES: You know, the other thing that I wanted to just clarify to the extent I can is how much of a driving force Erik Prince was in this. For his part, Prince swears he never met with anyone from Wagner Group a denial The Intercept included in its reporting. 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 we've written about that. 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. Mr. Seddon was a longtime British intelligence officer who served around the world, including in Washington in the years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. 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. At the time, Prince was exploring the possibility of mounting a Republican primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. 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. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. The website for Mr. OKeefes coming wedding listed Donald Trump Jr. as an invited guest. McMaster was thwarting the president's agenda - right? Mr. 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. How Times reporters cover politics. 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. And, you know, Seddon then reached out to, you know, a family - an old friend who had worked at the FBI. Prince is separately under investigation by the Justice Department on unrelated matters, according to people familiar with the case. These two are conservatives, right? I believe he was involved in an effort to battle pirates in Somalia. Mr. Seddon used other former Project Veritas employees to help with the Wyoming operation, including James Artherton, a British operative code-named kimchi who was involved in a Project Veritas plan targeting an editor for The New York Times in London in 2017. 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. And, I mean, they were both active, but she was literally, you know, infiltrating these Democratic groups. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and our guest is Adam Goldman. GOLDMAN: She was very active. That includes a pair of donations he made in March and October, in which he apparently listed his address as a post office box in Middleburg, Virginia. And, you know, these were - they were not really long-term operations. Mr. There were steps taken to advance this plan, but in the end, it didn't happen because McMaster was fired. He's been reporting on an effort by conservatives to train operatives in undercover operations to infiltrate progressive groups and Democrats. GOLDMAN: You know, individuals - we're not exactly sure who was behind this effort - but it's clear that they believe that, you know, H.R. 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 . One target in particular was Gov. DAVIES: Right. He did not mention the inquiries from the Powell Tribune about his lapsed registration that preceded his vote. And by the way, as we began reporting this, we started learning more about Beau's connection to people. And so Sofia's picture was up there. 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. Prince and former British spy Richard Seddon both did work for the organization. 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. Mr. Seddon launched his privately funded spying effort after leaving Project Veritas in 2018. And then I talked to somebody else. 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. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. James OKeefe, the head of Project Veritas, declined to answer detailed questions about Mr. Even if it is true that Prince now genuinely considers himself a Wyoming resident, it cannot be said that [The Intercept] could fairly anticipate being [hauled] into court in Wyoming, the attorneys wrote in a September filing. 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. DAVIES: Adam Goldman, thank you so much for speaking with us. Prince took on the role of celebrity pitchman, according to interviews and documents, raising money for Mr. Seddons spying operation, which was aimed at gathering dirt that could discredit politicians and activists in several states. Ledeen said "someone she trusted" contacted her to help with the McMaster operation. They received training for covert operations at a ranch near Cody owned by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, where Maier's mother works as a cook. And then as I sort of gathered - started to gather information on this, I knew this was going to be a story. You know, you say in one of these stories, this operation's use of spy craft to manipulate the politics of several states over the years greatly exceeds the tactics of traditional political tricks operations. Seddon left the project in 2018, before O'Keefe started releasing low-impact "unmasking the deep state" videos. But, yeah, this kind of actual infiltration and spying, I don't think I've run across that. Did you receive the spare camera yet?. According to Prince, the tech adviser determined that the emails were not authentic.. Not saying this is the case with Mr. O'Keefe, but it's sort of hard to fundraise that way if you're only doing one thing a year or if it's - you know, there are long periods of silence between each expose. His uncle is the conservative commentator Glenn Beck. You know, I've covered politics for a long time myself, mostly at the state and local level. Mr. Seddon directed an undercover operative to secretly tape the unions local leaders and try to gather information that could be made public to damage the organization, documents show. 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. 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. And, of course, that was an entree into a larger circle of prominent Democrats. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. Is this stuff a crime? The Powell Tribune was unable to learn Prince's voter history from 2002 and 2017. 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. GOLDMAN: Richard Seddon is a former MI6 spy. GOLDMAN: Well, they - you know, they - Beau is from Cody, Wyo., so he had some Wyoming roots. And Beau's mom is the ranch cook at the Erik Prince family's ranch near Cody, Wyo. "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. And I think the end goal was make a video and, if necessary, try to get the White House to fire McMaster. var m3_u = (location.protocol=='https:'? var width = jQuery(window).width(); But when I learned about Beau and Sofia last year - there's a website, Project Veritas Exposed. What's interesting about that Instagram post - and you can see it yourself, it's still out there - they like to describe themselves as journalists. With @Project_Veritas's special training, we will be the next great intelligence agency. 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. You know, this is something we haven't seen, right? We're still trying to fully understand how Project Veritas, which is founded by James O'Keefe, actually came into contact with Erik Prince. You know, O'Keefe has clearly raised a lot of money, you know, millions of dollars. To continue reading, you will need to either log in to your subscriber account, or purchase a subscription. The training was done by a guy - a lot of the training was done by a guy named Richard Seddon, S-E-D-D-O-N. Who is he? GOLDMAN: Well, I don't know if he is primarily the guy. And last year, I learned that Beau and Sofia had been working out of this house in Georgetown. (Photo: Gerry Broome/AP) MIDDLEBURG, Va. A cheery fire warmed the glass-walled conservatory of the Goodstone Inn in Virginia's. Erik Prince decides that Project Veritas needs something new. 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. GOLDMAN: Beau does. 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. zoneId = '8'; So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. 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. His attorneys allege the outlet is trafficking in lies, showed an obvious and intentional disregard for the truth and effectively made Prince out to be a traitor. Mr. ADAM GOLDMAN: They went there after making sizable donations to the DNC, the Democratic National Committee - $10,000 each - at the request of a Colorado businessman who was a - he's a fundraiser for the Democrats and basically said, if you make this donation, you can come and hang out in Las Vegas. The Intercept, however, wants the complaint dismissed.