I bet Mr Prince has received big checks from the Mercer family, the Koch boys, the Mellon/Scaife family, Adelson, Davis, etc., etc!
These billionaire thugs delight in their efforts to turn the US into an authoritarian regime controlled by the oligarchs a la Putin's Russia.
And their armies of ignorant lackeys have all the guns!
96
And the point of this article is ? Oh, I know. No Democrat is conducting any stealthful opposition research on Trump; will never engage in any false or misleading information, and will never stoop so low and to engage in negative campaigning.
11
In college, we sit back with emotional detachment and learn of the history of young democracies who met their death at the hands of innumerable dirty tricks - Greece in the late 1940s, Guatamala in the 1950s, many young African nations in the 1960s, and Chile in the 70s. If you're a history major, you know what I'm talking about. Then, if you're a reflective person, you take a minute to deliberate in your mind, just how strong are America's democratic institutions? Is our Congress, the Courts, the Presidency and it's Administration, the Military. . . just how loyal are they to the nation as a whole, and not to one party or one man?
And since 2016, we've received a terrifying answer. Men like Mr. Prince and Trump's other cronies have revealed that there are evil men eager to be made in charge of things. They want an opportunity to set up corrupt, untouchable regimes, and in 2016, right-wing voters gave them one.
In the future, students of history will read about America, that once-promising nation, a shining late that eventually succumbed to the same brutality that sank other young democracies into dictatorships.
And it's really too bad that Americans are stupid enough to allow this to happen.
96
Evil truly does lurk in the hearts of men.
This administration and their hangers on are evidence of that.
77
Good luck, Ms Jorge with your nomination to the Supreme Court. Didn’t anyone tell you that breaking into offices and stealing documents might disqualify you. What did they teach you at that fancy religious college? Ah, yes, the religion of conservatism at all costs.
73
This guy should be one of the first against the wall.
48
The Dirty Tricks Republicans are at it again. Making Nixon's Plumbers of yesteryear look like amateurs, this band of right-wing ideologues know their policies could never win in a fair fight, so instead of revising their policies, they prefer to lie, cheat and steal.
Vote Blue in 2020 for every office on every ballot. Shut down the Flat Earth Society once and for all.
88
In short the brother of the United States Secretary of Education from Michigan set up an operation to spy on the public teachers union the Michigan Federation of Teachers!!!!!
Because they didn’t support the Trump addenda. No wonder she still has her position.
65
And let us not forget that Eric Prince is Betsy Devos's brother. You know Betsy. She's the head of our Department of Education.
This, I assume, is what Trump describes as draining the swamp.
48
Look on the bright side: none of this involves Eric Prince’s clowns spraying fire downtown during rush hour and killing ten or so commuters.
Well, not so far, anyway.
24
Trump isn't president of the United States.
He's the warlord of a fiefdom.
35
Ah Yes, Betsy DeVos's brother. He's a piece of work, as is she.
47
Sickening! There isn't much more than that to say.
28
Pretty sad, that the little guy and even union people may have voted for Trump. They labor under the illusion that a psychotic billionaire will stand up for them. How many now realize they were tricked? The average IQ in America is said to be only 98, we're ranked about 25th among nations. That alone put Trump in the White House. And now this dangerous clown has professional spies out to crush the teacher's union. Nothing Trump says or does, surprises me, even hiring the likes of sketchy people like Prince or O'Keefe. May both come to justice someday soon.
32
And the beat goes on and on. Trump's beat.
9
This is outrageous. The only thing worse would be if the Pesident colluded with a former Cabinet Member and together used the FBI and paid Russian assets to spy on a another presidential candidate. Surely that would never happen, not on the Times' watch!
14
So, fake spies are training busybodies to nose around advocacy organizations, so they can embarrass them. That is a true triumph of moneyed mediocrity. To call any of this ham-handed gossip mongering an intelligence gathering effort is probably the worst insult ever to the real people doing it.
10
Betsy DeVos' brother. Ran the Blackwater thugs in the middle east. As an aside, most people I knew in those days were a lot more cautious of them than al Qaeda or the Taliban. How much more is it going to take to convince the republican party it may be backing the wrong horse?
24
Why is the DOJ not all over this? Oh yeah, I now I remember why. The swamp was drained and replaced with giant slugs. Trails of slime everywhere.
32
Almost every day it blows my mind that we're doing absolutely nothing about Trump and his criminal enterprise, er, 'presidency'. In any other reality this monster and his minions would be in prison. What happened, USA? You let the ignorant, greedy, and bigoted few rule.
Nov. 2020 can't come fast enough. Even then, the GOP/Russia/Trump will cheat, and might 'win' again...
21
He targeted the AFT and UFT? And this would be wrong because?
1
Can Trump's secret police be far behind? Or are they already here...
14
Well he’s not doing a very good job if he’s making the front page of the NYT.
7
Trump seems to be a creep magnet. Let's see: Cohen, Flynn, Giuliani, Parnas, now, this guy. How did we ever get into this mess?
17
The usual hi jinks from the GOP. This stuff goes back at least to GG Liddy. Maybe somebody does a year, 16 months and it's forgotten. Intelligence, both analytical and operational, will go a long way to deciding the election. The Democrats have to do the same, only not as clumsy. Politics? Yes. Beanbag? No.
7
Well here we go again, another dive into the toxic waters of Trump and the right wing mafia he inspires to do his dirty work. I am so sick of this man and his family, MAGA rallies etc. America is not perfect by any stretch, however I await the beautiful sunrise the first day he is out of office!
14
cartoon villain with unlikely schemes that inevitably blow up
8
Yet more corruption run amok in the failed universe of Donald John Trump.
6
See in today's NYT
"Veterans Are Working, but Not in Jobs That Match Their Advanced Training"
Erik Prince helps veteran spies find jobs which match their advanced training.
3
This is outrageous. All activity described, if not currently illegal, should be. Now we don’t just have to worry about rouge law enforcement eavesdropping on otherwise law abiding citizens, we have to worry about our “fellow citizens” conducting espionage on legitimate private groups and democrat campaigns.
And remember our president insisted that his campaign was spayed on. Just more projection from the orange one.
5
"...the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former C.I.A. officer... The campaign discovered the operative and fired her."
Um, maybe remember that an ex-C.I.A. officer just might have pretty good trade craft herself. This is bumbling worthy of an SNL skit.
8
Anyone looking for evidence that Trump is unqualified for office would not need any surreptitious means. Just listen to anything that comes out of his mouth.
7
This covert operation in the name of trump is likely the way people involved in ISIS feels. They believe their cause is for the greater good. But what it really is is nothing short of control. These people, like ISIS, should be behind bars. There is no low for these demented and totally lost people who lack basic reasoning. They are not God. They are actually the complete opposite.
3
So, why is it bad that we learn how Democrats were sending paid protesters to incite violence at Trump rallies, how Planned Parenthood was selling baby parts when they’re not supposed to, and learn about various other Democrat corruptions?
It’s embarrassing for you.
Too bad.
5
No surprise here. With Trump, it is a given that every underhanded dirty trick possible will be used to maintain power. This will be more like a war than an election. There is no depth of depravity too deep for Trump. This is why Democrats have rally around the nominee and go all out to get rid of this cancer on our democracy.
8
Prince is being investigated by Barr's department?
5
Bring him on. If that murdering war criminal comes sneaking around my house he will get exactly what he deserves.
3
That’s a casino he’s in. An old bankrupt Trump casino? How vile.
3
DeVos and Prince are quite the pair - evil, through and through - clearly cut from the same cloth. Both of them belong in jail.
8
thank you for this, the Intercept has also been keeping tabs on the endlessly self-funded wanna-be mercenary warlord Erik Prince, after his attempt to h ide under a new name, I think it was Xe?
https://theintercept.com/2019/11/05/erik-prince-trump-ukraine-china/
4
Oh sweet Jesus, please no. As if it weren't enough that I was coming home every night to health news that made me feel I was going to puke, now we have this James Bond wannabe.
I live a half a block from the UN headquarters. I think it was in 2002, at about the time of the Sept. UN General Assembly, and they were heightening security on the perimeter, I saw a guy very reminiscent of him, another whitebread allAmerican ex millitary true Christian strutting around in a polo shirt and khakis barking instructions to people installing barriers around First Av. in mid East 40s. By the way, the barriers disappeared after that session, apparently didn't do the job NYPD wanted, but somebody down there in Georgia or wherever this stuff comes from probably made a fortune.
2
Ah? the leader of military hired mercenaries is related to the Secretary of Education?
The nation is being brought to it's knees and you should all plan to leave. The nation is lost, not just because of Trump and his government, but because half of voters elected him.
Many Jews smartly left Europe before the war. we should too.
2
Save your money Donald.
I'l tell you for free what's going on in "liberal groups" - we're marshalling the FACTS to evict you in November.
The onlyl real challenge ?
There is such an endless parade of horribles associted with your reign that it is hard to decide how to roll it all out.
9
Erik Prince’s and Veritas’s behaviors are how Democracy dies.
7
This is disgusting. Isn't clandestine recording illegal in many states?
4
When is the American Revolution Part two coming?
5
All these breaking news reports and nothing ever happens. To be honest, it’s wearing me down. Whatever comes of this stuff?
4
Two amoral families - Betsy DeVos and her brother Erik Prince, and the Trumps.
It's not surprising they're all lumped together, is it?
Enough money is never enough.
Enough power is never enough.
Enough control is never enough.
Insatiable, spoiled, ignorant, dangerous people, all of them.
10
Besides completely derailing our democracy and system of justice, fawning over tyrants and fools, ... plus raining down chaos and criminality, what exactly is "Trumps /GOP agenda"?
Are the zombie cyborgs in charge already?
The truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
6
As I read this, I am shaking with anger. Who do these people think they are? Arrogant, wealthy, unprincipled spies! Spies! Think of the modern countries you know of that used spies on their own people -- do you want to live in that kind of a country? Prince and his spies are using Soviet methods to spy on and intimidate Americans. What are they doing -- trying to turn the country into some kind of Soviet satellite for Russia and its system of global oligarchy? A system run by the wealthy, for the wealthy, in which ordinary citizens must do the bidding of the wealthy or be punished. A system where everyone is paranoid, nobody can trust anyone else, and dishonesty rules. A fascist system! Of all the shocking, hideous, anti-American entities that the Republicans have come up with, this is one of the worst. The full force of American law should come down on Prince -- and he should be grateful that he doesn't yet live in a country that strips political partisans of citizenship and sends them to die in gulags.
7
If ANYONE thinks this is okay they need their head examined. This country has gotten so far off track and the dirty deeds gop are so far in the muck it's ridiculous.
This country used to stand for something and among those things was honesty and integrity, something we no longer have.
Cheating, lying about and smearing opponents at any cost is not 'winning', it's pathetic.
5
I read Mr. Princes book, because I wanted to know how such evil men work as it related to Afghanistan and Blackwater. How appropriate that he should continue to due the devils work , breaking laws , lying to congress , and personally responsible for god knows how many innocent deaths. The murderous thugs connected to this current administration I think sets the record for the most calamitous , dangerous group of mobsters, in recorded history. I cannot print what I would like to see happen to Prince, Eddie Gallagher, Steven Miller, Steve Bannon, etc. An endless list !
4
Considering the billions of dollars Mr. Prince has siphoned off from the American taxpayers as a co-conspirator in the lies that led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he belongs in a federal prison cell....with G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney at a minimum.
Open your eyes, America: Certain people in our society are actually above the law, including our current president. Get angry about it!
6
Oh, but if he "identified" as a journalist he would be hailed as "brave," and all of you hypocrites would be lining up to defend him.
2
No 'trick' is to dirty for Trump... no deceit too dishonorable. Trump calls it "winning". It looks like "cheating" to me. Trump's Republicans know their policies, their ideas, their answers are unpopular, so they cheat. There is a solution.
Vote Them All Out!
6
the right is so full of evil corrupt and lawless people. they are the whole problem with the world. not just the U.S>, but the whole world.
3
This reads like an Onion piece. Project Veritas is a clown car of failed extortionist TV producers, failed MI6 operatives, and failed US intelligence agents. And they're all spying on teachers in Michigan. Absolute buffoonery. I read some of it out loud to my husband this evening and couldn't get through parts because I was laughing so hard.
2
He was evil incarnate as head of Blackwater and even moreso now. Oh and he's Betsy (Cruella DeVille) DeVoss's sister too. Scary times made even scarier.
3
“Mr. Prince is under investigation by the Justice Department over whether he lied to a congressional committee....”
It being the Trump/Barr “justice department” don’t hold your breath.
Prince NOT dispersing info on the Teachers Union? Who are we kidding....
1
I do not know how we can solve this?
Trump had the gaul to accuse Obama of spying on him! ALL of his innumerable crimes he "bring to light" as those of falsely-accused others (Democrats, Hillary, Obama, Schiff, Pelosi...), both to hide them in plain sight and, in HIS mind at least, make him seen like an honest man.
He is no man, not honest and certainly not a "stable genius".
We've seen this plainly before, but Trump is the master con artist. If you believe what he has to say, I have a bridge to sell you, cheap!
3
The headline should have said, “...Betsy deVos’ brother.” I wonder why it did not.
3
Hillary hired a spy to gather dirt on Trump. Schiff conspired with a spy to report on Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. NY Times & other reporters get leaks from spies in the administration. Don’t pretend that the Left doesn’t behave the exact same way as those on the Right who are being targeted by this article.
Erik the Prince of Darkness.
1
Every day in every way, Putin is laughing at us.
2
Thank you, Mr. Mazzetti & Mr. Goldman for exposing the dirty Republican tricks.
How do we protect our democracy from the daily acts of insider sabotage conducted by the crooked Donald, the lier-in-chief, and facilitated by the dishonest Attorney General Barr?
Perhaps NY Times needs to have more investigative correspondents to expose Republicans' gutter tactics.
4
Blackwater tells you all you need to know.
4
The conservative mind set...
War profiteering mercenaries = good
Teachers = bad
5
We are in a state of civil war with the liberals. The gloves are off, and no tactics are off the table.
Eric the Prince of the Blackwater Shirts. My God what have we come to?
3
Prince is a soldier of fortune. He also masquerades as a legetimate businessman in a suit. As head of the private mercenary contractor Black Watch, his blood stained teams were allowed to operate with impunity within Iraq by the George W Bush administration. Now, he brings similarly lawless practices home, to implement the fascist strategies of his Republican masters. He is probably assured that whatever laws he breaks, William Barr's justice department would not prosecute him, or failing that, Trump would promptly intercede with a prearranged pardon on behalf of his fellow Republican defenders of the constitution. That's the type of scandalous assault on democracy that gullible Democrats believe a harum scarum, meandering Joe Biden has the courage, focus and wherewithal to combat. He who with all the power vested in him as Vice President, could not summon the will to direct his trifling progeny to stay out of Ukraine.
2
Someday, somehow I hope that Trump and his entire cabal of sycophant criminals will face real justice.
4
Just when I thought I couldn't be more terrified of the right wing cult running this country.
4
these navy seals are quite a bunch--we certainly have come a long ways from the days of chivalric code, haven't we?
this latter-day paladin looks to me more like a upper-shelf eddie gallagher.
4
A little rich boy playing soldier. I remember the masacre in Baghdad. Prince should spend the rest of his life in jail. An Iraqi one.
5
What is the purpose of the photo? It seems from the article that he is a bad actor. Why portray him as some sort of James Bond?
3
Now you all know the Evangelical movement is a lie led by liars.
The misled need to know.
4
Unfortunately, New York Times considered Erik Prince as a great hero, and real American patriot... what happened now, from a few years ago !!!
I’m not a Trump fan, but the more the press hate him, the more you help him get re-elected !!!
In a book published in 2018, Mr. O’Keefe wrote that Mr. Trump years earlier had encouraged him to infiltrate Columbia University and obtain Mr. Obama’s records.
This is the man who had his personal attorney threaten U Penn if they ever released his (likely mediocre) school records? There must be 52 reasons to vote Trump out; consider this Reason #11: He is the rankest hypocrite.
4
It's official. We now live in a banana republic.
Thanks to the Banana Republican Party.
5
So, I assume Betsy DeVos is resigning.
(Oh, sorry, though we were in old-timey America, circa 2016.)
3
Guys like these are psychologically disturbed on so many levels that I don't know where to begin. The fact that your life solely consists of wasting energy on others for your own sadistic pleasure and just money, is missing the point so terribly of being human.
The sole purpose of human beings is to learn and develop to improve in mind and spirit. These guys have no idea what that means. All they know is to destroy and over what? Gain some control? How delusional, how pathetic.
The sheer arrogance to name it project veritas= project truth is in itself a "mendacium."
2
Why am I not surprised?
1
He's the brother of Betsy DeVos, former head of Blackwater, informal advisor to Trump -- just a few lowlifes in this enormous web of grifters. No wonder the rule of law is under such enormous pressure.
3
Know the history of Germany after WW I. "We," the majority of voters, are allowing this to happen. The voters need to take the government back. Otherwise, the Prince brown shirts will, and maybe already have.
4
This guy had an affair with his children's nanny while his young wife was dying of cancer. Sounds like something one would put on a job application when wanting to work for Donald Trump.
5
Wow, they even see the American Federation of School Teachers as a threat to their totalitarian, lockstep fascist rule.
Are book burnings too far in the future if they “win” again through every possible Machiavellian, Orwellian, and Putinesque corruption of our democratic process?
God knows the war on truth and facts and education is an imperative if they want to secure the level of ignorance their base base is made up of.
7
Instead of whining about this, it is time for tit for tat. Liberals, progressives, Democrats are always bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Stop apologizing(Schumer are you listening) it is time to play rough to win and push through our agenda.
Backing Biden is a loser's game. Taking the high road and losing is still losing but that seems the plan.
1
Why isn't he in prison?
7
You're looking at the dregs of society, with Eric Prince. Ever notice how Trump hires the worst, most dishonest, biased people he can find? He truly does hate America, and this is his way of thumbing his nose at hundreds of millions of Americans.
4
Great. Another criminal for this administration’s use. There’d better be a miracle. When legitimate news outlets tell you to get your information from anywhere but your own government, you should sit up and take notice.
1
Are you sure it isn't spies recruiting Prince and O'Keefe?
1
If it weren't for slimy dirty tricks Trump wouldn't have any tricks at all.
2
Erik Prince is a murderer and war criminal. Just like Trump's buddy Eddie Gallagher.
You can learn a lot about someone by who they associate with and what their children are like. Wonder if Prince and Don Jr. shot any sleeping animals with infrared scopes during the Wyoming visit? These are the people that do those things, it's documented.
Civilians and sleeping animals. Republican courage.
4
Erik Prince is merely a grown-up playing a good guy/bad guy game like any 10 year old kid. He funds his game by using daddy's money, sister's connections, and the the support of Trump, the cowardly military school attendee who wants to be a general but lacks the minimum physical and mental attributes required.
Without daddy's money Blackwater would be nothing more than its original meaning: water containing feces, urine, and toilet paper from flush toilets. An appropriate name chosen by Prince.
4
Prince is a malign stateless actor (and likely would be pleased to be so described by a heathen commoner). His fingerprints are all over. It's reported he was involved with Giuliani, the NYPD intel shop and the FBI NY field office Hillary-haters (thoough I don't begrudge them that) in finagling Emailgate, leaning hard on Comey to go public on the investigation and then slow-walking the exoneration on a naive Comey until it was too late.
And he's not had to pay any price for his little soiree with the Russians in the Seychelles. A classic American success story, a guy who inherited too much money and had too much time on his hands so he could indulge in his ultra-conservative theocratic authoritarian fantasies and self-image.
3
Worst tuxedo EVER.
Looks like it was last worn by a laid off minimum wage worker who got personally fired by Leona Helmsley.
Prince is one of the more vile specimens this country has produced, along with trump, McConnell and Kavanaugh.
7
Remember the Planned Parenthood debacle? They will never learn. These people are disgraceful.
3
He looks like shorn Mel Gibson, after a month long bender. Where does Trump find these “ people “ ?
Just saying.
2
Sounds like stuff the Soviets would do.
4
The real deep state.
3
Should have been in jail years ago...
5
Was the Secretary of Education aware of her brother’s attempts to spy upon the teachers union? Has anyone reached out to her for a comment?
5
I'd love to know how the NY Times feels about allowing Erik Prince to sully the Times with his op-ed of three years ago.
It was a bad idea at the time, and it looks worse today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/opinion/erik-prince-contractors-afghanistan.html
3
Given the fact that all the violence in politics is from the Left, this makes perfect sense.
When you look at a non-democratic outlier like Portland, Oregon, an SSR oblast if ever there was one, violent mobs are actually promoted by what passes for a city government there.
Note that there is any hint of illegality here; we're peddling feelings, folks, not the news.
At least the Times knows its job.
1
Oh brother, here we go again!
Here is a novel idea! Why don't you democrats just concentrate on finding a suitable candidate to challenge Trump in November? No wait you left it too late and now are saddled with Biden who will be eaten alive by Trump. So enter Hilary to save the day!!!
Jesus kids, have you not learnt anything over the past 3 to 4 years trying to use "dirt" on Trump is not going to work...
I know politics is a dirty game but you lot are now wallowing in the pigsty.
Personally, I would take it on the chin and think forward to 2024 and find a candidate who will put be able to be both progressive and conciliatory: getting to move people willingly forward and not scaring them (and us around the world watching this spectacle in bemused horror) to death.
Mark my words, if Trump the thumper wins does win this election with a landslide due to the perception that the Democrats have been themselves been dishonest (think Biden's wayward son) and the ongoing onslaught of vitriolic against him. This possibly will give the moderate "liberal" reasons to vote for Trump because they will see all the attempts now to besmear him, as bad form. Good people don't try win at all costs.
Hope the Coronavirus is quickly contained and that there is not a meltdown in your economy. As the old adage goes: If wall street sneezes - the world catches a cold. And we down here is South Africa have enough problems to keep us wake at night.
I wish you well and good luck.
2
Another pardon. Stay classy, GOP.
4
This isn’t sketchy as heck or anything.
3
Liberal organizations need to become more comfortable with the Second Amendment.
After all, if they have nothing to hide, these groups should welcome the opportunity to have their visions shared.
Alinsky #4
I would ask Mr Prince which political party and party representatives more reflect the money lenders, and worshipers of Mammon. You know, they guys that Jesus threw out of the Temple to cleanse it from being a place of worship and service to "A Den of Thieves." Matthew 21.12:
2
Watergate on steroids.
The President's anti union Sec of Ed has a brother who spies, certainly illegally,against the education umion.
DeVo and Trump must go !
3
What fresh horror, this.
2
At least the title of the article accurately groups media outlets in with liberal groups...
Has there ever been a more sociopathic sibling duo among our governing class "elites" than Erik Prince and Betsy DeVos? They even inch out the Kochs. America at its absolute worst, which jibes with this administration.
5
Who else is Blackwater connected to besides Trump?
4
Betsy DeVos wants to privatize all of education. Her brother, Erik Prince, wants to privatize the military.
These people are not small-government conservatives. They are not even Libertarians. They do not believe in government at all.
They are right-wing radicals. They are anarchists.
6
Remind me why this guy is not in prison?
5
Betsy deVos's brother !!!!! Enough said.
Hooray for the Amway legacy.
4
Erik Prince is a former Navy Seal and would be tycoon mercenary who seems to have a big problem with the liberal political philosophy upon which all of our democratic governance and egalitarian individual liberties are founded. He is also also an intellectually inept twit who has no grasp of the value of a state under the rule of law that does not favor any elites.
The simple fact is that any sane and intelligent person knows that one can converse with people in these organizations to learn what they are doing and why because none of them think that they are doing anything illegal or wrong. That Prince thinks that spies are necessary is ridiculous. Maybe he’s the one who is the crook who thinks that all others are crooks.
5
This article sounds like watergate all over again.
3
This is fascism, straight up. Wake up--not only can "it" happen here, it IS happening here.
4
If Hunter Biden is always noted in the Times as VP Biden’s son, how about being consistent and always noting, right in the article headline, that Erik Prince is the brother of that stellar Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Fair is fair.
5
And he's still walking free because why?????
3
It is truly frightening that the President has enlisted the "talents" of a murderous thug like Erik Prince and turned them on Americans that he considers enemies of Trumpism.
Just another step towards being a 1980's-style South American dictatorship.
4
It sounds like garden-variety investigative journalism. I thought the NY Times wanted to protect whistle blowers, not expose them. Much ado about nothing.`
1
just another example of how the Republicans are anti-democracy, anti-american, anti-everything but Russia.
3
How is this guy not in prison?
4
Re: "...Erik 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..."
Why is this admitted mass_murderer, out, 'N, about?
4
I challenge posters who say "both sides do this" to name verified examples of Democrats or liberals who have done these dirty ops. NYT could also investigate and compare/contrast any findings. Democrats are not that sinister. Todays Republicans have no shame. Prove me wrong!
4
Anyone who knows anything about Blackwater in Iraq... or the personal hypocrisy of Prince as a born again evangelical ... will not give him the benefit of the doubt on anything. He is a blight on the planet.
8
Looks like in the US, the very powerful person(s) in America, can come out and openly declare he/she is God and the Law and Americans like lemmings will follow him/her to the end of nigh. How else, can so many of these creatures, demand the world be served to them?
2
Gerrymandering , voter suppressions, dark money , and now the very effective Russian actions ...spying , releasing selective damaging information ...and compromat ! The GOP is THE main enemy of Democracy !
5
"Whether any Trump administration officials or advisers to the president were involved in the operation, even tacitly, is unclear."
This is yet another instance of the shoddy, opinionated journalism being practiced by too many of The Times' staffers these days -- and being allowed to get away with it.
Here's how the sentence should have been constructed in the interests of accuracy:
"There are no indications at present that any Trump administration officials or advisers to the president were involved in the operation, even tacitly."
By framing the sentence with its allegations up front, The Times suggests criminal activity that hasn't been confirmed by anyone at present and continues its recent descent into yellow journalism.
3
Typical right wing stuff. They have no legitimate useful ideas for the country but want to win, so they must lie and cheat. Just the usual repub stuff. Anyone. Of8ng for trump is supporting these trogs.
5
Look for AG Barr to open up a "channel" to receive information from Project Veritas about the insidious American Federation of Teachers.
2
Erik Prince and all of his henchmen should be behind bars, for all of the criminal activities they have undertaken in the past 20 or more years. Then they get caught and lie about their involvement. They are a bunch of cowards actually, They purport to be super patriotic but in fact are lying gangsters. Is this how " The Donald" has decided he will win the coming election? You go swimming around with these sharks, and you are sure to get bitten. Deep State indeed!
5
As usual, Trump projects his sins and shortcomings on others.
When he claims someone is spying on his campaign, what that really means is that he and his crime family are spying on other people and their campaigns.
Putin must enjoy reading about the escapades and misadventures of this dimwit everyday.
3
Of course he did. Another crook.
4
Oh no, it's so much worse than Obama campaign secretly spying on a candidate of the Republican party talking about 47%. I remember the NYT outrage back then..
“I’m not ashamed of the methods that we use or the recordings that we use,” he said. This perfectly sums up the modern day GOP. They are utterly and completely shameless. They bask in the glory, believing they are Christian soldiers while rolling around in the gutter with vermin. Using intelligence agency techniques against a teacher’s union illustrates exactly how low this party has sunk, how corrupt and un-American they are and how much like an autocratic police state they would like us to become.
5
When will Erick Prince, who has blood of thousands in his hands, get arrested?
5
PIty Barack Obama and Eric Holder decided to only "look forward, not backwards." As a result, we have a torturer running the CIA, and guys like Mr. Prince - a man who made his fortune courtesy the public teat during the Bush years - are somewhere other than behind bars. The legacy of the 'Great Disappointment' lives on....
5
A reminder to those who wonder why people still back Trump........Putting aside the Benghazi and so called Hilary email scandal - so many Americans felt and feel Clinton was self serving and unjustifiably entitled to what she had and wanted. So many didn’t believe a single word she said and believed she was a phony through and through.
Bidens cut from the same cloth. At least Bernie is a man of his word.
Erik Prince, spies, lies ...deceit.
Can someone produce a party or agenda/ candidate of some value then——- you must or the DNC will lose in 2024. 2020 is almost a wrap for Trump
Is anyone really surprised that Trump, with his mob-boss mentality and authoritarian leanings, should try to develop with Prince and O'Keefe his own Stasi to spy on perceived enemies? Sounds more like Project "Very Tass" than Veritas!
2
Interesting that he chose the name Blackwater for his organization. In the plumbing and recycling worlds, it means sewage.
5
These people are the players in a nightmare episode of "The Twilight Zone". Eric Prince is a disgrace. Blood money.
2
You just knew that whatever Trump boot was going to drop next, it would be a size jumbo. And this is it. What a pity - as in, "Lordy, I hope there are tapes" - Trump has only eight months to go before we can give the boot to him. The impeachment hearings will be lining up out the door of the House SCIF like shuttle flights stacked on the Ronald Reagan tarmac before a holiday weekend.
Thank goodness the prez knows the evil Darth Vader. Given that Prince is armed and practiced in the art of dirty war, the more tricks he has employed and thus the deeper Donald Trump will sink. Thank you, NYTimes.
3
The name, "Eric Prince" makes my skin crawl.
3
Chilling.
3
Deeply deeply unamerican...
5
Politics is war.
Unless & until the Democrats assault the GOP commensurately, they’re not going to win.
2
The absolute horror that is called Trump continues unabated. Nothing more need be said. Is prayer of deliverance from Trump in November our only hope? McConnell and his minions will do nothing to curb this narcissistic sociopath.
6
Good God. How low has the GOP gone? This is sickening.
5
Red, White and Blue Prince.
James Bond wannabe.
Jerk Store on extended hours.
Information for extortion, threats, law suits, dirty deed, blackmail and intimidation.
Outstanding Americans all.
4
This is Soviet-style spying on one's neighbors as reported in Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. Disgusting.
4
surprise, surprise :
coward - bully - coward - bully - coward - bully .... ad infinitum
Trump remaining in office after impeachment is the best thing for .. the democrats and the worst for the republicans ... they are 'all in' so over the next 10 months we will watch them explore new depths: swamp? - that would be a major upgrade.
3
Politics is a dirty business. For most of our country's history, dirty tricks and skullduggery have occurred. To view contemporary nefarious activity as an outlier, is utterly naive. This does not mean I endorse such behavior.
1
Jorge seems to explain the road map on how to become a Supreme Court judge under this administration. Interesting.
6
Who will design the new (full throttle) fascist flag?
Not Betsy Ross...but Betsy Devos, perhaps? Be sure to use the red & black colors...worked very well in the not-too-distant past. And do include something that will please the right wing evangelicals.
7
#17 on the the Dictators Playbook.
I can't wait till November 3rd.
3
we all know that #45 cannot win fairly, heck he can't even play fairly at any venture. It is sad but campaigns must go through the expense of security checking anyone with records and document access.
4
Who knows how much Obama paid for the Romney 48%.
You can send in spies or you can buy.
And what has the Justice Department done with this referral since they got it? What are you waiting for Mr. Barr?
3
Project Veritas and James O’Keefe have a long history of sleazy smearing.
Both He and Prince should be in prison.
4
As corrupt as we think Trump is, he is far, far worse.
5
Are we done being slapped in the face yet?
2
It would be nice if you would refrain from using the often maligned name "Liberal", with Educated.
2
Interesting article but how exactly are the described activities different from those of the New York Times on a day to day basis?
Why isn't this man in jail?
4
May the virus get them. Just kidding! We don't need the virus to do the job. This nutty man will sink beneath the weight of his own paranoia and fear. Paranoia begets fear and fear triggers more paranoia until it all collapses in an unpleasant pile of lunacy.
2
What vile swamp did these demented "Americans" crawl out of? How is it that we've been so ignorant of their lurking right under our feet. The minute whats-its-name decided to run for president the creepy-crawlies came out of hiding. I hate to think that this is the end of our Nation as we've known it - but I dread that it could be.
2
James Comey correctly described The Donald as a crime boss.
7
This all overshadows anything done by the Nixon administration. They just wanted him reelected. Donald Trump wants to dismantle our democracy and the Rule of Law by any means necessary. Eric Prince is a mercenary. Nothing less.
Call it what you will. Sedition. Treason. Remember it was Eric Prince's Black Water mercenaries who gunned down a car full of innocent men in Iraq. No one lived to tell about it other than those murderers.
We are in the grip of an enormous criminal, treasonous enterprise with Donald Trump poisoning the well with every speech, every side comment, ever conspiracy theory.
And what is more baffling is how he got 60 million voters to believe in him. Of those 60 million, Evangelical Christians — CHRISTIANS, MIND YOU — decided to toss Jesus under the bus to genuflect to Trump!
What in the world has happened to America? Did it start with Nixon and Watergate? Reagan and his antipathy for government and the Iran-Contra scandal? Or was it Newt Gingrich, The Mouth From the South who called everyone who disagreed with him "unpatriotic" and a traitor? How about Dick Cheney and his no-bid contracts to Halliburton for the sake of oil grabs and possible personal enrichment?
Donald Trump must wind up a bookend to this takeover by right-wing Republicans with autocratic dreams of unrelinquished power in perpetuity. Trump must be removed and, Trumpism must be sent to the landfill of American nightmares.
Vote blue no matter who in November. End the madness now.
6
Spying on teachers? Isn't he related to Betsy DeVos? That's all in the family, same as McConnell's wife 'helping' her Chinese family's shipping business. These are all swamp creatures, and thanks for outing them.
2
Isn't this illegal?
4
This is really scary stuff. Especially with Trump as president with AG Barr running the "Justice" department.
2
So the brother of the education secretary is leading a private spy ring to infiltrate...the teachers’ union?
What damaged, paranoid, criminal and faithless people these are.
6
Just another criminal to add to the ever increasing list of crooks that is the Republican Crime Family. We'll be spending the next four years just cleaning up and incarcerating Trump and his "associates'. November cannot come fast enough. The american people are tired of this as "business as usual", tired of hanging their heads in shame and longing for a day when we can show ourselves to the rest of the world without fear of ridicule.
2
I'm so sick of the "both sides" argument on here every time we hear about another sleazy friend of Trump/Republican pulling illegal and immoral stunts. When was the last time there was an article on here about a pro Biden or pro Bernie supporter infiltrating the RNC? (And no, don't try and pitch some Fox news piece). It doesn't happen because only one side: the GOP pulls dirty tricks like this.
3
Trump is turning the country into a banana republic, that's if he hasn't already!
4
The DeVos/Prince family (Erik and Betsy) are seriously in need of some type of medical treatment. They seem to be unhinged and have enough money to chase their crazed fantasies.
Beware of fundamentalist's of any stripe. They tend to be deranged. The damaged done here in Michigan is enormous.
5
Okay, now we are in Nixon territory...
3
The Intercept's article mentioned as a source for this is well worth reading, it is historic in scope.
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/03/erik-prince-trump-uae-project-veritas/
trump welcomes re-election help from Russian and Chinese trolls and hackers, he has the Murdochs and Spencers and Zuckerberg providing a media mouthpiece, and he now has Blackwater founder Prince's renegade U.S. and British spies working on the ground in America.
This is looking less and less like campaign skulduggery and more and more like a slow motion coup.
Time to wake up.
4
Just another daily reminder that Trump is a sleaze. Good opportunity for Donnie Jr. to run around with his big gun.
4
The Republican Party is a criminal organization and has operated as such for decades.
Trump is just their current avatar. Dumber than a post but not without certain skills.
This unscrupulous organization needs to be fully outed and then ousted.
Now just how on target was Hillary’s statement about a vast right wing conspiracy?? Not like it hadn’t been obvious.
5
Makes Watergate look quaint.
6
Donald Trump, Public Enemy No. 1. Kowtowing Republicans, Public Enemy No. 1A.
6
Just look at the Unions, their leadership is going to jail left and right for criminal activity. Many unions is the USA have murders, arsonists and racketeers as their leaders. Watch the Irishman and realize that's still going on today. The NYTimes is too scared to investigate the unions and for good reason. Someone needs to.
1
This reads like an Onion piece. Project Veritas is a clown car of failed extortionist TV producers, failed MI6 operatives, and failed US intelligence agents. And they're all spying on teachers in Michigan. Absolute buffoonery. I read parts out loud to my husband this evening and couldn't get through some parts because I was laughing so hard.
2
Trump squeals like a stuck pig when information (that SHOULD be public) "leaks" from his super secretive white house, but boy oh boy, he delights in the selective release of private embarrassments stolen from his political opponents.
The public business of the nation ought to be visible and well understood, but it isn't. The internal deliberations of private organizations ought to be considered private. These aren't corporations engaging in skulduggery aimed at evading law. They are groups of private citizens working to achieve political outcomes that benefit them. Trump Inc has this, like most issues, flipped upside down.
Prince is a money grubbing anti-patriot. I'm kind of shocked, but not surprised, by the callous indifference to Christian ethics practiced by the Liberty University student, Marisa Jorge. Christian Nationalists seem to regard any method used to obtain their "conservative" goals completely justified. So much for Judeo-Christian "principles."
Disgusting.
5
We are devolving from a democracy to a Putinocracy. Big brother is not only watching you, he is your new "best friend" in your local Democratic Party. Is this our future? How bleak, how hopeless the world is without basic trust in our neighbors. Is this our Brave New World? Shame Shame on groups like this.
2
Learned it from Comey's FBI
Prince is a very dangerous man.
3
This has Totalitarianism written all over it. Trump, of course, will assert that he had no knowledge of Prince’s actions, but Trump is a pathological liar, so we all know better. Trump’s criminal syndicate makes Watergate look like jaywalking. When will this seemingly endless national nightmare be over?
3
Everyday we are made aware of yet more of trumps dirty laundry and nothing is done, He surrounds himself with the biggest bunch of crooks and white collar criminals that he can find, and still his approval ratings remain in the 40+% range.
I think all of us have become desensitized to this President's behavior. (Just imagine if any of our past presidents had been caught doing any one of trump's. dirty deeds) That's what scares me the most. We watch this stuff everyday and do nothing. We know trump and his family are all big crooks and we let them get away with anything and everything.
3
Mr. Prince fancies himself as a “James Bond” kind of guy. It is rather pathetic when you think about it, but maybe Hollywood will give him a look.
I thank the NY Times for turning over this rock. I reminds me, once again, why I am not a republican.
6
The irony of De Vos's brother involved in spying on a Teachers Union. All in the family.
2
Trump's hired thugs aren't going to make any difference. They did the same things in 2018 and look at the results. 2020 will be an even more spectacular a swing given that the landslide of voters who revile and despise Trump is so huge it will bury his reelection machine and leave it for dead. He and his ridiculous family will be thoroughly repudiated.
1
Don't disarm the citizen's. Disarm the military empire getting us killed.
It continues to absolutely blow my mind how thoroughly corrupt Donald Trump, his family members and his associates are. You are indeed the company you keep.
1
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
10
And Democrats don't do this? And if you had a tip, would you bother to investigate it or would you bury it?
This has Nixon beat...
5
Why all investigations into campaigns has to be approved by AG Barr who is Trump’s best bud. Prince is DeVos’s brother, don’t forget.
6
No wonder the child addicting Disney bought the "Star Wars" movies. Now we all know well who the real "Evil Empire" is. And didn't Herbert Bush look like the emperor? Herbert was a C.I.A. Director.
Nothing really new here.
See the history of Cointelpro.
And MK-Ultra.
And dozens of other Fed programs to disrupt the opposition. Not to mention the ubiquitous state and local Red Squads of the Sixties and Seventies.
1
So the brother of the Secretary of Education spies on the teachers federation? Wow, how far we have fallen.
9
Welcome to the COLD (civil) WAR.
5
Yawn.
I guess the appearance of this planted story is a pretty good sign the Durham / Barr investigation is going to draw a lot of blood.
1
Nothing really new here.
See the history of Cointelpro.
And MK-Ultra.
And dozens of other Fed programs to disrupt the opposition. Not to mention the ubiquitous state and local Red Squads of the Sixties and Seventies.
1
This is bad news.
In America, we are supposed to be free from tyranny. This includes right wing tyrants determined to cram their orthodoxy down the throats of the people.
Mercenaries for Fascism; good lord.
7
“ Informal Advisor “. Translation from TrumpSpeak: Dark Henchman.
Seriously.
2
Why no mention of Veritas’ mendacity in their destruction of ACORN?
An organization founded to help people help themselves. Not passing judgement before finding a way to help. Supporting forgotten communities.
Destroyed because they registered people to vote.
Destroyed with the sickest, most unforgivable lie they could come up with. The same lie used against Hillary Clinton, the same lie used to justify the sundering of families who show up at the Mexican border. That, somehow, there is some sort of child sex trafficking going on.
James O’Keefe - and Erik Prince - should be sued for millions and sentenced to serving those they tried to destroy.
3
More sleaze connected to trump and his family- impeach him and the republican senators that look the other way. Crooks.
4
I think this is really funny. Perhaps the hired soldier, mercenary, Mr. PRINCE can recruit agents for counter intelligence operations, that is to say when anytime anyone says anything intelligent in the teachers union, Prince's spies can counter it . But there is not much chance of that since seldom does anyone in the AFT or UFT say anything remotely resembling logic or cleverness. This is a non story, but laughable because if Mr. Mazetti knew teachers unions from the inside out, he would know that the level of discourse, of culture is not very high."Quelle foutaise!"
Was trump involved.
Is there a pea without a pod?
1
"In August 2017, Ms. Jorge wrote to Mr. Seddon that she had managed to record a local union leader talking about Ms. DeVos and other topics."
It took a spy to do this?
1
Erik Prince should earn himself a thorough investigation by the next honest Attorney General. He seems to leave a stench wherever he goes.
2
You can see what Trump and his death cult have been doing, undermining even the teacher's union. What a time we live in. By next year this will all be just a bad dream, and America, such as it is, can get back to normal. And the right people will be guests at Club Fed....
4
Just when you think the corrupt, inept, contemptible Trump regime can't go any lower, you find that they can. November 2020 can't come soon enough.
4
People how much more of this lawlessness, corruption and incompetence can we take?
When is enough going to be enough?
Trump is a disgrace to our country.
He doesn’t represent the majority of the people who are decent law abiding citizens.
This cannot stand. We must defeat trump at the ballot box by huge margins or we will all become like the man most of us detest.
4
Why do I feel that this will, profoundly, sadly, be, oh, just another forgotten tomorrow tidbit in the lives of tRump people out to destroy the greatest country god ever gave the world. Ho-hum, just another day in The United States of Russia if they succeed in November...
(hysterically crying emoji...and American flag...)
1
The primary constituency of today's G.O.P. is criminals. That is who they represent.
If you vote Republican, you are voting in support of crime.
5
This organization is the "deep state": wealthy white men who seek power to benefit the few at the expense of the many. NO MATTER WHO, VOTE BLUE.
2
Trump could use an elementary school teacher on his staff, for tutoring.
1
It's an obvious C.I.A. operation involving a Brit. When you rid the nation of the enemy creating agency, you'll have peace that lasts.
Some Brit once threatened to break my legs at my door on Long Island in the late 1980's around the time my dad was murdered. I lived near C.I.A. Director Casey at the Time. It was also right around the time former Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade left office after many decades in which he investigated the Kennedy assassination.
That's what your years of stories are about.
What can I say other than that Master Sun said "know yourself and know your enemy."
3
This is the ultimate example of how the Republican Party has become a crime operation.
3
Can American politics get any scummier? Do the Democrats now have to fight fire with fire and resort to the same strategy? I don't see how they can avoid it. The stakes are so high for both sides I expect this to be the norm going forward...... unfortunately. Its time Mike Bloomberg to bring out the big guns of support.
2
I hope the Democrats understand the relentless dirty activities that will be unleashed by the republicans. I am hoping the Bloomberg, Styer, fill in the blank democratic machines take counter action in a very deliberate way against these thugs
2
I think he may be the next James Bond.....
How disgusting is Erik Prince, De Vos, and the entire corrupt Trump oligarchy. Thank you for outing this illegal voter suppression operation by Project "Veritas". He should be indicted, lose his lucrative contract, and do significant jail time. Oh, right. Justice is now injustice under Trump's Barr.
4
Looks like the swamp creatures of the right are breeding and spreading in rapid numbers. Time to declare open season on the infestation...
2
Is training Project Veritas operatives how to shoot at the Prince ranch the new normal for right wing journalists? This will not end well.
1
Nixon had the “Plumbers”, trump “Veritas” (how’s that for irony?). All cut from the same rotten cloth.
1
Politics is a blood sport. If you don’t think liberal/progressive groups do the same, you’re wrong. Heck the last administration used Fisa warrants, FBI, five eyes intel, etc etc to spy on Trump in 2016. That was 1 million times worse than watergate.
1
On one hand, these attempts to poison our electoral process are truly frightening.
On the other: Ho Hum, another sleazeball with ties to the Trump Administration. Does the President know anyone who is honest?
4
This is just another trust fund baby who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. His father was very wealthy; manufacturing in Michigan , now it's in China thanks to the GOP. His father co-founded the ulta conservative Family Research Council. Family values: run around the world providing mercenaries to kill people. There must be a wiring problem in his brain.
Anyhow, rich people fertilizing the swamp in Washington D.C. and declaring that they're different. They look the same to me. He and his sister are really tired of all the peasants clamoring for a share of the pie, and peasants are sooooo...unclean.
The poor boys down in the holler love him though, he's a bigger than life macho man with an AR 15. There's a sucker born every minute.
5
Why is this taking so long for the NYT to report? Vanity Fair ran an extensive story on the DeVos and Prinze families about 1 1/2 years ago. It had plenty in it to follow up for the NYT.
This is akin to the giant investigation of Trump’s family finances year after he was president. Prinze has never stopped and was one of the people putting back channels together for Kushner.
Stop reporting Trumps every stupid move. The real reporting needs to be done on this and Barr and Ginny Thomas group, etc
2
Thank you, NYT. Glad you’re still there - glad you’re still doing this kind of digging; this kind of reporting.
The moment by moment outrage of the Trump epoch, and OMG, does it feel that it’s lasted generations... it must be so tremendously difficult to accurately keep track of it all! Devos, Prince and the cast of a thousand sycophants and hangers on - mind boggling.
Again, thank you!
1
What you do when you're not good enough to win on your own merits...and have no integrity.
2
So when Trump and his lackeys go on and on about the "deep state", is this what they're talking about?
I know you are but what am I?
2
"Project Veritas!?" How ironic that their efforts are aimed at the perpetuation of lies and the reign of our Liar-in-Chief!
Can we please get some people into power who have at least a shred of decency and morality about them?
4
The corruption of the Republican Party is downright scary and seems overwhelming. Sleaze, Inc.
4
Nothing these people are going for can they ever accomplish without cheating. Trump-Putin. Gerrymandering. Predetermined Verdict Impeachment Trial. Now this pathetic Prince guy who's people murdered innocent people in Iraq and who knows how many more and where all else.
It's all they got. They don't know how to govern. They don't know how to care for the least among our society. They don't know how to be real people. They are from somewhere in our past human condition that exploits and destroys instead of grow and evolve.
It's all they got. Expect more.
3
Well now we know how 45 got Mitch McConnell under his thumb and all the other republican senators that despite all the evidence would not vote to impeach. I do wonder at all the dirt he has on them. For the first time in my life I feel our government is be run by a bunch of thugs and mafia like gangsters. We need honest politicians for all the people. This is so sad for me and all the world to see how corrupt our goverment has become.
1
Now we know how the totally inept Betsy DeVos +manages to hang on to her seat at Education. Not that her incompetence doesn't fully qualify her for a cabinet post in the Trump administration, but having a brother like this just gives her a leg up on any equally inept candidates.
2
I was not expecting "Brother of Education Secretary recruits British spies to infiltrate the American Federation of Teachers" to be filled in on my "What horrible thing has the administration done this morning?" bingo card.
4
Freedom has become code for a fast approaching tyranny that will be unstoppable if the presently disgraced Republcan political party retains control in November's election.
While concerned voices are being raised with regard to a possible coup d'etat should the election go against the present administration, that dormant concern will not be raised if the majority of our citizenry realize just what is being done which is why reporting of this sort is invaluable.
The mere fact that internal spying of any sort, let alone that being done by a 23 year old woman, is lauded returns me to my youth and the horrors accompanying WW2.
While I haven't drawn parallells with others in or close to our present government, members of this administration strike me as eerily similar to those of Nazi Germany. Sinister and at some level quite insulting to our nation, but those who are both literally and figuratively pulling the triggers of assasination, are being lauded by a sizable portion of our nation's electorate.
It is also no coincidence that as in WW2 Germany a majority of those who raised their hands in salutation to their beloved leader were urged on by those who occupied pulpits from which they preached their words of hate.
I can only trust history is not repeating itself with such short notice.
1
Dems need to get busy and do their own infiltrating of Republican organizations: Michael Bloomberg, are you out there? Infuse some cash and create a reality of the Democratic deep state mission, that will get more dirt—as if more were needed—on Republican groups and operations!
1
Erik Prince goes from private mercenary king to private Cointelpro work. In other words, the war on Iraqis is now a war on the working class in the U.S. While Prince infiltrates and sabotages teachers' unions from the inside, his sister Betsy DeVos dismantles public education from the government side.
1
"Project Veritas has said its activities are legal and protected by the First Amendment,"
Since when is spying, lying, theft of private documents, and deception protected under the First Amendment?
Maybe if J. Edgar Hoover was still around.
My goodness it is in the genetics of these folks? Too many of these people are ruthless, money grubbing, misguided, and possibly in this case criminal, fanatics.
I would love to be a a fly on the wall as Besty Devos, her brother, and their cohorts go on about their endless pursuit of Conservative's "Holy Grail"...a Ayn Rand inspired lawless dystopia led by despots.
It's disheartening and sickens me that such malcontents are involved on such a deep level influencing and running our government.
4
Can this Administration and the GOP get any more corrupt. It gets more disgusting by the day
3
You don't think the Democrats and so-called Progressives are at it, if not worse, as well? It's called politics. Frankly, Mr. Prince has taken it to an art form. And people have been creating art since the stone age. So please don't throw stones...especially from glass houses at white ones.
1
You know, editors, that bit about Prince being the *brother of the Education Secretary* should hae been in the first paragraph. The Trumps are not the only grifter family in this administration.
3
Weak sauce, NYTimes. I’m waiting for your big expose on opposition research and voter registration as practiced by the President’s opponents.
I would also enjoy reading your story about what great jobs the other children of former members of the House and Senate are getting out of college. You know, something as well-written as the New Yorker piece on Hunter Biden.
"Using a different alias the next year, the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former C.I.A. officer..."
Maybe that wasn't the smartest move.
"The campaign discovered the operative and fired her."
Definitely wasn't smart. But keep at it with the teachers, Erik. Maybe you'll get a recording of Miss Porter fixing on "owie" with an unauthorized bandage in homeroom one day.
1
This is scary, but anybody susceptible to this almost has it coming. "Oh, hey, this new guy says he's interested in our organization. Let's tell him our secret plans." To keep your dirt hidden don't have any dirt, and if you have any only share it with people you've known for a long time, people who have proven themselves.
1
Project Veritas is not a news oraganzation. They are known for deliberately misleading and outright false reporting and selective editing of videos. They are also hard right in their agenda. There is nothing independent about them.
2
Alston and Bird truly is the scummiest law firm north of the Cayman Islands. When it comes to funneling shady money to undermine our democracy, these guys make Saul Goodman look like Atticus Finch.
if I were a law student thinking about my future I wouldnt interview with them if you paid me.
4
What's worse? This or Watergate?
No B&E; but big time impersonation/fraud--breach of privacy and security.
2
Thank goodness Big T and Repubs are not mixing taxpaid and private undercover assets. Yes... it's the separation of realms that keeps us all safe in these contentious days. Heart of America.
Now we are truly living in a police state. A soft coup. Fascism is here. King Trump running amok and at the helm. Scary times.
3
This is more like watergate breaking into democratic offices. This is an impeachable offense. Now, people need to decide whether to remove him from the office or not. They need to decide whether nation above politics or politics above the nation. His second term will be focused on him getting rich using Whitehorse as his business office. Running the country, who cares when people don’t give a hoot.
1
It can be assumed that this is the dumpster's way of cutting out the middle man---that being Mr. Putin. I don't imagine anyone who's been paying attention for the last 3 or 4 years is the least bit surprised by this latest proof of the amoral and ethically-deprived playbook of not just Donald Trump, but most of the Republican Party.
I've never been one, but had respect for some of the old time folks such as General Eisenhower, Robert Taft and Margaret Chase Smith, and even the charmingly quirky Everett Dirksen. They were decent and honorable politicians who put country about party. I'm sure they would be ashamed to be thrown in with the current bunch--a tawdry group if ever there was one. And, it is to be fondly hoped, a thing of the past come November.
1
Some people, like prince and trump just can’t move beyond their childhoods and fantasies. DeVoss never got beyond being rich. The world is a far more dangerous place as a result.
2
I found it rather humorous when Project Veritas uncovered a member of ACORN willing to fund a prostitution business. I mean we want to know about exploitation of women in the sex trade don't we? Of course this lead to the demise of ACORN which had already been found guilty of voter fraud.
Snakes know the way of snakes but I guess in this instance velociraptors know the ways of hyenas... so be prepared.
“Veritas“ means truth. Giuliani says “Truth is not truth.” We will never cross the Rubicon... because we‘ll all drowned before that can happen.
Brilliant and terrifying journalism.
2
Mr. Prince and his associates at veritas and Fox news and the man in the White House are emotionally disturbed people and deserve our pity. They are still subject to prosecution where applicable as well.
3
When I was in line to vote Monday night (nearly 3 hour wait, go team Biden :-) several of the support team of the candidates came up and were talking to the people in the line. To begin with I think it was illegal to do so but that's for another time I guess. What happened was there was a woman who was walking up and down the line asking if we were republicans, she was very nosey... she stopped and talked to the people in front of me, the conversations went something like this,"Hi are you republicans? They said "yes". The woman started talking about lawyers, courts, and crooked judges, that she was involved in the court system, blah., blah. She asked the lady in front of me where she was from, the lady said "Ukraine". That made the woman walking the line very happy, she gave the Ukrainian woman her phone# and told her to call. At this point I was like what the heck lady, is it even legal you walking the line like this, she looks at me crossed eyed and disappeared. I believe that woman was a hack for someone. My guess is that we all need to be very careful.
2
“proud independent news organization”.
Like RT & Sputnik, no doubt.
Even conservatives should be alarmed- this administration is a Mafia full of shady and ruthless characters- many of whom are now behind bars. The principles and laws of the United States are not their concern. Money is their God.
3
This smacks of J. Edgar Hoover and his ilk. Prince should have been in jail years ago.
3
Mr. Halderman continued his life of CRIME immediately after his probation ended for trying to extort David Letterman. LOCK HIM UP!
2
That’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s brother. Involved in the 2017 Seychelles meeting with Flynn, Kushner and Kislyak
3
Because of Trump and the internet, the republican party is now filled with Timothy McVeighs, and right to the top in terms of belief in a deep state.
“In the end, the government that McVeigh hated and hoped to topple swiftly captured him and convincingly convicted both him and his co-conspirators.”
Not so now,..If he were still alive, McVeigh would most likely have received a Trump pardon and be a pundit on Fox., or at the least be one of the.. “good people on both sides”.. working for Prince and “project veritas” .....the pardon may yet come.
1
Exactly HOW is this legal??? The USA is one insane country, in sooooo many ways.
2
First they came for the left wing.
2
KGB methodology employed by our OWN President.
Vote Blue to REMOVE Trump in Nov...
Or in 4 more years Trump Might Not Let You...
Infiltration of "Enemy List" Organizations & US Citizens by Spies and Trained Assassins ...
Keep this up Trump and and there will be Blood in Running in the Streets.
BTW The Nisour Square Massacre occurred on September 16, 2007 where employees of Prince's Blackwater Security Consulting Operators Slaughtered Civilians in Iraq. We better get prepared to defend ourselves...
2
"Lordy, I hope there are tapes."
1
Americans love this guy. He is the epitome of all that is great about the US. The good thing is he is read to serve any master. Whether they be Democrat or Republican or whatever. Even the NY times if called upon.
I would suggest that if they send spies they should be treated like spies. Open season on Veritas operatives, top down.
1
Wouldn’t “Project Falsus” be more fitting for Prince’s mendacious venture?
1
The GOP is a rotten organization that is committed to imposing a right wing totalitarian government in the USA.
Examples like the clear and present danger of Veritas shows why this election is not so much about policy details but about ejecting this malignant force from the White House and Congress.
2
Sooner or later, Americans must hit the streets.
1
Impeachment Round II
Appalling.
The Southern Strategy implemented by Nixon, Philips and Atwater was national chickenpox. Thanks to Gingrich and his senatorial bookend McConnell we have ended up with trump*: national shingles...terminal shingles.
Trump's bringing the troops home to fight the war at home!!??
1
Nixon was a choir boy compared to Trump.
1
I certainly hope that Messrs. Mazzetti and Goldman stay with this important story to, most likely, expose additional layers of corruption and criminality, with all roads eventually leading to Trickster Trump and his equally dirty family. The disgusting Trump-Republican Party must be turned out of office at every governmental level this November. VOTE!
1
When Hillary hired a UK spy, to collect the dossier, no one cared.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Not sure who the big dog is...couldn't be the Sun King because he's obviously too dumb, a figurehead or puppet.
Organizational charts evolve over time. Prince is up there where a capo might have been...maybe something different now.
Whatever they're doing it can't be good.
If you value your life, vote Blue.
1
A ranch in Wyoming. Maybe an island in the Caribbean that is only accessible by boat. Very,very scary stuff. Something about these guys (and Betty de Vos), the NRA, the militia, German heritage, redheaded Russian international students, Jeffrey Epstein, prostate cancer survivors, presidential pardons for prostate cancer buddy billionaires, massage parlours in South Florida. These patriots are never non partisan. What a way to live one's four score years.
Much of this sounds highly illegal. I'm surprised it hasn't drawn the attention of AG's in Democratic states. O'Keefe is obviously a scam artist who has found a solid gold vein of paranoid Conservatives willing to pay him handsomely for these antics.
1
Oh boy, it’s back to Spy vs. Spy, I so miss the Cold War. Now the progressives need to step up their game and play dirty. What to call their clown car spy racket? Project Gotcha? Well, I shouldn’t be so glib, hmm? So what if Veritas reveals liberal media bias against Trump? He’s a hapless fool pretending to be a president, and intelligent reporters privately commiserate about the state of the country, all the while exposing our lame media for not doing their job reporting this sordid reality. Perhaps Veritas will do us all a service and we can finally have a real conversation about the madness we’re living in today. Wouldn’t it be perfect, perfectly ironic, if in exposing the bias against Trump everyone found themselves on the same page about DT and Co. This administration is completely corrupt and incompetent, and no one with any brains supports it.
1
Hey GOP, here's a crazy strategy you could try:
Instead of engaging in endless subterfuge to achieve your selfish oft-duplicitous & nefarious goals, why don't you come up with honest principled policies and visionary ideas that the rest of America can get behind?
Why is it that the GOP is often the perpetrator of these dirty tactics? I'm looking at you Nixon.
There is a rot in this country that would horrify most citizens if they were paying attention and had the capacity to see it. But I guess this is what men like Prince, Trump a most of the Republican leadership count on...ignorance and apathy. Wake up my fellow citizens, the unethical, power craven cesspool of sociopaths ruling this country today are destroying the innocence and nobility of our democracy.
Project Veritas...really? How about Project Fallacia.
Lies, deceit and cheating are not what the signatories of the US Constitution imagined. Certainly, they may have imagined the likeness of King George III reigning power over the US of A in 2020, but did not think that a horrific, scared, cowardice Senate is allowing King T to sit on a narcissistic throne of lies.
When you vote for a thing from the swamp these are the kind of creatures that crawl crawl out of it. Seems to me that Prince himself is ripe for some espionage. And his little sister too. What's that they say about payback?
1
The worst part is that poorly fitting tux, and a wing collar to boot!
1
The American Christian right is as much a threat to Democracy as the head choppers in the middle East and they need to be dealt with accordingly.
About the Tricky Dick ( Richard Seddon) formerly of MI6: if he contributed anything material to any electoral campaign, isn't he in violation of Federal Law? As far as I know, it is illegal for anyone who is not a citizen of this country to contribute or participate in elections of any kind. MI 6 is the British counterpart to our CIA, so he is most likely a citizen of that country.
So, has anyone filed a criminal complaint?
2
'Oppo research' that requires firearms training?
Using an ex-operative of a foreign spy agency (and possibly a foreign national) to spy on Americans?
A flak jacket under a tuxedo?
1
Blackwater's is so appropriate, Humanity is presently from dark territory
Nice piece of fiction, very creative. Now that I'm in the mood for real news I will tune into FOX news.
It should be illegal for the President of the United States to engage in this kind of behavior. The man has done almost everything under the sun to drag the honor of the office into the dirt -- with the acquiesence of the GOP establishment. If this is not illegal for a president already, it ought to be made illegal now. This is what despotic dictators around the world do; totally unbecoming of a U.S. President.
1
The privatization of schools which promote limited, misleading, factually inaccurate, miseducation does not appear as a coincidence any more than the fact this trend is led by Eric Prince's sister.
This could be the seeding of a fascist takeover under the guise of freedom.
These are dangerous times and we better wake up to the fact there is an enemy within wrapped in and around our flag.
Trump political police? It get better and better! I wonder who suggested that to him? Sounds like Russian.
Will Americans wake up before november and understand that Trump want to be a dictator and is destroying US democracy before their eyes??
Time to stop the Putin's puppet
Where was your headline in 2016 when the democrats hired Christopher Steele? Or is it ok when democrats do it, but headline news when the GOP follows suit?
He's a man-child. He never grew up and wants to play games.
I really hope the DNC is taking notes. I'm tired of the Dems trying to be the good guys and losing while the Republicans will do anything to win. Sometimes you've got to get your hands dirty. At the very least, the should be hiring counter-intelligence. It's time to stop pretending the GOP plays fair. When they go low, kick 'em!
What's incredible is that Eric Prince is even walking free. He should have been arrested and jailed for his Blackwater travesties.
For decades, Erik Prince has been, in this order, a theocratic, adventure-seeking, deceitful, mercenary war-monger who believes law is just another weapon in a holy war. I have no doubt he would be proud of that description. He is an absolute menace to everything this country stands for, or did.
I’m so paranoid these days......I was watching a show where people were (in real life) being recorded in their homes. It was because they were involved in a murder. Police bugged their home and they were whispering to,each other about the killing. The bugs were picking them up LOUD AND CLEAR. You could hear everything they said, even though they were whispering in their own home. That’s when I realized how good technology is now. And with all this talk of political organizations hiring former spies from Mossad, MI6, CIA....political groups really could become Big Brother. When people write anti-righwing dissent online, their isp can immediately identify them. Someone could come by when you’re not home...plant something ...and then you’re on your way to the gulag. So I bought chalk & children’s chalkboards. I figured you can write on one. Turn it upside down & pass it to your conversation partner who could read it, erase it & write the answer, flip it over & hand it back.
Just in case....
What's the problem if the liberal groups involved have nothing to hide and are not doing anything illegal?
What Prince is doing is not just immoral but illegal. How can he not be held responsible for this? The answer is that he is being protected by Trump. Trump has successfully turned America into a banana republic, where the rules don't matter, and decency, fairness, and honesty are punished. It's sad but true that when Democrats return to power there will be payback. I will be happy to see all these crooks, thieves, and liars prosecuted and punished, and I feel like saying I won't feel the need to look too closely at how it's being done. That's not yet quite true but I feel my own moral compass spinning.
How can this not be a front page article? I am increasingly disillusioned and disappointed by the priorities of the journalistic community and in particular the New York Times for being unwilling to call out unbelievably bad behaviors and lies on the part of political figures… Particularly out of the Trump administration. This would be a front page article regardless of left or right or political party in any other time. Not sure why it’s not today.
This man and his sister are a danger to Democracy and should be known as such.
1
And Trump is always innocent in all this? Alternate universe!
1
"They used a code name — LibertyU — for their operative inside the organization, Marisa Jorge, who graduated from Liberty University in Virginia, one of the nation’s largest Christian colleges. Mr. Seddon wrote that Ms. Jorge 'copied a great many documents from the file room,' and Mr. O’Keefe bragged that the group would be able to get 'a ton more access agents inside the educational establishment.'"
Is this part of the "Christian" education Ms. Jorge received at LibertyU? Because I know somebody who used to work at UPenn and saw Trump's entire alumni file. Unfortunately, that person was too ethical to copy its contents. If only they'd been as spiritually "enlightened" as Mr. Jorge, future Supreme Court Justice. (Try typing that last part without spitting out your coffee.)
1
How much money do the rich really need? Apparently, the rich are never satisfied. They need enough to use Russian techniques to subvert Americans and our elections. Trump takes instructions well from his Russian handlers. The greedy conservatives are happy to fund this treason.
1
Trump-linked spies infiltrate teachers group to discredit them - Make America Great Again... sure
1
Should we not all be protesting in the streets? We need to stand up and SHOW that enough is enough!!
1
To get the real news, everyone needs to read the Times and the Washington Post. Or, "democracy will die in darkness" if you depend on local rags, TV and social media." To subscribe is to be informed.
1
Nice to know that the brother of the Secty of Ed is spying on the teachers' unions. It's the new America, brought to you by Trump.
1
Once again we see that our democracy is threatened from within. Can these people be charged with treason?
1
Trump Mob Inc.
Eric Prince has always been an extreme right wing opportunist at the cost of the country.
He made a fortune off of Military contractor work in Iraq and Afghanistan, were his men were charged with killing locals.
He was involved in meetings with Russian mobsters and Oligarchs attached to Putin and Russian support of Trump.
Now he's willing to make our politics and spying like a bad third world country, Putin like dictatorship......
I hope in the future Prince is jailed for treason...
Trump family and the likes of Prince are the VIRUS that can destroy our Democracy and Constitution.
1
Somebody needs to stuff James O'Keefe in a locker and leave him there for good.
1
If there's a front page story in the Times about a covert conservative spy organization, it must not be doing a very good job.
"Project Veritas received $20,000 from the Trump Foundation..." Another worthy cause supported by Trump and family's"charity".
2
I’m sorry. How can this many words be devoted to Project Veritas without mentioning its history of inaccuracy and outright lies? It famously doctored videos of Planned Parenthood so they looked like they were selling fetal body parts, and edited videos of ACORN so it appeared to be giving tax advice to a pimp about his brothel. Project Veritas does not ferret out truths. It creates lies. This history needs to be exposed not buried.
e.g. https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/projectveritasbackgrounder_may2018.pdf
1
$387,000.00. My, my.
Erik Prince has undisclosed foreign bank accounts along with Elliott Broidy, Ronald Lauder, Leonard Lauder, Michael Cohen, Bryan Cohen, Felix Sater, Jack Rosen, Eric Prince, Donald Trump Jr., and George Nader; who is closely associated with Boris Birshstein the original owner of a business entity called Seabeco Group known for theft and money laundering in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Ukraine. Seabeco was closely associated with Organized Crime, assassination and political manipulation. Seabeco Metals was allegedly founded by the KGB in1983 as an international trading company for the purpose of smuggling the Communist Party’s hidden gold out of the USSR.
It was Birshstein that arranged financing for the Toronto Trump Tower which directly connects Donald Trump to Seabeco's co-owner Sergey Mikhailov, the alleged head of SOLNTSEVO, the biggest, and most powerful crime syndicate in the USSR.
1
Welcome to another Republican Dark Arts campaign season, filled with the worst bunch of All-Star lawbreakers, libertarian enemies of taxation, Blackwater war hawks and humans without a conscience.
If you'd like to get a sense of Erik Prince's fine character, Erik Prince is the same guy who had an affair with Joanna Ruth Houck, his children's nanny, while his first wife, Joan Nicole (who bore him four children) was dying died of cancer in 2003 at age 36.
Definitely Trump's kind of amoral, immoral guy.
November 3 2020
Vote in historic numbers.
4
November can't come soon enough.
Honestly not sure why they go through this effort of infiltrating liberal groups. They could just make up stuff and post it on the internet. That is what everyone else does.
1
Eric Prince is the brother of the Secretary of Education. Par for the course, unfortunately.
This article fails to mention that Project Veritas and James O’Keefe, both separately and together, have been sued many times, and have been found guilty multiple times on criminal and civil charges. They famously doctor and edit their so-called “sting” videos so deliberately and in such blatantly fraudulent ways that most of those videos have been thrown out of court or simply rejected outright by law enforcement.
There is nothing noble or even vaguely journalistic about the work of Project Veritas. James O’Keefe is just another self-righteous partisan hack, titillated by his own immature pranks, greedy and eager for money and proximity to power.
1
We have to vote trump out fast. They have gutted us completely.
The brother of Betsy DeVos? How have I missed that all these years. Doesn’t look shady at all. Carry on.
1
Let’s be clear, Republicans want to break the teachers union so they can break public schools. Period. Why? Once broken, they and their cronies will divert public money to their sham private schools. Think “trump university“ for k-12. Not only and effective, but full of religious propaganda.Wake up America.
They misspelled Project Very Trash.
Project Very Trash pursues the thriving and the advancement of America as Project Very Last, petty self-serving, disingenuousness, deceit, and Project Never-from-sharing-it-but-only-from-fraudulently-collecting-it-merry Cash First.
If they'd not be incorrigible they might have actually learned a thing or two from their involvement with the American Federation of Teachers.
Lock them up. Project Alcatraz...
2
Why doesn’t this article mention the dishonest ways in which Project Veritas presents its “findings”? Doctored videos and lies are not muckraking, they’re fraud.
Once a conman always a conman, working to prop up another conman. Erik Prince made millions fleecing American taxpayers with his private army in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and continues to make millions off GOP cultists determined to keep robbing America by keeping Trump in power. He is far more dangerous than his sister, who is simply the most ignorant Education Secretary ever put in charge of the nation's schools.
2
Trump: "I'm shocked! Shocked to find that subterfuge is going on in here!"
Voter: "Are you sure this place is honest?"
1
Sometimes I wonder if this president doesn’t have magical powers. Though clearly guilty in a laundry list of dirty deeds, he always manages to keep himself on the periphery of culpability—and just out of the reach of justice. At this point, I’m pretty sure he could get away with murder. And to prove my point, Covid 19 might be the gun he uses to shoot us all on 5th Avenue and “get away with it.”
1
Plain and simple, criminals are occupying the White House. Vote them out and pray they leave voluntarily. They may or they may not, but one thing is certain. The stench of corruption they'll leave behind will last forever.
Why is this sort of behavior not criminal?
1
These guys look to me like under-endowed men desperate to make themselves feel bigger.
1
It sounds like the gestapo and it is even more virulent and dangerous than the coronavirus.
Freedom of Speech does not protect statements or activities when they create a clear and present danger that will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. That finding came in the case of Schenk vs United States with an opinion written by justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.
I sincerely hope each of these people will be prosecuted and it will contribute to trump’s defeat in November.
1
Like all else, these days, in the Dis-United States of America, this too shall come to pass.
RIP
Maybe Secretary of Education Betsy Devos could further ruin the "failing government schools" and the spirit of teachers nationwide if she simply confers with her brother about the AFT's concerns he helped capture surreptitiously.
Project Veritas is a news organization, they are not "spies" or "operatives" for Trump or the Right. The NYT is attacking other news organizations in their quest to stop Trump a democratically elected President, which is sedition.
Project Veritas and it's cronies will be another good hunting ground for future AG Kamala Harris or Sally Yates to weed out corruption.
2021 and forward is going to be an enjoyable time for Democrats.
The current public crisis is dire and the infections must be brought under control and eradicated as soon as possible.
The COVID-19 virus is nasty, too.
This guy always looks like he's immersed in dark thoughts. You'd think that someone who grew up playing with Joe E. Brown's doppelganger would smile more often.
Outsourced Watergate type operation. Nice.
This is a royal family, right? The Prince corrupting in his way and Princess Betsy selling out public schools.
But such Christians.....they better be praying for more than Trump’s blessings.
1
The American war state is now a bankrupted and collapsing global military empire: turning inwards (China style) in the search of "enemies". Both political "parties" are essentially fascist: primarily interested in destroying the other elite party.
The media plays along as another entrenched fascist elite, primarily interested in destroying the "other" channels of news. Digital devices ensure isolation and social control of the masses.
I am so lucky to have a house now in New Zealand!
1
Interesting that, according to the NYT in the past, it is perfectly fine and honorable for leftists to try to infiltrate conservative groups but is is somehow villainous for a conservative to try to return the favor.
Nice double standard.
at least j edgar Hoover had the decency to be officially breaking the law by spying on Americans in America as the director of the FBI. prince is just an American terrorist for hire.
Can you say W A T E R G A T E ? Apparently the Republicans and their supporters learned nothing from having the only President of the United States to resign in disgrace to avoid being prosecuted and, most likely, going to prison. If their vision for the U.S. is so legitimate and popular why do they have to resort to espionage and betrayal to advance their point of view? They have a president who has made the old joke about how to know when he's lying, just another day in office. The ghosts of G Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt still stalk the halls of the White House and yet again the Republican Party attempts to gain from illegal activity. All that is old has become new again.
"The campaign discovered the operative and fired her."
"Ms. Jorge was eventually exposed and kicked out of the campaign office."
Please explain HOW she was "discovered" or "exposed".
Anyone who thinks this sort of espionage does not reflect a mirror image among progressives is sadly naive. The left, who hated socially challenged Nixon over "Un-American Activities" and Quaker conservatism, later castigated him for not ending The War immediately upon election in '68 and used every means possible, public and private, to character assassinate him, until he gave them the silver bullet of Watergate. The Clintons and their sycophants, did everything possible to discredit ANY woman who hash-tagged Slick Willy while the red queen stood by approvingly. These articles are interesting, but hardly ground-breaking or earth shattering -- in a Democracy such as ours, it's been going on since 1789.
Talk about the Evil Empire ... I am just hoping with a deeply engaged Democratic electorate the Force Awakens ...
so this is why all the Rs in the senate (except romney) voted to acquit djt.
djt has a dossier of everything they and their kids have done wrong in their entire lives.
HE BLACKMAILED THEM ALL.
chip the granite mountain with a chisel and hammer. it is only thirty thousand feet high.
The brother of the education secretary training spies to infiltrate the teachers union. 'Nough said. How can she not step down?
3
Why do we tolerate this behavior from Republicans? Now is the time to expose and take out the conservative menace from our nation before our democracy is no more.
1
The attorney general should look into this. Oh wait, never mind.
1
oh, so he's doing Nixon too
1
Erik, Prince of Darkness.
1
J. Edgar Hoover pioneered this type of illegal infiltration. Just more evidence of Trump's rebranded McCarthyism.
1
Impeachment 2.0. Mr. Schiff, time for some hearings. Prince doesn't work for free. Who's paying him this time? Moscow? The RNC? Koch? Mercer?
1
Anyone who has been paying real close attention to what has been happening in this country for the last 20 years would know that Erik Prince, scion of the ponzi scheme family who own Amway and brother to the diabolical Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, sits at the head of the most devious machinations of the Military Industrial Complex. Nothing is beneath this individual. He is as bad as it gets.
Not surprised our war criminal government is using solders of fortune/mercenaries domestically against Americans. I guess we’re all insurgents/enemy combatants now.
1
William Barr should investigate these real "spies" rather than investigating the FBI.
1
This goes to the heart of the inanity with the Russia obsession. We need no outside influence to meddle, spy or divide us.
1
Good heavens...all of this for an election?
1
If there isn't already, there oughta be a law.
A truly toxic brother and sister doing all they can to destroy the US that most of us thought we had.
Of course, they are perfect for #45s swamp.
When he goes, they will go as well!!!! Sooner the better.
1
I certainly hope the next attorney general prosecutes the current AG for dereliction is duty and all mueller referrals. That is where I would start. We need a lot of bleach
1
Many Democrats will disagree with me, but if we have to get into the gutter with this trash to fight them, so be it.
We should have our own "Project Veritas", but ours will be genuine veritas. Truth, that is.
Don't bring a water pistol to a gun fight.
Never underestimate the depths that the GOP will go to in order to maintain power. No one in politics is clean but the GOPs have special talent for sleaziness thats been enhanced by the current Agent Orange in the WH.
1
We need to vote every single republican out of office wherever we can because they are all in on this corruption. Organize and vote, people, vote!
1
Thank you journalists! I am working hard to make sure we don’t lose our chance at representative democracy, in no small part to keep you all safe and free to investigate and spread the truth. Sanders2020!!!
1
Nothing will be done, Republicans will look the other way and life will move on to the next illegal act by Trump.
Is it safe to assume that all Republicans are profiting form these acts? If not why allow these blatant acts to continue?
1
I am more surprised by the startled reactions of readers than I am by the content of the article. How can the use of spies as a form of sabotage against political opponents be a surprise to anyone?? We live in The Matrix where even our own faces are used against us and deceit is a mere tool to an end. Ruthlessness is a requirement for the job description of achieving great power. That is a silver lining to Trump's victory--exposing these sad facts.
1
this is our government -
this is our governments allies -
so sad - so frightening !
2
In any other administration this would be enough to open a congressional investigation and sink a president. Unfortunately, this will most likely pass without any repercussions. Corruption as gone unchecked for way too long. This behavior cannot be normalized.
Jeez. These big bad Bond wannabes who were gonna make out big time bamboozling the US of A into bankrolling their war games ... bugging the teacher's union.
Not funny at all to have these dangerous whack jobs meddling with our kids' teachers. And tragic for the United States that it's business as usual for the Republican Party.
Can't we just agree to put and end to this in November? Together we've got the numbers. What could be more important?
Essentially, this is Watergate all over again.
And.... nobody will stop them because the AG is in the tank for Trump, has a stranglehold on the DoJ and FBI, and will stifle any actual objective federal investigation of this nonsense.
2
More of the same from Trump allies (co-conspirators.) I am betting that Trump will proactively pardon all of them after he loses the 2020 election. A den of thieves!
1
Thanks for a great and timely article
1
Trump and his allies should simply use the CIA FBI, etc...like the previous administration.
Private armies and private intelligence services go hand in hand. Machiavelli blamed both for the fall of the Florentine Republic, and our own is on the brink.
2
I don’t see anything wrong about Eric Prince investigating hostile entities that oppose President Trump. Its good the President has a supporter to help detect and identify bad individuals.
My eyes see what they want to see. He’s not inside a casino. I thought he was. My eyes see what they want to see. I don’t know where he is, actually.
It's only a "sting" if it exposes your friends, otherwise it's investigative reporting. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
1
For Heaven’s sake. Somebody buy this guy some toy soldiers and tell him to go play where he can’t hurt anybody. Blackwater. Now this.
2
Reagan, the Teflon President, pales in comparison to the current incumbent. The Trump administration has been pounded by the dozens of revelations of dirty tricks and scandals, yet he is still in office. This story would have brought down Obama. Thank you, NYT for this. Remember Veritas, The Ukraine, ICE, the Kurds, Charlottesville, Gold Star families, tax returns, etc., etc., in November.
1
This type of activity has always gone on across the political spectrum. What makes Project Veritas different is that they debunk narratives that are beloved of the mainstream media, and that is why are under attack by the New York Times.
1
One must examine the bigger picture.
Why the not so subtle messages?
Everybody spies on everybody else.
Bill Barr cannot be trusted.
Clinton and Obama attempting to rig the 2016 election is a conspiracy theory.
They are building the only defense they have, which is essentially an admission of guilt.
If the mainstream media (like the NYT) did its job, there would be no need for Project Veritas. Alas, thank you James O'Keefe.
1
Erik Prince headed Blackwater at its apogee and emerged unscathed from egregious crimes its contractors perpetrated on Iraqi and Afghan civilians.
His infamous meeting in the Seychelles to establish yet another back channel between Putin and Trump was well-documented by Robert Mueller. Prince walked away from that peccadillo as well.
Now we have him playing cloak and dagger as some sort of wannabe James Bond infiltrating “liberal” organizations. I suppose trying to do some real good by investigating Russian election shenanigans would not please Trump or his Russian buddies.
Only in TrumpWorld - everywhere you turn you find amateur night and immortality.
1
I am no longer surprised that we keep seeing just how corrupt Republicans are.
1
The Trump administration is absolutely the most corrupt ever and that corruption is deep and widespread. Think of the multiple Robert Mueller convictions of Trump acolytes like Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and Rick Gates to the resignations of the corrupt Cabinet Secretaries Tom Price & Ryan Zinke to the resignation of the EPA Director, Scott Pruitt in Trump’s earliest days right on through to today with the likes of Betsy DeVos, William Barr, and the disgraced (& now deposed) Mick Mulvaney. Neither should we forget the Trump family, including the “unable to get a security clearance” Jared Kushner & the recently convicted political rogue, Roger Stone.
Now with these latest revelations concerning the spying on and infiltration of legitimate Democratic organizations like the teacher’s union, we are witnessing the undermining of our democracy. Scalawags like James O’Keefe and nefarious individuals like Erik Prince are a direct threat to the very essence of democratic ideals and principles.
The question today is whether our Justice Department professionals, under the leadership of the aforementioned William Barr, will be able to pursue these transgressors with the fervor and the full power of the federal government in order to preserve the Constitution & “the rule of law”.
1
Erik, the Prince of Darkness, the literal Deep State of the military-Congressional-Industrial-Complex trades dirty favors with Trump and McConnell.
Everything Trump supporters hate they support in Trump.
Sadly, after Trump got away with Russia connections ( with help from Barr ) and zero evidence allowed in Senate impeachment.....where the public would have heard the truth from people IN this administration,
are we as surprised as we should be. We can assume the trump party will back him on this as well.
@ 72 , and having studied European history, I was hoping never to see Fascism.....and that is exactly what this is, here in our country.
The family that spawned the Prince of darkness and his equally abhorrent sister are the perfect representatives of the side of our country that most of us refuse to admit exists, and they are by no means unique. In our complacency, ignorance and degree of denial, we make such creatures possible and in so doing, make the American idea a folly.
Wake up folks! The republicans are working furiously to preserve minority rule. Lie, cheat, steal, whatever it takes because they can no longer win legitimately. The scariest part of it is the nonchalant attitude that seems to follow thier transgressions.
How is it that the “party of family values” demonstrates no values whatsoever?
The President’s campaign and the GOP should change their slogan to, “if it’s not clearly illegal, it’s okay!”
And underlying it all is a philosophy that says, “if we think we can’t get punished if we are caught, let’s go for it!”
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It’s an oft-repeated phrase: “Just when you think trumpf and his humpf’s can’t sink any lower ...”
Another oft-repeated phrase: “How can Republicans (with the exception of Mitt Romney) keep supporting trumpf ...”
I believe trumpf’s despicable behavior during the coronavirus crisis will finally reveal to all but his most loyal followers that he is totally unable to protect our country in times of crisis
Things are getting so bad that even Pence is starting to look competent!
Tragically, there will be much more illness and death before this is fully resolved.
14
The USA has spent decades and trillions, overthrowing foreign gov'ts including Vietnam, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Iran and on and on. Now, no surprise, the USA is being compromised by some of it's own dark elements. How do you like it now, patriots? What goes around, comes around.
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Project Veritas has a history of selectively editing video to make the subjects of their "investigations" look bad. Think of how spotless these subjects must have been to not have been splashed all over fox news.
11
Re: "In 2017, he met with White House and Pentagon officials to pitch a plan to privatize the Afghan war using contractors in lieu of American troops."
Why don't you have the guts to call these "contractors" by their plain English name: mercenaries?
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We're living through a remake of From Russia With Love, so I'm stirred but not shaken. Nor am I suprised that these folks were unsuccessful with Spanberger, a graduate of the CIA.
6
Trump only knows one way to win elections: cheat. And cheat again.
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The totalitarian bent of Trump and his cohort cannot be underestimated.
Trump is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but there are devious minds quite willing to exploit his bluster and appalling ignorance.
At one time the idea that fascism could not take hold in America was inconceivable. Now, not so much.
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So, what happens when the undercover cop-intelligence service monkeys discover the people they're surveilling are all blackwater baboons. Antifa went from twenty to twenty thousand in two days.
I think we're safe.
1
When will the Democrats going to wise up and start their own project Veritas? Think of all the dirt and underhanded scheming going on with the conservatives!
7
While I know there has always been opposition research, this is on a whole new level and this report should get major airtime. Erik Prince was mentioned in the Mueller report, and he was was not truthful when he testified to Congress. Yet he goes on to engage in this undercover operation to target Unions, teachers and liberal groups as if they are the enemies of America. And he uses Project Veritas, a group that secretly films people and then edit the videos so they can look as bad as possible. And to use professional spies against Americans is a disgrace. All in the name to reelect the worst President in history. Sickening.
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America wake up. What we are witnessing is nothing less than a coup of American democracy by the rich corrupt elite they want to take the last remaining bit what makes United States united away from us and put it in the hands of dictators and plutocrats!2020 is your last chance
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You might not like their tactics but they are legal. This very journal has used several of them, although I guess is not nice when they are applied to you... Anyways, I am happy to know they are not using the FBI, the CIA and other officials to illegally spy on democrats, as democrats did with Trump's campaing and government.
4
I guessed this when Trump was always two steps ahead. The best way to deal with spies, once you identify them, is to isolate them and feed them fake information. Remember the saying, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."? Democrats need to get smarter AND tougher. Don't take everything personally and never let them see you cry. Forget the old unspoken codes of honor. You cannot use old codes of debate with people who punch below the belt.
8
Anybody remember the great series "Damages" with Glenn Close and Rose Byrne? In the 4th season John Goodman starred as a corrupt, powerful, CEO of a security corporation: a private army for hire, that was modeled after Erik Prince and Blackwater (where Prince made millions and millions of dollars in federal contracts in Afghanistan, and whose unsanctioned actions ultimately caused civilian deaths.) Lots of folks in government know about Erik Prince: a former Navy Seal with a private army for hire at the right price, and whom many believe has gone rogue. Google the name, lots of very disturbing articles will show up. Project Veritas is a hard right wing, white nationalist propaganda group with zero ethics. AFT Michigan said it best a "vigilante organization which claims to be dedicated to exposing corruption. It is instead an entity dedicated to a specific political agenda." I'm glad to hear they are suing Project Veritas. Erik Prince, the Mercers Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal, the Koch Brothers right wing libertarian disinformation campaigns, Sinclair Corporation's gobbling up of TV/radio stations where they forced their news anchors to read a propagandistic statement about "fake news reporting" in 2017: all of these guys are connected politically and they've got the money to pursue what is essentially the compromising of western liberal democracy. This isn't paranoia, just search the NYT archives. These guys are dangerous and they must be held to account.
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The Prince family is the epitome of swamp things. They have operated in dark territories since George W's reign. Follow the money here. It is probably a thriller.
11
In light of news of Trump employing Erik Prince to spy on teachers and other miscreants, it is worth noting that Erik's sister is Betsy DeVos, presently the Sect. of Education.
5
So Eric Prince was actively spying on the teachers union to help his sister, Betsy Devos, the education secretary. This is wrong. Illegal. This is not politics as usual.
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If I ever doubted the existence of incarnate evil, Erik Prince cured me of that.
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How in the world can Mr. Mazzetti write that Project Veritas is "known for conducting "stings" and "sting operations", leaving off the proven illegality of most of these operations? How is that accurate reporting? Yes, he gets to that later in the article, but first impressions matter.
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Why didn't they just ask Planned Parenthood and the teachers' unions whatever they wanted to know?
5
How is this not illegal ?
.
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@SMcStormy : It is. They didn't spend much time dwelling on that in this article, however.
1
He's such an American Patriot he lives in Dubai.
What, no love for the American justice system?
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Why isn't this story all over cable news. No coverage so far on MSNBC or CNN. I can understand Fox not covering this but what about the others?
5
What goes around, comes around.
Now it’s the Steele Dossier, next it will be Chuck Schumer and the “whirlwind.”
1
A young woman wanted to be on the Supreme Court after law school. Meanwhile, as a conservative operative, she is breaking laws doing dirty covert undercover illegal stings to harm and misrepresent the opposition?
— LibertyU — the operative infiltrating the organization, Marisa Jorge, graduated from Liberty University in Virginia, one of the nation’s largest Christian colleges?
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Erik Prince has now become a Teacher and trainer of Supreme Court aspire. The Republican Party must be proud.
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Trump claimed he was going to "drain the swamp". It appears that Trump's swamp is filled with more snakes, gators, and muck than anyone could imagine. Tell young people to vote in November!
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The re-pubs outsource their domestic spying operations once before. The group is called the White House plumbers.
I don’t think that went so well for them. Let’s hope this goes down the same drain and takes them with it.
Why are there no criminal charges being levied against these traitors?
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One phrase: money laundering.
Misinformation, spying, unauthorized violence, all kinda standard.
Oligarch, kinda Russian-like.
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Let me make sure I have this straight: Erik Prince, former head of Blackwater Worldwide, an outfit of mercenaries for hire, helped recruit spies for Project Veritas’s intelligence-gathering operations, which included infiltrating the American Federation of Teachers, and also invited the spy agency’s operatives to shoot guns at his family’s Wyoming ranch. AND he is the brother of Betsy DeVos, who Donald Trump installed as Education Secretary. The same Donald Trump who complains about a “deep state.” Wow!
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If Watergate happened today we wouldn't even notice.
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Why can't Democrats ever organize these same undercover efforts against Republicans?
Veritas is only following in the footsteps of the NYT, WP & other new organizations. These organizations have teams of lawyers to defend them at the drop of a coin in similar situations. Throwing stones in a glass house will get you nowhere and only exacerbate the anti-Republican bias.
3
This spying and infiltration of the Democratic Party is reminiscent of Nixon’s “plumbers” during Watergate. This type of activity illegal at worst and unethical at best. Republicans can’t win on their own merits so they have to resort to dirty tricks and crime to win. Sad.
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let there be no doubt what is describe in this article is in NOT oppo research and those claiming it is are carrying water for Erik Prince.
2
How is this different than Watergate ?
HRC colluded with the dnc against sanders. Everyone knows it. It was in the emails. brazile And Schultz both had to walk. Where the dnc colluded with one candidate is the lowest of the lows- don’t hear a lot of squawking about that on here.
Then all the same for HRC using British and Russian spies to get the dossier. Ditto on the squawking comment.
Get over it people. Neither party is a bunch of saints.
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Remember, this is Betsy DeVos' brother.
It again reinforces that the GOP cannot play fair. They are afraid of fair elections. They have to stoop to these low levels.
If you are a member of the GOP, or a conservative, you need to ask yourself if these are the values that you believe in?
They are not American values.
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I applaud Trump and his hubris. Nothing matters anymore.
The fact that this story is not breaking news all across the country today...
...speaks volumes as to the depth, breadth, and magnitude of what we as a nation are now allowing, ignoring, and normalizing.
It's heart-breaking.
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I wonder if that is why the NAACP went after Klobuchar.
Business as usual? I don't think so. Betsy DeVos' brother, Erik Prince, former head of Blackwater Worldwide, is turning his spying techniques on US labor and teaching organizations in order to gather information for Donald Trump and his band of baddies. What next? Is there no end to this madness?
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What makes you think Erik Prince is still under investigation? Not if Bill Barr can help it.
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How does this story not mention that the footage they secretly record is then deceptively edited and released in a manner that in no way represents what they think they “caught” someone doing or saying? Journalism? Please. Opposition research? Not even remotely.
4
Some inspired students infiltrating the KKK or exposing a corrupt official is old hat. But an operation such as this, using techniques taught by our government and trained to grow on its own, is alarming. If it continues —as it will if not checked — we will have our own Stasi. Except, in true Republican fashion, it is privatized. Half our government is functionally privatized already.
2
What happened to the "Rockefeller Republicans", Country Club GOP members, and fiscal conservatives who sought to reduce the deficit and promote family values and laissez-faire capitalism? Will none of these feckless politicians stand up for our Constitution and imprison Erik Prince for his atrocities through Blackwater? Truth and justice is on the line and this fascism must come to a rapid end. The swamp is not drained, it morphed into The BLOB of a true Deep Dark State of Decay! This seems like COINTELPRO in the 21st century.
3
Gordon G. Liddy rides again. When Nixon’s dirty tricks blew up in his face, he resigned rather than face impeachment. This was at the suggestion of his own party. Trump’s party, on the other hand, claim he’s learned his lesson, then they do his bidding.
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Teachers: Be afraid, be very very afraid.
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If it means defeating the liberals, then I am in favor of it. This is war.
2
The return of the Mechanics.
Perhaps this encapsulates what the USA has already become. Putin somehow involved. The November elections will tell the story. Where is the next Orwell?
Mr Prince's tux is as ill-fitting as his sister's position as Secretary of Education. "Elections have consequences". Vote 2020
We will never recover from the evil, hatred and division of Trump in our lifetimes.
2
The money trail seems to run a little cold but you can guarantee that it goes all the way to the Top - and when it comes out that that is where the money came from it will be confirmed what so many already know: this Administration already is, but most assuredly will target the American People through coercive, manipulative and terroristic methods - this already is, once the money is revealed, State Sponsored terror. ICE, CBP and whatever little Private Army Prince gets to control will be America's versions of the NKVD or the SS.
We haven't seen nothin yet, wait till the second term!
2
"All Is Fair in Love and War."
I guess the same goes for politics.
1
The evil intent of this administration knows no bounds. Children growing up today looking for heroes will have to look to the past or to the future; they won’t find many in the present. We are in dire straights, indeed.
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WIll there be consequences of any kind?
1
If we weren’t so hellbent on upholding this phony image of our country post-WWII intellectuals decided we ought to project — one of an unblemished, corruption-free model of democratic governance, an exceptional zenith of lawful civilization, a “shining city upon a hill” with “the world's greatest deliberative body” and therefore a model for the rest of the world to follow, rather than the fetid swamp of self-dealing crony capitalism that we actually are, with the same graft, outright theft, and murder as in any emerging nation, upholding one set of rules for the powerful while enforcing a completely different set of rules for the rest of us — we’d stand half a chance of trying and jailing Erik Prince, his political enablers, and his band of feckless war criminal toadies. But no, everything will be swept under the usual rug of high-flown words about our flawless U.S.A., while if we actually jailed our powerful criminals, rather than yammering on about equitable democracies we might really build one. Shame.
8
Prince was the dodgy operative who met with the Russians in the Seychelles. Just happened to accidentally bump into him in a remote island in the Indian Ocean- Such a small world.
"Erik Prince, the Trumpworld associate and founder of the private military firm Blackwater, told Congress all sorts of things about his rendezvous with a powerful Moscow financial titan.
Many of those things weren’t true, Special Counsel Robert Mueller confirmed in his report, released on Thursday.
Prince said he didn’t know who he was meeting on his trip to a remote Indian Ocean island in January 2017, just days before the inauguration of President Trump. Not true.
Prince said the meeting with Kirill Dmitriev, the head of one of Russia’s sovereign wealth funds, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, was a chance encounter."
His sister is a Trump toady
https://www.thedailybeast.com/mueller-exposes-erik-princes-lies-about-his-seychelles-rendezvous-with-top-russian-kirill-dmitriev
1
What makes the American Federation of Teachers is a "liberal group"? Do they describe themselves as an organization of "liberals "?
Is anyone who isn't right-wing crazy or anti-knowledge a "liberal" group?
4
He can play a Bond villain without really rehearsing
3
..and the DNC helped fund the Steele Dossier on Trump
I guess the Democrats and Republicans are even - both parties are big losers as far as I’m concerned.
Politicians are all partisan now - they only care about themselves and not the American people.
Until both parties can find common ground and work together, you better believe we’re not getting meaningful legislation passed - it’s a crisis.
I lived in DC for 40 years and slowly became disenchanted with our political system - the corruption and divisiveness coming out of Washington is pathetic and destructive.
Everyone attacks everyone- I’m so tired of turning on the biased news (every channel) only to hear more hate spewed by politicians.
America is great - it’s better than this.
2
'contractors'
No, they are mercenaries.
8
Recall Trump’s false claims that “Deep State” spies had infiltrated his campaign? Now we know why he was deflecting.
5
How many unsavory associates connected to this administration are we going to have to suffer before we break the cabal that Trump has introduced into the power coup that is killing our Republic from a thousand cuts? He has stepped outside the law, propriety, decency and disregard for our government almost daily that the unacceptable almost becomes invisible in the onslaught.
Eric Prince has been a player in the Trump playground since before Trump was elected. Just one more dirty player.
Come on America, time to defend your country and clean it up!!!
6
Nixon was shown the door for his dirty tricks.
Trump is cheered for his dirty tricks.
Yes, I know there is scant evidence of Trump and his crime family’s involvement.
But, I believe that past practice is a predictor of future practice when it comes to Trump.
2
FYI. I'm available to join any group that is looking to counteract Erik Prince and his team by spying on conservative organizations. I'll happily work for free, too. What the heck, all's fair in love and war, right?
I'm just thrilled to know that O'Keefe and his team of "journalists" are taking target practice at a corrupt fake-military subcontractor's ranch in pursuit of the well-established journalistic practice of shooting people. Were they planning to gun down the teachers, the clerks in university records offices, or the volunteers for Spanberger's campaign? Good grief, when will the extreme right wing in this country stop demonizing Americans who do good work and start taking a clear look at their own dirty deeds?
5
This post won't be popular with your readers or moderators!
First: I was recently at a security training conference where speakers/trainers included Appellate Judges, Elected Officials, Security Experts, after which I received additional certifications. The things I was taught would scare your readers - they don't have a clue!
Second: How is this any different from the illegal activity that Washington DC police department did when they repeatedly sent undercover officer Nicole Rizzi in to legal and peaceful organizations to spy on and which resulted in lawsuits being filed?
How is this any different from the illegal investigations conducted by the NYPD in states and countries outside of their jurisdiction?
How is this any different from the massive data collection by our Government that has been going on for years and which was exposed by Snowden?
The answer is that there is no difference. It is the same activity that has been going on for decades, the only difference being is that it is a different administration!
We need more patriots like Erik Prince and fewer people like the Berkeley professors who encourage their students to engage in illegal activities while wearing masks!
The training and certifications, including the knowledge I have - I wish I could spend three months being trained by Erik Prince's group!
Remember, most of the commentators are willing to trade their freedoms for the illusion of safety and have no idea as to what is going on!
3
There's no end to the web of corrupt relationships in and around the White House. So the brother of the Education Secretary recruits someone to spy on a teachers' union. Business will continue as usual until the end of this miserable administration, with no media outcry.
Just imagine a mirror image scenario, such as the disclosure that a close relative of a Democratic Commerce Secretary had engineered the infiltration of the pharmaceutical companies' organization. The Foxlimbrahamitys of this world would be all over it, demanding the Secretary's resignation. And they would get it.
21:45 EST, 3/07
2
Looks like the real deep state has been found.
5
This activity makes Whitewater look like child’s play! Outrageous! With all the dirty tactics plus Russian interference, how can anyone have hope of a fair and honest election. I believe we’re about to see the most corrupted election we’ve ever experienced in our lifetimes.
Thank you, NYT.
1
Stealing, breaking laws, lying, ... how again are these people upholding Christian values? The fact that one of the spies is from Liberty University makes me wonder what “Christian values” she learned and is trying to promote. More private schools, free market, voter suppression, no-unions?? Newsflash - none of these appear in Jesus’ teachings. These Trump Republicans are sheep in wolves clothing, whitewashed tombs, out for their own gains and their own god of power.
4
Good luck with the character and fitness portions of your law school application or ever being admitted to the Bar, Marissa Jorge.
3
At this point they need to spy on the approximately 65 percent of the US population that wants Trump out.
1
Prince does what the King needs and wants. USA a constitutional democracy? Yeah sure.
2
This is not opposition research. This is a blatant attempt to undermine democratic politicians. This is serious stuff. Involving crimes way more serious than watergate if there is coordination with the white house. There needs to be thorough investigation and people need to be held accountable.
4
There's always been oppo research just as there has always been gerrymandering or dirty tricks or legislative obstruction but the Republicans in the last twenty years have gone from partisan tactical games to full-fledged war on steroids. They are now running serious intelligence operations against domestic political organizationa and parties?
What's next, private armies? Prince is uniquely situated to provide that.
2
"Whether any Trump administration officials or advisers to the president were involved in the operations, even tacitly, is unclear. 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. Trump’s agenda."
This is the key part of the article. Basically, Trump's not involved in this.
What the Times doesn't report on is that the Obama administration appears to have authorized the US intelligence agencies to spy on the Trump campaign. And after Trump was elected, the intelligence agencies, especially the FBI, appears to have engaged in an attempted coup to drive Trump from office. And much of that effort was based on the phony dossier that the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid for.
The difference is that the press gives Democrats a free pass on just about anything they do, and Republicans are held to account for their actions.
1
@dgbu , Also keep in mind that most, though not all, of those who supposedly are trying to “drive Trump from office” are Republicans.
2
@tigbu
Trump has made no secret of personally soliciting campaign assistance from China President or Russia’s Putin in leaking private e-mails of Democrats or in using the full power of his office to dig up any dirt on Democrats by any means necessary including bribing foreign officials. Is this operation any different despite direct ties to Trump appointees?
2
@dgbu, I don’t care whose carrying out spying on any U.S. based and staffed operation. This kind of spy is wrong. Instead, make whatever case an individual, or group, or organization, or party wishes to make, and then work with the stakeholders involved to create solutions. Compromise and collaboration is hard work, but is much better medicine or solutions for societies.
Covert manipulation and control is sick.
This is a very ominous sign for the future of our democracy if it goes unheeded and unchecked. These people are veterans of the same intelligence communities that have well-honed expertise in social disruption gained over the past seven decades. Intelligence operatives infiltrated democratic institutions in countries from Iran in the early 50s, to Chile, to Nicaragua, and many others with the goal of bringing democratically elected governments down - with great success.
These people are now plying their trade in our country. What is the end-game?
9
@TimothyG
End goal: Keeping one the most corrupt presidents in history and his disgusting brand of thuggery in power. To fight this: Follow the money!
1
In any other administration with the possible exception of the Nixon investigation, the the appropriate US Attorney, and the Attorney General would together, authorize an investigation as to the alleged impropriety this matter, and stand by the law of the land.
However, it can be reasonably inferred from this investigative article, that it has been condoned and sanctioned by the current administration.
Had this been 1776 it would have been resolved differently and our country would have been protected. This is the exact opposite of what should be presently done here and now.
5
You also have wonder what they've collected on all of Trump's Yes men, all those Republicans who seem unable to stand up to him...ie, Lindsay, Susan Collins and Mitch - and those who were against him then suddenly changed to become doting followers - has just never made sense to me that the general Republican dislike of Trump could change so dramatically and that none of them (except Mitt and McCain!) would go up against him since his nomination and election. Perhaps Prince and Company have lots of negative info on Trump's 'friends' too. Keep digging, reporters. I bet this is just the tip of a very deep iceberg.
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@Ellen S.
Here is where the deep pockets of Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer could help to root out and expose these agents and connect the dots to the primary sources of their funding.
2
A privately funded secret police. The 0.1% has gone too far.
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