Richard Seddon, trained conservative operatives first at the Prince family ranch in Wyoming, then at a large, $10,000-a-month house near Georgetown University. 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. There was eventually litigation about that, wasn't there? It was unclear whether Mr. Seddon was involved in planning that operation. The Intercept, however, has stood behind its reporting and has described the suit as an improper attempt to learn the identity of its sources. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross, who's off this week. GOLDMAN: Project Veritas is founded by James O'Keefe. 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. And so these people were brought on to help manage these many, many, many, many operations. He is married to an American diplomat, Alice Seddon, who is serving in the American consulate in Lagos, Nigeria. 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. 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.. DAVIES: They'd gotten formal training in this. But Trump would, from time to time, cite Project Veritas videos in his, you know, comments, public comments and speeches, right? 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. A spokesman for Mr. But they thanked us for bringing, you know, putting some sunlight on this. GOLDMAN: Erik Prince is the well-known founder of Blackwater, the security contractors who were involved in the massacre in Iraq. The campaign discovered the operative and fired her. 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. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. GOLDMAN: She was very active. And then I talked to somebody else. Beau picks up - starts working this marijuana legalization angle to try to make contacts with people - elected officials who are, in fact, pushing this bill to legalize marijuana. if (document.mmm_fo) document.write ("&mmm_fo=1"); 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. Remind us who they are and what they've done. Mark Gordon, who was viewed as a RINO in some Wyoming conservative circles. I believe he was involved in an effort to battle pirates in Somalia. So we had never seen something like that. Well, that and - by the way, at some point - I don't know the time period. 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. GOLDMAN: Yeah, and the Justice Department prosecuted a number of individuals. One of the documents indicates that Marti Halverson, a former Wyoming state lawmaker, provided a list of people for the operatives to target. var m3_u = (location.protocol=='https:'? There was a billionaire in - well, a very - I don't know if he was a billionaire. DAVIES: So how did you come upon this couple, Beau and Sofia? And this website is devoted to revealing the identities of Project Veritas operatives. So they were interviewing people who wanted to become operatives. Let me reintroduce you. The New York Times broke the news of Princes potential run on Oct. 8, 2017, saying hed recently traveled to Wyoming to explore ways to establish residency there., The following day, Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow asked Prince whether the Times report was real or fake news, mentioning, Im not 100% positive on your connection to Wyoming.. Of course, everybody's familiar with Watergate, right? But (laughter) this seemed to be the training out in Wyoming. And, you know, they targeted somebody from the State Department, and they targeted somebody from GAO. 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 . Once a small operation running on a shoestring budget, Project Veritas in recent years has had a surge in donations from both private donors and conservative foundations. And her picture wasn't her name GOLDMAN: It was a fake name, Maria. They were, in fact, going to use a former Project Veritas operative named Tarah Price, who lives in the Dallas area, to, you know, possibly ensnare McMaster at a restaurant, get him to say something ill toward or maybe negative about Trump, something that would compromise him. And, of course, that was an entree into a larger circle of prominent Democrats. So there has been - the two have interacted, I think, even before Trump was president. 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. 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. if (!document.MAX_used) document.MAX_used = ','; Did you receive the spare camera yet?. However, the story quoted a former U.S. Treasury official who suggested simply making an offer to assist Wagner might have violated current U.S. sanctions in place against the Russian firm. He recruited a British commando to help - this guy Gaz Thomas, who I guess had knew Seddon through his days at MI6. GOLDMAN: Yeah. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. The Powell Tribune was unable to learn Prince's voter history from 2002 and 2017. Mr. Meanwhile, Prince is once again registered as a Park County voter. 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. It's a conservative organization. DAVIES: And then Beau and Sofia married, right? Mr. Prince, saying he lied about the circumstances of his meeting with a Russian banker in the Seychelles in January 2017. And I think the end goal was make a video and, if necessary, try to get the White House to fire McMaster. And they - the purpose for - they themselves will launch this undercover operation and then, you know, secretly record you - audio, video - and then make a video out of it and, you know, expose what they describe as wrongdoing. So, you know, this is not something I had ever done as a - you know, this is not something journalists do. Good stuff, Mr. Seddon wrote back. Mr. officer who went on to win an important House seat in Virginia as a Democrat. It is unclear how many potential donors Mr. And there was, you know, another individual from the Emirates who was there. But before the parties get to the lawsuits merits, The Intercept is contending, among other arguments, that Wyoming is not the right place for the case to be heard. They were critical of Donald Trump and his agenda. He was the one who replaced Michael Flynn after he was fired. The list included John Cox, then the director of the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, and Scott Talbott, then the director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. They were certainly using attractive women to lure people out on dates. GOLDMAN: Well, some people have speculated this was some sort of back channel to Russia because there was a - I believe there was a Russian investment manager there who has ties to Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. They targeted somebody from the Justice Department, and I wrote they also targeted FBI employees. Mr. But what is clear is if Beau and Sofia made these campaign contributions - right? 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. And so Sofia's picture was up there. DAVIES: That's an airport in Cody, Wyo. And then, you know, they both end up giving to the DNC. 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. Wapiti resident Erik Prince is one of several people associated with a Wyoming-based effort to infiltrate political campaigns and get "dirt" to sabotage candidates. 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. Using a different alias the next year, the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former C.I.A. 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. I mean, we know that Erik Prince was trying to sell a plan to the Trump administration to put these - for him, in fact, to put a private, you know, army of a bunch of mercenaries in Afghanistan and sort of take over those responsibilities from the government, sort of, in some ways, replace the U.S. forces on the ground there. And I think the Intercept geolocated that photo and determined it was Erik Prince's ranch. They went after a Democratic staffer in Washington. But then January 6 happened, you know, the insurrection. Prince had hired a former MI6 officer to help train the Project Veritas operatives, The Intercept wrote, but it did not identify the officer. McMaster was thwarting the president's agenda - right? GOLDMAN: In some instances, they were on, you know, these social - these dating apps, right? He was leading training. 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. GOLDMAN: I don't know if misrepresenting yourself to - and getting a job at a Democratic organization is a crime. GOLDMAN: Well, that's a great question and one we struggle with at the Times in trying to put this in context. They were undercover conservative operatives, the paper discovered, who had been trained at a ranch belonging to Blackwater founder Erik Prince by a former MI6 officer with ties to the right-wing . The Intercept, however, wants the complaint dismissed. Several of them confirmed their donations. You know, in this recent story that you wrote with Mark Mazzetti of the Times, you introduce us to a couple. Mr. He did not respond to follow-up phone messages or an email. And it's a fascinating story. She was doing outreach to, you know, Democratic figures in Wyoming. And GOLDMAN: Involving Roy Moore - exactly. McMaster. They make significant political contributions, right? If he enters the race, he would be challenging Republican incumbent John Barrasso in the 2018 primaries, with the encouragement of Steve Bannon. 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.. GOLDMAN: No. They need some spy training and covert military, paramilitary training at his ranch. I think it was called "Deep State Exposed" or "Deep State Uncovered." You know, this is something we haven't seen, right? We are speaking with Adam Goldman. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. Neither party wants to be infiltrated like this. GOLDMAN: Well, as we started reporting on Erik Prince and Richard Seddon, I became deeply interested in learning who, in fact, was working for this organization. Prince appears to have become interested in using former spies to train Project Veritas operatives in espionage tactics sometime during the 2016 presidential campaign. Prince might have approached for money for Mr. Seddons venture besides Ms. Gore. 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. Is this stuff a crime? Prince registered to vote in Park County back in 1992, but that registration lapsed after he failed to vote in the countys 2002 elections, according to county records. DAVIES: But the idea was that these public officials or FBI agents were secretly - they were part of the deep state. 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. Prince is separately under investigation by the Justice Department on unrelated matters, according to people familiar with the case. Mr. It seems like the Democrats have figured out this party switch deal to their advantage, Mr. Friess wrote in an email obtained by Wyofile, a political news site in Wyoming. Mr. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. And they targeted - Project Veritas had a whole series. document.write ("