An ex-MI6 officer reportedly recruited by security contractor with Trump ties helped infiltrate a major teachers union

British and American spies were recruited by Erik Prince, a security contractor with close ties to the Trump administration, to infiltrate numerous organizations considered hostile to the White House for Project Veritas, The New York Times reports.

The Times latest report specifically deals with an ex-MI6 officer named Richard Seddon, who was recruited by Prince. He reportedly helped run an operation in which an undercover operative named Marisa Jorge would secretly tape conversations in a Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers' unions in the United States. Jorge was reportedly tasked with recording conversations between the union's leaders for Project Veritas, which uses selectively edited secret video to target media organizations and liberal groups, to find potentially damaging information that could be leaked to the public.

In one instance, Jorge wrote to Seddon that she had recorded a local union leader talking about Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. It's unclear if Seddon was involved in other operations related to Project Veritas, and it's also unknown, per the Times, whether any Trump administration officials or advisers were involved with or even aware that the plan was being carried out.

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AFT sued Project Veritas for trespassing, eavesdropping, and other offenses. Project Veritas has always maintained its methods are protected by the First Amendment, but many question whether it's a legitimate journalistic enterprise. Read more at The New York Times.