Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups

The website for Mr. O’Keefe’s coming marriage ceremony listed Donald Trump Jr. as an invited visitor.

Mr. Prince invited Venture Veritas operatives — together with Mr. O’Keefe — to his household’s Wyoming ranch for coaching in 2017, The Intercept reported final yr. Mr. O’Keefe and others shared social media photographs of taking goal apply with weapons on the ranch, together with one put up from Mr. O’Keefe saying that with the coaching, Venture Veritas will likely be “the following nice intelligence company.” Mr. Prince had employed a former MI6 officer to assist prepare the Venture Veritas operatives, The Intercept wrote, but it surely didn’t determine the officer.

Mr. Seddon often up to date Mr. O’Keefe in regards to the operation in opposition to the Michigan academics’ union, in keeping with inner Venture Veritas emails, the place the language of the group’s leaders is marbled with spy jargon.

They used a code title — LibertyU — for his or her operative contained in the group, Marisa Jorge, who graduated from Liberty College in Virginia, one of many nation’s largest Christian faculties. Mr. Seddon wrote that Ms. Jorge “copied an awesome many paperwork from the file room,” and Mr. O’Keefe bragged that the group would be capable of get “a ton extra entry brokers inside the tutorial institution.”

The emails seek advice from different operations, together with weekly case updates, together with coaching actions that concerned “operational focusing on.” Venture Veritas redacted specifics about these operations from the messages.

In August 2017, Ms. Jorge wrote to Mr. Seddon that she had managed to file an area union chief speaking about Ms. DeVos and different subjects.

“Great things,” Mr. Seddon wrote again. “Did you obtain the spare digital camera but?”

As schooling secretary, Ms. DeVos has been a vocal critic of academics’ unions, saying in 2018 that they’ve a “stranglehold” over politicians on the federal and state ranges. She and Mr. Prince grew up in Michigan, the place their father made a fortune within the auto components enterprise.

AFT Michigan sued Venture Veritas in federal courtroom, alleging trespassing, eavesdropping and different offenses. The academics’ union is asking for greater than $three million in damages, accusing the group of being a “vigilante group which claims to be devoted to exposing corruption. It’s, as an alternative, an entity devoted to a particular political agenda.”