Ex-Spies Recruited in Push to Attack Liberal Groups

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Former Blackwater Chief Tapped Operative to Help Infiltrate Union, Suit Says

By MARK MAZZETTI and ADAM GOLDMAN WASHINGTON — Erik Prince, Both Project Veritas and Mr. the security contractor with close Prince have ties to President ties to the Trump administration, Trump’s aides and family. has in recent years helped recruit Whether any Trump administra- former American and British tion officials or advisers to the spies for secretive intelligence- president were involved in the op- gathering operations that includ- erations, even tacitly, is unclear. ed infiltrating Democratic con- But the effort is a glimpse of a vig- gressional campaigns, labor orga- orous private campaign to try to nizations and other groups con- undermine political groups or in- sidered hostile to the Trump dividuals perceived to be in oppo- agenda, according to interviews sition to Mr. Trump’s agenda. and documents. Mr. Prince, the former head of One of the former spies, an ex- Blackwater Worldwide and the MI6 officer named Richard Sed- brother of Education Secretary don, helped run a 2017 operation Betsy DeVos, has at times served to copy files and record conversa- as an informal adviser to Trump tions in a Michigan office of the administration officials. He American Federation of Teachers, worked with the former national one of the country’s largest teach- security adviser Michael T. Flynn ers’ unions. Mr. Seddon directed during the presidential transition. an undercover operative to se- In 2017, he met with White House cretly tape the union’s local lead- and Pentagon officials to pitch a ers and gather information that plan to privatize the Afghan war CHRIS MACHIAN/OMAHA WORLD-HERALD, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS could be made public to damage using contractors in lieu of Ameri- A woman infected with the coronavirus was brought to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in an isolation pod on Friday. the union, documents show. Continued on Page 18 Using a different alias the next year, the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional Italian Officials Behind Coronavirus Chaos at the White House campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former C.I.A. officer who services. That call scared people, went on to win an important Sequester North House seat in Virginia as a Demo- This article is by Michael D. Fears, Confusion and he shouted, referring to Ms. Mes- sonnier’s warnings. Are we at the crat. The campaign discovered Shear, Sheri Fink and Noah Wei- the operative and fired her. In ‘Emergency’ land. Miscommunication point that we will have to start closing schools? the president Both operations were run by WASHINGTON — After weeks added, alarmed, according to an Project Veritas, a conservative of conflicting signals from the Mar a Response By JASON HOROWITZ official who heard about the call. group that has gained attention Trump administration about the using hidden cameras and micro- ROME — Italy’s government To health officials, the message coronavirus, the government’s phones for sting operations on early Sunday took the extraordi- needed to change with the out- top health officials decided late “The disruption to everyday life news organizations, Democratic nary step of locking down much of break. “The epicenter was shift- last month that when President might be severe,” she said. politicians and liberal advocacy the country’s north, restricting ing” as the number of new cases Trump returned from a trip to In- Schools might have to close, con- groups. Mr. Seddon’s role in the movement for about a quarter of outside China surpassed those in- dia, they would tell him they had ferences could be canceled, busi- teachers’ union operation — de- the Italian population in regions side, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the that serve as the country’s eco- to be more blunt about the dan- nesses might make employees tailed in internal Project Veritas gers of the outbreak. work from home. She had told her principal deputy director of the emails that have emerged from nomic engine. C.D.C. “The issue of what this The move represents the most If he approved, they would level own children, she said, to prepare the discovery process of a court with the public. for “significant disruption to our might mean to us became more battle between the group and the sweeping effort outside China to important.” JEENAH MOON/REUTERS stop the spread of the coro- But Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the lives.” union — has not previously been From the beginning, the Trump Erik Prince has at times served navirus, and is tantamount to sac- director of the National Center for The stock market plummeted, reported, nor has Mr. Prince’s role administration’s attempts to fore- rificing the Italian economy in the Immunization and Respiratory cable news blared apocalyptic in recruiting Mr. Seddon for the as an informal adviser to stall an outbreak of a virus now short term to save it from the rav- Diseases at the Centers for Dis- headlines and by the time Mr. group’s activities. Trump administration officials. ages of the virus in the long term. ease Control and Prevention, got a Trump landed at Joint Base An- spreading rapidly across the By taking such tough measures, day ahead of the plan. At noon on drews early the next morning, his globe was marked by a raging in- Italy, which is suffering the worst Feb. 25, just as Mr. Trump was critics were accusing him of sow- Continued on Page 16 outbreak in Europe, sent a signal boarding Air Force One in New ing confusion on an issue of life or that restrictive clampdowns at Delhi for his flight home, she told death. In Greek Shift, Seeing Sanders odds with some of the core values reporters on a conference call that The president immediately got NURSING HOME Life Care in Kirk- of Western democracies may be life in the United States was about on the phone with Alex M. Azar II, land, Wash., said 70 employees Vigilante Teams As Only Escape necessary to contain and defeat to change. his secretary of health and human had developed symptoms. PAGE 16 the virus. “We are facing an emergency,” Target Migrants In a Sea of Debt Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in announcing the govern- China Appears to Corral Threat, at a Steep Cost By MATINA STEVIS-GRIDNEFF By SABRINA TAVERNISE ment decree in a news conference after 2 a.m. “A national emer- EVROS, Greece — The farmers MADISON, Wis. — Debt has gency.” and pensioners wore black clothes dogged Brian Michelz his entire By AMY QIN He called the measures “very and heavy boots, imitating adult life. rigorous” but necessary to con- BEIJING — As the new coro- Greece’s special forces, and trod It started with an ambulance tain the contagion and ease the navirus races around the world, along a rural road on a night patrol ride when he was 18 and two hos- burden on Italy’s strained health tanking markets, cutting off looking for migrants trying to pital stays. Then came college care system. He said there would global travel and suspending cross the northern land border loans. By the time Mr. Michelz now be an “obligation” to avoid school for hundreds of millions of with Turkey. “We’ll get you next made it out into the world, his any movement “in and out of the children, governments are des- time!” they shouted at a small credit score was so low he could territory, and also within” the perate for ways to contain it. group of men who had made it not even get a credit card. He has locked-down areas. Any such China, the place where it first over and fled. paid for everything he has ever travel will require special permis- appeared, says it has the answers. Two hundred miles to the south, bought — televisions, furniture, sion for health or work reasons. To the surprise of some, the on the border island of Lesbos, lo- cars — up front. After grocery “This is the moment of self-re- country that concealed and mis- cals angrily blocked a dinghy full shopping on Wednesday, his bank sponsibility,” he said. managed the initial outbreak ap- of migrants from Turkey, includ- account had $3 in it. Questions immediately pears to be bringing it under con- ing a pregnant woman and chil- Mr. Michelz, 29, has never worn emerged about exactly how the trol, at least by its own official fig- dren, from getting off on a pier. a political T-shirt or been to a cam- new rules would be enforced, es- ures. The number of new cases re- “No more!” they yelled, curs- paign rally. But when he voted for pecially as local leaders in the ported has fallen dramatically in ing. the first time in his life, in the pri- north complained that they had recent days even as infections are On land and at sea, one thing is mary of 2016, it was for Bernie been given little notice or say in surging in other countries. The clear along Greece’s meandering Sanders. the decision making. World Health Organization has MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS border with Turkey: This is not “I wouldn’t say I’m on the left, More generally, the wobbly Ital- praised Beijing’s response. A restaurant in Beijing. China reported a drop in new infections. 2015 anymore. Then, while much or a liberal progressive,” Mr. Mi- ian government, which has had Officials reported only 99 new of Europe was convulsed with an- chelz said in his apartment one difficulty passing basic laws, was cases on Saturday, down from lions of citizens and foreigners — dren return to classrooms and ger and fear as more than a mil- morning last week, sitting next to attempting a crackdown of his- around 2,000 a day just weeks ago, are working. And it has begun try- workers to factories, and commut- lion asylum seekers poured in his wife, Sarah Michelz, who had from distant wars, Greeks helped toric scope in a continent fiercely and for the second day in a row, ing to promote its efforts as suc- ers start taking buses and sub- just come home from her work as rescue refugees at sea, or greeted a nurse. “I feel like Sanders under- protective of its personal liberties none were detected in Hubei cessful in propaganda at home ways. and in a country with a tendency them with empathy as they trav- stood — there’s too much medical Province outside its capital, Wu- and abroad. China’s blunt-force strategy to interpret laws as suggestions or ersed the country en route to debt and college debt. I was like, han, the center of the outbreak. The rest of the world, much of it poses deeper questions for other hurdles to circumvent. China says the trend proves fearfully confronting its first northern Europe. OK, he’s speaking the truth.” The coronavirus has already in- countries. Its campaign has come The citizens of the island of Les- Mr. Sanders has staked his cam- that its containment measures — cases, has taken note. But there is at great cost to people’s liveli- flicted serious damage in Italy, which include a lockdown on bos were even nominated for a paign on the promise that he can also concern that China’s num- hoods and personal liberties. one of the Continent’s most fragile nearly 60 million people in Hubei bers may be flawed and incom- Nobel Peace Prize. draw in voters who have felt left Even countries that could copy economies. It has led to the clos- and strict quarantine and travel plete. The real test will be whether Now, the reaction is overt hostil- out of politics — in particular the Continued on Page 11 restrictions for hundreds of mil- the virus flares again when chil- Continued on Page 10 Continued on Page 8 Continued on Page 20

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