Seddon’s 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. Seddon said the goal of the private spying operation was to gather dirt both on Democrats and “RINOs” - slang in conservative circles for “Republicans in name only.” The plan was to begin in Wyoming, they said, and expand operations from there. Gore, according to one person familiar with it, Mr. Trump and Mike Pence, his former vice president, reveals Republicans’ enduring divisions.ĭuring the 2018 meeting with Ms.

Trump-Pence Split: An emerging rivalry between Mr.

Trump for president in 2024, a Times/Siena College poll showed. voters prefer someone other than Donald J. Trump's legal exposure intensifies, he is more directly and openly promoting far-right conspiracy theories on his social network. Trump is in legal jeopardy on several fronts. Legal Peril: From an investigation into his handling of classified material to the Jan.Gore unsuccessfully tried to raise money for the project from Foster Friess, a billionaire Wyoming businessman, during a January 2019 meeting, three people said.ĭonald Trump, Post-Presidency The former president remains a potent force in Republican politics.

Prince might have approached for money for Mr. It is unclear how many potential donors Mr. Seddon launched his privately funded spying effort after leaving Project Veritas in 2018. Prince also allowed Project Veritas to use his family’s Wyoming ranch for training. Seddon to join the conservative group Project Veritas to teach espionage skills to its operatives and manage its undercover operations. The Times previously reported that, in 20, Mr. They provide additional insight into the ambition of the operation to use undercover operatives to target Republicans seen as insufficiently conservative, as well as to, as one document describes it, “research, penetrate and infiltrate the radical left networks.” Seddon’s operation revealed in documents obtained by The Times and interviews with people familiar with his plans. Prince to help him secure funding is just one of the new details about Mr. Seddon’s operation is fresh evidence of his engagement in political espionage projects at home during a period when he was an informal adviser to Trump administration officials. Trump’s education secretary - has drawn scrutiny over the years for Blackwater’s record of violence around the world and his subsequent ventures training and arming foreign forces. contractor who is best known as the founder of the private military firm Blackwater and whose sister, Betsy DeVos, was Mr. Prince’s role in the effort, which has not been previously disclosed, sheds further light on how a group of ultraconservative Republicans employed spycraft to try to manipulate the American political landscape. Gore became the project’s main benefactor. Seddon met in August 2018 with Susan Gore, a Wyoming heiress to the Gore-Tex fortune, Ms.

Seddon’s spying operation, which was aimed at gathering dirt that could discredit politicians and activists in several states. Prince took on the role of celebrity pitchman, according to interviews and documents, raising money for Mr. Trump, he turned for help to a longtime friend and former colleague: Erik Prince, the private military contractor. WASHINGTON - During the summer of 2018, as Richard Seddon, a former British spy, was trying to launch a new venture to use undercover agents to infiltrate progressive groups, Democratic campaigns and other opponents of President Donald J.

Erik prince spy network