Blackwater Founder Erik Prince Recruited Spies to Infiltrate Progressive Groups with Project Veritas

Erik Prince, the founder of the mercenary firm Blackwater and brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, helped recruit former spies to infiltrate and gather intelligence about Democratic campaigns and labor organizations, including the American Federation of Teachers, according to an explosive report by The New York Times. The story exposes previously unreported details about the ties between Prince and Project Veritas, a right-wing group that often sets up sting operations targeting the media and journalists by recording covert videos. According to documents and interviews, one former spy recruited by Erik Prince helped run an operation to secretly tape leaders in the Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers in 2017. In another instance, in 2018, the same undercover operative who gathered information about the AFT infiltrated the congressional campaign of former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger, who was running for Congress representing Virginia as a Democrat. We are joined by The Intercept's investigative reporter Matthew Cole, who first broke the story of Erik Prince's ties to the Trump administration last year.