By Peter Galuszka

Erik Prince, the highly controversial former Navy SEAL and founder of the security firm Blackwater, recruited spies to infiltrate liberal groups and the 2018 political campaign of U.S. Rep Abigail Spanberger, according to media reports.

His role was disclosed in a lawsuit deposition involving the right-wing group Project Veritas that has tried to work covertly to embarrass journalists and others, according to the Washington Examiner.

Spanberger, a Democrat, knocked off U.S. Rep. Dave Brat, a conservative favorite, in the 7^th District, which includes parts of the Richmond suburbs. Her victory stunned political watchers since the district historically has voted  for Republicans. She had worked previously as an undercover operative for the CIA on issues including terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

Prince is alleged to have hired Richard Seddon, a former intelligence officer with MI-6, for various covert political missions. In one case, Seddon allegedly recruited Marisa Jorge, a Liberty University graduate to work in Spanberger’s campaign.

She was discovered and fired. In another event during the campaign, personnel files about Spanberger’s government work somehow were circulated. Republicans pounced when it was learned that Spanberger had once taught at a Muslim school in Northern Virginia, which conservatives claimed was “terror high.

The brother of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Prince has close ties with the Trump Administration. The current $3 million lawsuit came from the American Federation of Teachers, a group that was also penetrated by Seddon, according to media reports,

Prince has long been controversial. In 1997, he founded Blackwater U.S.A., a security firm in Moyock, N.C. not far from the Virginia border. He built a 7,000 acre training camp near Moyock that recruited special forces personnel to work on security jobs. The center has also served as a training ground for foreign nationals, including people from Azerbaijan, an oil-rich former republic in the Soviet Union.

Blackwater got big contracts during the early part of the second war in Iraq to provide security for top U.S. officials and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. According to news reports, Blackwater also was involved in a CIA contract to hunt down and kill high ranking members of Al Qaeda, a Muslim terrorist group.

In 2007, Blackwater guards opened fire on a crowd in Baghdad, killing 14 civilians and injuring 20 more. That and other problems cost Blackwater government work.  The company was forced to sell itself off and eventually became known as Academi.

Its board of directors has included retired Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, the former head of the code-busting National Security Agency and was deputy head of the CIA. By coincidence, Inman was also the last chairman of the board of Massey Energy, a coal company that was based in Richmond. The firm was taken over by now-defunct Alpha Natural Resources after an April 5, 2010 blast killed 29 miners in West Virginia.

Virginia has long been known for its ties to the intelligence community. The CIA is based in Langley and its operations people train at Camp Peary near Williamsburg. Northern Virginia is dotted with other secretive government agencies. The Pentagon is also in Virginia.

Another strange aspect is that Prince seemed to be taking his undercover political operations at a time when Russia was being accused of infiltrating the American electoral scene to back Donald Trump.

The bizarre events actions have taken political spying to new levels. It is peculiar that they involve individuals with close links to intelligence circles.

They also display the problems of privatizing security work normal done by on-duty troops or intelligence people.