Last April, an outgoing, friendly guy calling himself “Earl White” began volunteering at the Wilshire Boulevard office of the Sierra Club’s Angeles Chapter. He said he lived in Orange County, giving a home address that turned out to be false. Senior chapter director George Watland says that White worked one morning a week. “He picked the most boring job in the chapter: answering phones and stuffing envelopes.” Starting in August, White told Watland that he wouldn’t be able to come in for a while, as he was going to be out of town working on some political campaigns; on one occasion he mentioned having just returned from Arizona.

In September, activist Lauren Windsor says she received an anonymous tip that right-wing operative James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas had infiltrated the campaign of Kyrsten Sinema, the (ultimately victorious) Democratic senatorial candidate in Arizona. According to Windsor, who heads an organization called Project Veritas Exposed, O’Keefe’s group “targeted numerous Democratic candidates this year—they’ve really ramped up their infiltration of campaigns.” In past actions, undercover operatives working with Project Veritas have used deceptively edited videos to try to taint progressive and media organizations including Planned Parenthood, ACORN, the Washington Post, and, recently, the League of Conservation Voters. This year, O’Keefe targetted Sinema as well as at least five other Democratic senatorial candidates, two gubernatorial candidates, and congressional candidate Abigail Spanberger in Virginia. 

Windsor contacted the Sinema campaign, which sent her a photo of the suspected infiltrator. She recognized him as Ernie White, a right-wing commentator, Trump advocate, climate change denier, and past member of the Riverside County Republican Party Central Committee. Here he is at a Trump rally in Temecula, California.

White was also a minor personality in right-wing media; here he is pushing climate denialism on HLN’s Dr. Drew Show:

White also allegedly approached the campaign of Jon Tester, incumbent Democratic senator from Montana, presenting himself as the fundraising coordinator for the Sierra Club’s Angeles Chapter. According to ThinkProgress, “He was so persistent in his requests for time with Tester’s campaign staff that the campaign contacted the Sierra Club’s national office to ask about him—a short time before the Sierra Club received a tip about his infiltration.” That tip came via Windsor, who says it came from a second anonymous source: “I reached out to the Sierra Club and said, ‘Hey, I got this tip; see if this is the guy.’”

It was indeed, and White was quickly removed from his volunteer position. (The Club is now implementing new security procedures as a result.) “We assume he was recording everything,” says Watland, although he knows of no sensitive conversations that the faux receptionist might have been involved in. California law prohibits most secret recordings.

While targeting the Sierra Club would seem to be in line with Project Veritas’s modus operandi, Watland and Windsor believe that this time he was using his involvement as a cover for a further infiltration of key political campaigns. “I think what is happening here is that they’re doing a bank shot,” Windsor says. “They’re building up cover to go after candidates. It shows a rising level of sophistication in how they approach their targets.”

Even though White has been exposed, Watland says that he and his staff are still on guard. “We know that they work in teams,” he says. “Someone might step in to take over for him.”