The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Prince

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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Jan 19, 2017 11:16 pm

Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry Into Trump Associates
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, MATTHEW ROSENBERG, ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZOJAN. 19, 2017


Paul Manafort, Donald J. Trump’s former campaign chairman, at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former senior American officials said.
..........
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/us/p ... ation.html





:shock:


Poison ‘Plot!’ Former Trump Advisor Claims He Was Targeted Over Russian Spy Dossier
Roger Stone claims, ‘The idea was to have me die!’

By Sharon Churcher
Posted on Jan 19, 2017 @ 12:38PM

A longtime adviser to Donald Trump told RadarOnline.com that he believes there was a plot to poison him with a deadly radioactive chemical!

Florida-based political strategist Roger Stone told Radar that he recently fell seriously ill with what initially appeared to be a stomach virus.

But after strange red cuts appeared on his face and chest, he says he received an alarming diagnosis from the federal Centers for Disease Control.


Roger Stone claims these markings are proof he was poisoned.

“They said there were traces of an exogenous substance – meaning a substance from outside my body – that they

“My doctor at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach had sent them a blood test and they came back with their diagnosis after they asked for a second sample. Then they asked a lot of questions via my doctor, like whether I dined with any foreign nationals.”

“Polonium is what was used to murder [the Russian spy] Alexander Litvinenko in London,” Stone said. “The UK blamed Vladimir Putin for it.”

“I think this was a deep CIA plot to kill me and then claim the Russians did it.”

“The Democrats have been trying to tie me and the Trump campaign to Russian hacking,” he insisted. “I categorically have no ties to Russia. None. Zero. Though I will confess I like their vodka.”

“I believe all these accusations are a canard – fabricated just like that dossier,” he continued.

“The idea was to have me die of polonium poisoning and then say the Russians did it because I knew what went on and they were covering their tracks.”


After defecting from Russian, Litvinenko collapsed and died in November 2006. An inquest sensationally concluded that Vladimir Putin personally approved an operation to kill him with polonium.

“I am lucky to be alive,” Stone believes. He has authored an inside account of the Trump campaign due out later this month, The Making of the President 2016.

“I couldn’t stop vomiting. I had high fever, diarrhea, delirium, night sweats and the lesions.”
http://radaronline.com/celebrity-news/r ... p-advisor/



someone tell Roger if he was poisoned with polonium it is all over


Roger Stone's Bizarre Poisoning and the Russian Hacking Connection
By NANCY SMITH
January 19, 2017 - 9:30am

Nothing screams "Buy my book!" louder than an assassination attempt on the author using a radioactive substance "suspected in the death of former PLO leader Yassar Arafat."

Or the contention that it's all twisted up with a "fabricated" Russian-hacked 2016 presidential election. OMG! Can movie rights be far behind?



Trump loyalist Roger Stone claims he was POISONED with polonium by political enemies who wanted to kill him before he could expose 'the truth' about Russian hack
Roger Stone claims he was poisoned by political enemies in the 'deep state'
He says they wanted to stop him testifying about Russian hack before Congress
Stone has been accused of having prior knowledge Putin orchestrated hack on thousands of DNC emails
He claims he would have been able to prove that he didn't but that he became ill
The 64-year-old said doctors told him he had been poisoned with polonium
Radioactive chemical was used to kill Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in 2006
By Jennifer Smith For Dailymail.com
PUBLISHED: 02:27 EST, 18 January 2017 | UPDATED: 09:47 EST, 18 January 2017

Roger Stone claims he was poisoned by political enemies. He appeared at Trump Tower in December with lesions on his face (above) he said were a symptom


Roger Stone has sensationally claimed he was poisoned by political enemies who wanted to kill him before he could 'debunk' their 'lie' that he knew Russians would hack the US election.

The longtime Trump supporter claimed to have been told by doctors that a mysterious and debilitating virus he was suddenly struck with in December was in fact polonium poisoning.

At the time, Stone had just been accused by the Obama administration of having prior knowledge Vladimir Putin was planning to meddle in the election.

He says the poisoning was an attempt to stop him from testifying at a Congressional Hearing where he claimed he could prove the accusation was a lie.

'I believe I was poisoned to stop me from exposing the Russian Hacking LIE b4 the Congressional Investigation,' Stone, 64, told his Twitter followers.

Appearing on fellow Trump loyalist Alex Jones's Info Wars earlier, he said he was targeted by the 'deep state' who wanted to stop him from revealing the truth.

'I became extremely ill. This manifested itself in over 14 days of high fever, delirium, night sweats, I had lesions on my chest and my face...

'The general consensus is I was poisoned. I was poisoned with polonium or a substance that has the characteristics of polonium and this made me exceedingly ill,' he said.

During a visit to Trump Tower on December 6, Stone had several small cuts to his face and neck.

While admitting he is an 'enemy' of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Stone said neither the couple nor the Russians were responsible for the apparent attempt on his life.

The 64-year-old shared his sensational claim on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon


Stone, a longtime Trump supporter who describes himself as one of the President-elect's advisers, has been accused of knowing Russia would hack the election


Failing to specify any specific culprit, he said: 'I come back to the deep state, I come back to our own people.

'This is about stopping the Trump agenda. I would blow the whistle on this whole bogus Russian narrative that they just won't let go of,' he said.

Polonium is a highly radioactive chemical which caused the 2006 murder of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko (above) after ingesting it


Polonium is a rare and highly radioactive chemical. It was used in the 2006 murder of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko who is believed to have been slipped the substance in a cup of tea.

His death sparked a lengthy inquiry but was later determined to have been likely ordered by Putin's regime because he was acting as a double agent.

Traces of polonium were also found on the clothes and personal effects of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who died in 2004.

Stone claims he was targeted as a 'whistle blower' who could pull apart claims made by Democrats that he and other members of Trump's closest circle were working alongside the Kremlin to hack Hillary Clinton's team.

A focal point of his book, The Making of The President: How Donald Trump Orchestrated A Revolution, is his 'debunking' of the theory.



Stone describes it as a 'direct refutation' of claims made by Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta, arguably the most violated victim of the hack who saw thousands of personal and work emails pillaged by hackers and then released by WikiLeaks in the weeks before the election.

President Obama accused Putin of ordering the hack late last year and ordered a Congressional Hearing into it but Trump has never squarely laid blame with the Russians.

He has tirelessly denied working with Putin or his regime and most recently furiously rejected claims he frolicked with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel - an allegation included in a 'dirty dossier' produced by a British spy.

'I think it is a disgrace that information was let out. It is all fake news. It is phony stuff. It didn’t happen,' Trump said of the allegation.

The hearing took place on January 5 where intelligence chiefs shared their beliefs the hack could have been organized by senior Kremlin officials.

Senators called for tougher cyber-security protections to prevent future hacks.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z4WGi7fenN






Spain arrests Russian wanted by US for alleged hacking
Spain has arrested computer programmer Stanislov Lisov on an FBI warrant issued through Interpol on hacking allegations.

Spanish authorities have detained a Russian programmer ostensibly on behalf of the US [File: Santi Donaire/EPA]
Spanish officials have announced the arrest of a Russian computer programmer wanted by the United States on hacking allegations while a decision is made on whether to extradite him.

The National Court said on Thursday that Stanislav Lisov, 31, was jailed on January 13 after Civil Guard police arrested him at Barcelona airport on an FBI warrant issued though Interpol.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/s ... 09905.html
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Jan 19, 2017 11:51 pm

financial crimes unite of the Treasury Department.



Feds Investigating Money Transfers & Communications Between Russia And Trump Associates


Evan Vucci
ByJOSH MARSHALL
PublishedJANUARY 19, 2017, 10:01 PM EDT
The New York Times is out with a story tonight which is little short of astonishing on the eve of a presidential inauguration. From the Times article ...

"American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former senior American officials said."
Just to state this clearly, that means that on the eve of Trump's inauguration the nation's top law enforcement and intelligence agencies are pursuing a counter-intelligence probe of contacts and payments between key members of his campaign and Russia. We have not been here before.

The story goes on to explain that the three Trump associates being scrutinized are Manafort, Roger Stone, and Carter Page, the last of whom was Trump Europe/Russia policy advisor before being dumped after his ties to Russia received press scrutiny. The story goes on to explain that the probe is being led by the FBI with the assistance of the NSA, the CIA and the financial crimes unite of the Treasury Department.

The Times article covers slightly different territory but overlaps pretty clearly with yesterday's article from McClatchy which focused on financial transfers which may have been used to pay hackers working on behalf of Russian intelligence in the US. The agencies reportedly involved are the same.

One point to keep in mind. After noon tomorrow, each of these agencies will work for Donald Trump. He could simply order them to stop. That might be unethical. It might be wrong. People might resign. But all of these people work for the President. Unsurprisingly, this appears to be the main reason for the leaks. From the Times: "Of the half-dozen current and former officials who confirmed the existence of the investigations, some said they were providing information because they feared the new administration would obstruct their efforts."

The other thread of the story is that the Senate is also beginning to investigate this. Trump can't shut that down, though ultimately the Senate has to work through the intelligence agencies to probe these matters. It gets complicated.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/fed ... associates
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby JackRiddler » Fri Jan 20, 2017 3:19 am

You started this one so well. Why'd you have to do this Russia stuff here exactly like in the five other threads you're running on it? Why do you never consolidate and disrupt your own work? I just don't get it. Please don't throw a tantrum. Why not just make this the thread about the Prince/Giuliani/Comey allegations? It would be so damn useful, no?

(Roger Stone - what a very effective whack job! I like how he defines "exogenous" for us. Where the hell would a substance from outside your body ever come from? There are only two possibilities in the universe: Russia, or the CIA.)
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby OP ED » Fri Jan 20, 2017 3:37 am

Who else has access to polonium and to Stone, Jack?
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby kool maudit » Fri Jan 20, 2017 5:28 am

The emails release certainly hurt Clinton, and I can easily believe that it was politically motivated. That said, the emails themselves did detail massive corruption; they read like missives from a decadent palace clique because that's what they were. But what if there were and are other emails that detail the rot that doubtlessly existed within and surrounding the Trump campaign? The existence of such documents would cleanly delineate the DNC release as a destabilising and perfidious act, but it also compels us to posit a ghost mid-equation.

Ultimately I fall on the side of the DNC emails being something that it is better the public knew about.
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby justdrew » Fri Jan 20, 2017 2:41 pm

If Stone were exposed to polonium, he would be dead now. Period.

He's doing what his type always does: lying
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Jan 20, 2017 2:43 pm

yea that's correct ...can't shake the polonium....he's hyping his book ....maybe a little frighten of the Intel Committee subpoena :P

that's what is making him sick


Litvinenko
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby justdrew » Fri Jan 20, 2017 2:45 pm

kool maudit » 20 Jan 2017 01:28 wrote:The emails release certainly hurt Clinton, and I can easily believe that it was politically motivated. That said, the emails themselves did detail massive corruption; they read like missives from a decadent palace clique because that's what they were. But what if there were and are other emails that detail the rot that doubtlessly existed within and surrounding the Trump campaign? The existence of such documents would cleanly delineate the DNC release as a destabilising and perfidious act, but it also compels us to posit a ghost mid-equation.

Ultimately I fall on the side of the DNC emails being something that it is better the public knew about.


If that were true, why have I not seen a single example, with link the the relevant e-mail chain?

Please provide even a single example.
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Jan 20, 2017 2:47 pm

justdrew » Fri Jan 20, 2017 1:45 pm wrote:
kool maudit » 20 Jan 2017 01:28 wrote:The emails release certainly hurt Clinton, and I can easily believe that it was politically motivated. That said, the emails themselves did detail massive corruption; they read like missives from a decadent palace clique because that's what they were. But what if there were and are other emails that detail the rot that doubtlessly existed within and surrounding the Trump campaign? The existence of such documents would cleanly delineate the DNC release as a destabilising and perfidious act, but it also compels us to posit a ghost mid-equation.

Ultimately I fall on the side of the DNC emails being something that it is better the public knew about.


If that were true, why have I not seen a single example, with link the the relevant e-mail chain?

Please provide even a single example.



kool maudit has not seen the likes of massive corruption yet...wait a couple of weeks

he would have seen a bit of it if he'd take the blinders off
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Jan 20, 2017 2:50 pm

jack here are my keys.... feel free to rearrange my cabinet file threads here any way you'd like

Image
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby justdrew » Fri Jan 20, 2017 2:51 pm

seemslikeadream » 20 Jan 2017 10:47 wrote:
justdrew » Fri Jan 20, 2017 1:45 pm wrote:
kool maudit » 20 Jan 2017 01:28 wrote:The emails release certainly hurt Clinton, and I can easily believe that it was politically motivated. That said, the emails themselves did detail massive corruption; they read like missives from a decadent palace clique because that's what they were. But what if there were and are other emails that detail the rot that doubtlessly existed within and surrounding the Trump campaign? The existence of such documents would cleanly delineate the DNC release as a destabilising and perfidious act, but it also compels us to posit a ghost mid-equation.

Ultimately I fall on the side of the DNC emails being something that it is better the public knew about.


If that were true, why have I not seen a single example, with link the the relevant e-mail chain?

Please provide even a single example.



kool maudit has not seen the likes of massive corruption yet...wait a couple of weeks

he would have seen a bit of it if he'd take the blinders off


I guess I just don't understand why we've got people who I would think would know better, believing, actually fucking believing anything that comes out the mouth of a known lying republican operative?
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Jan 20, 2017 2:58 pm

one thing is some of the posters here are not Americans so they have a different point of view since they don't have to live under a no nothing

and then there are some men that don't have to worry about wire hangers

or are not Black and don't have to worry about voting
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Jan 20, 2017 11:50 pm

UPDATE on Roger Stone, apparently he is just fine, got over his poisoning, can't wait to testify :P

ROGER STONE VERSUS THE “DEEP STATE”
By Ryan Lizza January 20, 2017

At around 10:30 p.m. last night, Roger Stone, Donald Trump’s on-again off-again political adviser for the past thirty years, stood outside the DeploraBall, an inaugural event for Trump supporters held at the National Press Club, in downtown Washington, D.C. Reached on his cell phone, Stone said he was wearing black tie and holding an open bottle of champagne. Earlier, a large group of protesters had chanted “Nazi scum” and projected “Impeach the predatory president” on the side of the building.

Some protesters had recognized Stone, who is sixty-four and dresses like a Prohibition-era mobster. Stone has rarely visited Washington since he left the city, two decades ago, after he helped invent the lucrative practice of lobbying for foreign governments with image problems. “I just escaped a rain shower of eggs,” Stone told me. “There were two to three hundred hippie misfits throwing shit.”

It was an eventful evening for Stone. Just a few hours earlier, the Times had posted a blockbuster report that the government was investigating Stone and two other Trump associates, Paul Manafort, Stone’s former lobbying partner and Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, and Carter Page, who advised the Trump campaign on foreign policy, for their alleged ties to the Kremlin.

The Times, which was confirming previous reporting by the BBC and McClatchy, said that the F.B.I. was leading a group that included investigators from several intelligence agencies, including the C.I.A. and the Treasury Department’s financial-crimes unit. They were reportedly examining Russian communications intercepted by the N.S.A. It was no accident that the report appeared on the evening before Trump’s swearing in. “Of the half-dozen current and former officials who confirmed the existence of the investigations, some said they were providing information because they feared the new Administration would obstruct their efforts,” the Times said.

Stone dismissed the article and vigorously denied any wrongdoing. “As far as I am concerned, this is unadulterated bullshit,” he told me. “I have no ties to Russia. I have no Russian clients. I’ve never worked for the Russians. I don’t work for them now. The deep state needs to cut the shit.”

Stone is intelligent and witty, and it is often jarring to listen to him as he turns from a sober analysis of politics to bizarre conspiracy theories. He is a frequent guest on Alex Jones’s Infowars radio show, where he recently alleged that he was poisoned by unspecified enemies in the “deep state,” his term for American intelligence operatives. He told me that the C.I.A. invented the allegations of Russian hacking and an influence campaign to help elect Trump directed by Vladimir Putin because the agency wanted to go to war in Syria.

“The C.I.A. has their assessment,” he said, emphasizing the last word. “Assessment means guess. The President-elect hasn’t been shown proof because there’s no proof to be shown. The deep state needs to get over it. Their candidate lost. They wanted a wider proxy war in Syria, and Trump is not for war. He is for détente.”

One of Stone’s great talents over the years has been his ability to project an aura of influence. Jacob Weisberg, whose profile of him, in The New Republic, in 1985, branded Stone “The State-of-the-Art Washington Sleazeball,” wrote last year, “Stone was less power player than con artist. He cultivated a reputation for being a bad boy, playing dirty tricks and crossing ethical lines. In practice, so far as I could tell, he was mostly shaking down his clients, who paid him a lot of money based on the largely false impression that he had real influence.”

Stone’s penchant for exaggerating his role in political events may be what got him in trouble. He seems to have attracted the interest of investigators because, during the campaign, he bragged about having advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ disclosures of hacked e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and the personal account of Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. Last August, Stone gave a speech to local Republicans in south Florida and said, “I actually have communicated with Assange. I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to the Clinton Foundation, but there’s no telling what the October surprise may be.”

On August 21st, Stone tweeted, “Trust me, it will soon [be] Podesta’s time in the barrel.” WikiLeaks didn’t release the first batch of Podesta e-mails until October 7th, less than an hour after the Washington Post reported the existence of a video in which Donald Trump jokes and brags about sexually assaulting women during a taping for “Access Hollywood.”

Stone told me that he never actually met Assange, but that they do have a mutual friend—whom he declined to name, but described as an American journalist—who passed on the information to him. “He told me Assange and WikiLeaks possessed information and that they would release it and it would be devastating to the Clintons,” Stone said.

There is a serious question about what will happen to the Russia investigation after Trump assumes office today. If Jeff Sessions, who played an important role in the Trump campaign, is confirmed as Attorney General, it would seem prudent for him to recuse himself and appoint a special prosecutor to oversee the case. Stone said that he has not been contacted by the F.B.I. or any other government entity, but he added that he would welcome a chance to testify before a congressional inquiry about Russian influence in the election, and said that he has no objection to the idea of Sessions appointing a special prosecutor.

“I would welcome any truly impartial and unbiased investigation,” he said. “I really hope I get called if there are any public hearings so we can clear the air on this.”

Manafort did not respond to an e-mail asking for comment, but he and Stone, along with their old business partner Charlie Black, were having a sort of reunion dinner at the Palm when the Times story broke, earlier in the evening. “We had a good laugh about it,” Stone said.

When he lived in Washington, Stone would eat at the Palm several times a week, and, as with many of the restaurant’s famous-for-D.C. patrons, there’s a cartoon of him painted on the wall. When he inspected it last night, it had a steak knife stuck in it.

“It’s always good to be loved,” he said.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk ... deep-state
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Jan 21, 2017 11:51 am

INVESTIGATIONS
Scahill: Blackwater Founder Erik Prince, the Brother of Betsy DeVos, Is Secretly Advising Donald Trump
Democracy Now! spoke with Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept, about his latest piece, "Notorious Mercenary Erik Prince Is Advising Trump from the Shadows."
By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now! January 20, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h7AoQ2xyV0

The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill has revealed Betsy DeVos’s brother, Erik Prince, the founder of the mercenary firm Blackwater, has been quietly advising Trump’s transition team, including helping vet Cabinet picks. On election night, Prince’s wife, Stacy DeLuke, even posted pictures from inside Trump’s campaign headquarters.



This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about Betsy DeVos’s brother, Erik Prince, who you’ve been talking about, the founder of Blackwater. In July, he spoke to Steve Bannon, who at the time was the head of Breitbart News, the white supremacist, white nationalist news site; Steve Bannon, who’s now Trump’s senior adviser. Prince said Trump should recreate a version of the Phoenix Program, the CIA assassination ring that operated during the Vietnam War, to fight ISIS.

ERIK PRINCE: It was a vicious, but very effective, kill/capture program in Vietnam that destroyed the Viet Cong as a military force. That’s what needs to be done to the funders of Islamic terror. And that would be even the—the wealthy radical Islamist billionaires funding it from the Middle East and any of the other illicit activities they’re in.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Erik Prince. The significance of what he’s saying here, Jeremy?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, you know, remember, Erik Prince views himself as the rightful heir to the legacy of "Wild Bill" Donovan, who was the head of the agency that was the precursor to the CIA. And, you know, immediately after 9/11, Erik Prince became very, very close to a number of people within the CIA and also Dick Cheney and Dick Cheney’s office. And they jointly came up with this idea that Erik Prince could run a kind of off-the-books hit squad that could roam the world conducting assassinations for the United States, and there would be no effective paper trail and no ability for Congress to engage in any oversight. Now, Leon Panetta, who was Obama’s CIA director early on in Obama’s term, said, "Oh, we shut down that program, and no one was ever killed." I don’t believe that for one moment. That was—that was part of the legacy of the Phoenix Program, that was a murderous death squad operation in Vietnam, that also included enhanced interrogation. What Erik Prince being around Trump indicates to me is that—

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about what you found out about election night and what his role is. We just have 50 seconds.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right, well, Robert Mercer, the billionaire hedge funder, his daughter Rebekah ran one of the most important super PACs to Trump, Make America Number 1 super PAC. And Trump—and Erik Prince and his mother, Elsa, were two of the largest contributors to one of the most significant super PACs that supported Donald Trump. Erik Prince is very close to Robert Mercer. Prince was also at the "Heroes and Villains" party that Mercer threw in Long Island after the election. And, in fact, there’s a picture that Peter Thiel, the right-wing billionaire who destroyed Gawker—a picture of Peter Thiel, Donald Trump and Erik Prince, that Peter Thiel says is not safe for the internet. But it’s clear that Erik Prince, through Betsy DeVos, through Robert Mercer and through his very right-wing paramilitary crowd, has the ear of President-elect Donald Trump. And our understanding, from a very well-placed source, is that Prince has even been advising Trump on his selections for the staffing of the Defense Department and the State Department.
http://www.alternet.org/investigations/ ... ing-donald
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They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
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Re: The Domestic Conspiracy Is Hiding In Plain Sight Erik Pr

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Apr 03, 2017 7:23 pm

ERIK PRINCE IN THE HOT SEAT
Blackwater’s Founder Is Under Investigation for Money Laundering, Ties to Chinese Intel, and Brokering Mercenary Services

Matthew Cole, Jeremy Scahill
March 24 2016, 5:00 a.m.
ERIK PRINCE, founder of the now-defunct mercenary firm Blackwater and current chairman of Frontier Services Group, is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for attempting to broker military services to foreign governments and possible money laundering, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case.

What began as an investigation into Prince’s attempts to sell defense services in Libya and other countries in Africa has widened to a probe of allegations that Prince received assistance from Chinese intelligence to set up an account for his Libya operations through the Bank of China. The Justice Department, which declined to comment for this article, is also seeking to uncover the precise nature of Prince’s relationship with Chinese intelligence.

Prince, through his lawyer, Victoria Toensing, said he has not been informed of a federal investigation and had not offered any defense services in Libya. Toensing called the money-laundering allegations “total bullshit.”

The Intercept interviewed more than a half dozen of Prince’s associates, including current and former business partners; four former U.S. intelligence officers; and other sources familiar with the Justice Department investigation. All of them requested anonymity to discuss these matters because there is an ongoing investigation. The Intercept also reviewed several secret proposals drafted by Prince and his closest advisers and partners offering paramilitary services to foreign entities.

For more than a year, U.S. intelligence has been monitoring Prince’s communications and movements, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence officer and a second former intelligence official briefed on the investigation. Multiple sources, including two people with business ties to Prince, told The Intercept that current government and intelligence personnel informed them of this surveillance. Those with business ties were cautioned to sever their dealings with Prince.

prince-ko Erik Prince, left, chairman of Frontier Services Group, looks at a map of Africa with Deputy Chairman Johnson Ko. FSG, which is backed by Chinese capital, is based in Hong Kong. Photo: HKEJ
Erik Prince Sought to Recreate a Blackwater-Style Operation

In 2010, amid public scandals and government investigations, Prince began to sell off his Blackwater empire. Using new vehicles, he continued to engage in controversial private security ventures, including operations in Somalia and the United Arab Emirates. Eventually, the former Navy SEAL and self-proclaimed American patriot began building close business ties with powerful individuals connected to the Chinese Communist Party. In January 2014, Prince officially went into business with the Chinese government’s largest state-owned investment firm, the Citic Group, and founded Frontier Services Group, which is based in Hong Kong. Citic Group is the company’s single largest investor, and two of FSG’s board members are Chinese nationals.

Despite the provenance of FSG’s funding and Prince’s history of bad publicity, Prince was able to recruit an impressive line-up of former U.S. military and intelligence officers to run the company. Key to Prince’s ability to retain such personnel, given FSG’s ties to China, has been the firm’s strictly circumscribed mission, which does not include military-related services. FSG is a publicly traded aviation and logistics firm specializing in shipping in Africa and elsewhere. The company also conducts high-risk evacuations from conflict zones. Prince has described his work with FSG as being “on the side of peace and economic development” and helping Chinese businesses to work safely in Africa.

Behind the back of corporate leadership at FSG, Prince was living a double life.
But behind the back of corporate leadership at FSG, Prince was living a double life.

Working with a small cadre of loyalists — including a former South African commando, a former Australian air force pilot, and a lawyer with dual citizenship in the U.S. and Israel — Prince sought to secretly rebuild his private CIA and special operations enterprise by setting up foreign shell companies and offering paramilitary services, according to documents reviewed by The Intercept and interviews with several people familiar with Prince’s business proposals.

Several of the proposals for private security services in African nations examined by The Intercept contained metadata in the digital files showing Prince and his inner circle editing and revising various drafts.

Since 2014, Prince has traveled to at least half a dozen countries to offer various versions of a private military force, secretly meeting with a string of African officials. Among the countries where Prince pitched a plan to deploy paramilitary assets is Libya, which is currently subject to an array of U.S. and United Nations financial and defense restrictions.

Prince engaged in these activities over the objections of his own firm’s corporate leadership. Several FSG colleagues accused him of using his role as chairman to offer Blackwater-like services to foreign governments that could not have been provided by the company, which lacks the capacity, expertise, or even the legal authority to do so.

FSG’s CEO, Gregg Smith, a decorated former U.S. Marine who deployed twice to Beirut in the 1980s, vehemently denies the firm’s complicity in any such efforts by Prince. “FSG has no involvement whatsoever with the provision of — or even offering to provide — defense services in Libya,” Smith told The Intercept. “To the extent that anyone has proposed such services and purported that they were representing FSG, that activity is unauthorized and is not accepted or agreed to by the company.”

Smith said that any proposals advanced by Prince in Libya were not made on behalf of FSG, explaining that the company “has strict protocols in place and has a board-level committee to review any high-risk project, which would certainly include any proposal” involving Libya.

“He’s a rogue chairman,” said Prince’s close associate. “Erik wants to be a real, no-shit mercenary.”
“He’s a rogue chairman,” said one of Prince’s close associates, who has monitored his attempts to sell mercenary forces in Africa.

That source, who has extensive knowledge of Prince’s activities and travel schedule, said that Prince was operating a “secret skunkworks program” while parading around war and crisis zones as FSG’s founder and chairman. “Erik wants to be a real, no-shit mercenary,” said the source. “He’s off the rails exposing many U.S. citizens to criminal liabilities. Erik hides in the shadows … and uses [FSG] for legitimacy.”

Last October, FSG’s corporate leadership grew so concerned about Prince’s efforts to sell paramilitary programs and services that the board passed a series of resolutions stripping Prince of most of his responsibilities as chairman.

FSG also terminated the contracts of two of Prince’s closest associates within the company after management became suspicious that they were assisting Prince in his unapproved dealings, according to two people with knowledge of FSG’s inner workings. Smith declined to comment on internal FSG personnel matters.

In recent months, FSG employees became alarmed when they began to hear reports from sources within the U.S. government that their chairman’s communications and foreign travel were being monitored by U.S. intelligence. According to three people who have worked with Prince, his colleagues were warned not to get involved with his business deals or discuss sensitive issues with him. “I would assume that just about every intelligence agency in the world has him lit up on their screen,” said one of the people advised to avoid Prince.

A slide from a 2015 proposal for a private military force to help “support Libyan sovereign control.” Prince’s lawyer denies he has ever engaged in “anything regarding defense” in Libya.
Operation Lima: Prince Exploited Refugee Crisis to Peddle Paramilitary Services in Libya

Prince developed the paramilitary services proposal for Libyan officials in 2013, before FSG was created, according to documents and two people familiar with the pitch. He made several trips to Libya to meet with government officials there.

The Libyan proposal, reviewed by The Intercept, was code-named Operation Lima. It offered the Libyans an array of military equipment and services — including weaponized vehicles, helicopters, boats, and surveillance airplanes — to help stabilize eastern Libya. The ground force, according to a person involved with the plan, would consist of a troop of former Australian special operations commandos. Given the instability of the government and Prince’s inability to navigate complex Libyan factions to vet potential partners, he had trouble finding the right power brokers to help sell the proposal.

By May 2015, Prince had rebranded himself and claimed a legitimate public reputation as FSG’s chairman. Without the approval of FSG’s management, he returned to Libya offering a freshly repackaged proposal, according to a person involved with the plan. Rather than a counterinsurgency force, Prince proposed a similar set of equipment and services, but with a new justification: The mercenaries would be there to engage in border security.

Prince’s Libya proposal called for supplying “armed” vehicles, helicopters, boats, and surveillance planes to help stem the tide of migrants trying to reach Europe. According to an internal slide presentation, Prince’s private force would operate in Libya for the stated purpose of stopping the flow of refugees to Europe. Libya is one of the main routes for migrants trying to enter Europe from eastern Africa and parts of the central Sahel region.
Prince told colleagues that he received preliminary approval for the border force from a senior Libyan official, but would need to secure European support to loosen up restrictions on Libyan money and weapons, which would otherwise impede the plan, according to a person who discussed the proposal with Prince.

By exploiting European fears of a mass exodus from the Middle East and North Africa, Prince believed he could obtain political buy-in from Europe to bring a foreign force into Libya.

Prince arranged a meeting in Germany to pitch the plan and also shared the proposal with the Italian government, according to two people familiar with his drive to drum up support for Operation Lima. In Italy, Prince found only lukewarm interest, according to a person with knowledge of the effort. The Intercept was unable to confirm the German response.

One slide from Prince’s Libya proposal stated that military trainers and surveillance planes would be provided by Frontier Services Group. Prince is FSG’s chairman, but the company’s CEO denies the company approved — or was even aware — of this proposal.
Prince’s May 2015 proposal for the Libya operations suggested, “Funding can be jointly shared by the EU and Libyan government from Libyan Investment Authority money frozen in European Banks.”
However, according to two people involved in the proposal, Prince grew frustrated with the failure to get European help in releasing the frozen Libyan funds, and began looking for other ways to get his border force funded.

By then, the U.S. government was already investigating Prince for possible weapons deals in Africa, according to the former senior U.S. intelligence official and the former intelligence official briefed on the matter. In the course of the surveillance operation for that investigation, U.S. intercepts revealed Prince appearing to discuss efforts to open bank accounts in China to help his Libyan associates.

“Money laundering for Libyan officials using a Chinese bank — that is the issue that pushed it over the edge” for the Justice Department, said the second former intelligence official.

The U.S. spies monitoring Prince soon discovered that he had traveled to the Chinese-controlled peninsula of Macau in an effort to open a bank account, according to two people familiar with the investigation. A well-connected source within the Macau banking community told The Intercept that Prince first attempted to open an account at the Macau branch of a European-connected bank, but was denied after a review by the bank’s European headquarters.

Later, Prince traveled to Beijing, where he met with Chinese agents from the Ministry of State Security, according to the second former intelligence official and a source familiar with the meeting.

In January, Prince returned to Macau and opened an account at the Bank of China, according to several sources, including the second former intelligence official and the source with close connections to Macau’s banking community.

“It was not a personal account,” said the former U.S. intelligence official briefed on the investigation. “He was doing it for the purpose of what is considered now — in the investigation — money laundering on behalf of the Libyans.”

“When he has legitimate business, he does legitimate business,” said Prince’s lawyer.
The CEO of FSG China is a former Chinese security official who was once described by a defense trade publication as “Prince’s right-hand man in China, oiling the wheels of his relationship with the government.”

“If Erik is fucking around with the Chinese, I don’t even want to imagine what the U.S. government is thinking about,” said Prince’s close associate with in-depth knowledge of his activities.

Toensing, Prince’s lawyer, confirmed that Prince successfully opened an account with the Bank of China. “He opened an account on behalf of a business,” she said. Toensing declined to say for which business he opened the account, but said that it complied with U.S. banking regulations. “This is not an FSG bank account,” a spokesperson for FSG told The Intercept.

As for Prince’s alleged meetings with Chinese intelligence, Toensing confirmed that Prince had met with internal security officials in Beijing, but claimed it was in connection to medical evacuation operations. Toensing was unable to answer allegations that Chinese intelligence assisted Prince in setting up a bank account in Macau because she could not reach Prince, whom she said was not in the United States. “What he told me about visiting China was that he was there selling his book and he’s given various speeches there,” she said.

While Prince’s re-invented Libya “border security” proposal was framed as a means of stopping migration, sources with knowledge of Prince’s business strategy allege that he had greater ambitions in that country. One person involved in Prince’s plan said the anti-migration force was seen as a vehicle for Prince to build a “backdoor” for so-called kinetic, or lethal, operations in Libya — a form of mercenary mission-creep. “During the day, you do interdiction of migrants — not kinetic,” said the person involved in the plan. “But those routes are used by weapons smugglers and drug traffickers at night. Insurgents too. Erik’s guys can then be offered to the Libyans to help with their other problems. That’s how you get kinetic.”

The plan called for a series of “border security” bases housing intelligence centers, helicopters, surveillance airplanes, and weaponized vehicles. Prince proposed a fully equipped, contemporary military force to be staffed in part by foreign mercenaries.

“This is Erik Prince using the refugee crisis in Europe in an effort to put mercenaries on the ground in Libya,” said Malcolm Nance, a former U.S. Naval officer who trained special operations forces and has extensive experience in Libya since the fall of Qaddafi. “They think they’re going to solve the migration problem with technology and a bunch of Western mercenaries?” Nance, who reviewed a copy of Prince’s plan provided by The Intercept, called the proposal “fantasy baseball.”

Government Investigation Focuses on Violations of U.S. Defense Export Regulations

Among the concerns of government investigators is that Prince’s attempts to provide defense-related services to Libya and other countries violate U.S. defense export regulations. Under federal law, U.S. citizens seeking to offer military services or technologies to Libya must have a license certifying that the services or articles are approved under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR. “Many of these services and articles are designed to kill people or defend against killing people,” said John Barker, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for export controls. “To protect U.S. national security and foreign policy as well as that of its allies, the U.S. requires prior authorization.”

FSG officials told The Intercept that the company has no such licenses, nor has it sought them. “Since our inception, FSG has had bright-line policies against the provision of defense services and the purchase of U.S.-origin items that might be ITAR-controlled,” said Smith, the CEO of FSG.

The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, which issues the licenses, told The Intercept that it would not comment on what licenses companies possess or lack, calling them “proprietary corporate data,” and asserted that information on the licenses is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The Intercept has a long-standing FOIA request with the State Department seeking information on licenses granted to Prince and his former network of companies. To date, no information has been provided.

According to documents reviewed by The Intercept, as recently as 2014, Prince was registered as a defense services broker with the State Department through a limited liability corporation in Delaware, Westcomi LLC. That registration would permit Prince to engage in brokering without further authorization for some transactions in some countries, but not in Libya. Even with a valid brokering registration, according to legal experts, Prince would still need to get State Department approval for specific deals and report them to the U.S. government. “He could not solicit or promote the brokering of defense articles such as armored equipment delivered from abroad, or engage in or make a proposal to engage in brokering activities, absent prior U.S. government approval,” said Barker, the former state department official.

An FSG official said the company did not know if Prince obtained a license for his activities in Libya, but noted that he did not have one in his capacity as FSG’s chairman. One of Prince’s Libya proposals reviewed by The Intercept lists FSG as the commercial vendor for the project.

Last October, concerned about Prince’s unsanctioned international activities, FSG’s board approved a resolution clarifying that the company does not “engage in activities that require ITAR licenses.” A State Department spokesperson declined to comment, saying, “We are restricted under Federal Regulations from commenting on specific defense trade export licensing activities.”

Prince’s lawyer, Victoria Toensing, told The Intercept: “I’m not going to get into what licenses [Prince] has.”

“You push the buttons on the company, but the main bad guy gets away and does it again,” said an official who tried to prosecute Prince.
Prince has run up against ITAR in the past. In 2010, Prince sold most of his equity in the companies that fell under the Blackwater umbrella. Claiming that left-wing activists, Democratic politicians, and lawsuits had destroyed his companies, he left the United States and became a resident of Abu Dhabi. The remnant of his network was renamed Academi LLC. Federal prosecutors eventually attempted to prosecute Prince’s former companies, culminating in a 2012 deferred prosecution agreement to settle a lengthy list of U.S. legal and regulatory violations committed from 2005 through 2008 when Prince was in charge, including ITAR violations.

A senior official involved with the Blackwater-related litigation, who has since left the government, told The Intercept that the Obama administration’s continued willingness to award contracts to former Blackwater entities while the case was active was a fatal impediment to a successful prosecution. The official, comparing the former Blackwater empire to a drug syndicate, added that prosecutors could not get anyone under Prince to testify against him personally. “This is very much the concern,” the former official told The Intercept. “You push the buttons on the company, but the main bad guy gets away and does it again.”

No criminal charges were filed against Prince.

In federal court filings, Prince’s former companies admitted to providing — on numerous occasions during Prince’s tenure — defense goods and services to foreign governments without the required State Department licensing. In some cases, they admitted to providing services even after failing to obtain a license from the State Department.

As part of their settlement with the government, Prince’s companies ultimately agreed to pay nearly $50 million in fines and other penalties and to implement compliance procedures to ensure such illegal activities did not continue. In September 2015, the deferred charges were dismissed after the U.S. government certified that the companies had “fully complied” with all of its conditions.

At that point, Prince was already deep into creating new companies registered outside of the United States and appeared poised to return to the conduct that had marked his time at the helm of Blackwater.

An internal document from Prince’s inner circle, reviewed by The Intercept, shows his team openly discussing the need to avoid U.S. and international defense export regulations and to mask the involvement of Prince and his cohort in efforts to provide mercenary services and military equipment to foreign governments. “Erik is always pressing the limits as to what is possible,” said the close associate of Prince’s.
https://theintercept.com/2016/03/24/bla ... stigation/


National Security
Blackwater founder held secret Seychelles meeting to establish Trump-Putin back channel
Trump donor secretly met with Russian close to Putin Play Video2:21
Blackwater founder Erik Prince met with a Russian person close to President Vladimir Putin, according to U.S., European and Arab officials. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)
By Adam Entous, Greg Miller, Kevin Sieff and Karen DeYoung April 3 at 4:29 PM
The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladi­mir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.

The meeting took place around Jan. 11 — nine days before Trump’s inauguration — in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean, officials said. Though the full agenda remains unclear, the UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, a Trump administration objective that would be likely to require major concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions.

Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.

Prince was an avid supporter of Trump. After the Republican convention, he contributed $250,000 to Trump’s campaign, the national party and a pro-Trump super PAC led by GOP mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, records show. He has ties to people in Trump’s circle, including Stephen K. Bannon, now serving as the president’s chief strategist and senior counselor. Prince’s sister Betsy DeVos serves as education secretary in the Trump administration. And Prince was seen in the Trump transition offices in New York in December.

U.S. officials said the FBI has been scrutinizing the Seychelles meeting as part of a broader probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and alleged contacts between associates of Putin and Trump. The FBI declined to comment.


The Seychelles encounter, which one official said spanned two days, adds to an expanding web of connections between Russia and Americans with ties to Trump — contacts that the White House has been reluctant to acknowledge or explain until they have been exposed by news organizations.

“We are not aware of any meetings and Erik Prince had no role in the transition,” said Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary.

A Prince spokesman said in a statement: “Erik had no role on the transition team. This is a complete fabrication. The meeting had nothing to do with President Trump. Why is the so-called under-resourced intelligence community messing around with surveillance of American citizens when they should be hunting terrorists?”

Prince is best known as the founder of Blackwater, a security firm that became a symbol of U.S. abuses in Iraq after a series of incidents including one in 2007 in which the company’s guards were accused — and later criminally convicted — of killing civilians in a crowded Iraqi square. Prince sold the firm, which was subsequently rebranded, but has continued building a private paramilitary empire with contracts across the Middle East and Asia. He now heads a Hong Kong-based company known as the Frontier Services Group.

Prince would probably have been seen as too controversial to serve in any official capacity in the Trump transition or administration. But his ties to Trump advisers, experience with clandestine work and relationship with the royal leaders of the Emirates — where he moved in 2010 amid mounting legal problems for his American business — would have positioned him as an ideal go-between.

The Seychelles meeting came after separate private discussions in New York involving high-ranking representatives of Trump with both Moscow and the Emirates.

The White House has acknowledged that Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s original national security adviser, and Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner met with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, in late November or early December in New York.

Team Trump’s ties to Russian interests VIEW GRAPHIC
Flynn and Kushner were joined by Bannon for a separate meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who made an undisclosed visit to New York later in December, according to the U.S., European and Arab officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

In an unusual breach of protocol, the UAE did not notify the Obama administration in advance of the visit, though officials found out because Zayed’s name appeared on a flight manifest.

Officials said Zayed and his brother, the UAE’s national security adviser, coordinated the Seychelles meeting with Russian government officials with the goal of establishing an unofficial back channel between Trump and Putin.

Officials said Zayed wanted to be helpful to both leaders who had talked about working more closely together, a policy objective long advocated by the crown prince. The UAE, which sees Iran as one of its main enemies, also shared the Trump team’s interest in finding ways to drive a wedge between Moscow and Tehran.

Zayed met twice with Putin in 2016, according to Western officials, and urged the Russian leader to work more closely with the Emirates and Saudi Arabia — an effort to isolate Iran.

At the time of the Seychelles meeting and for weeks afterward, the UAE believed that Prince had the blessing of the new administration to act as its unofficial representative. The Russian participant was a person whom Zayed knew was close to Putin from his interactions with both men, the officials said.

When the Seychelles meeting took place, official contacts between members of the incoming Trump administration and the Russian government were under intense scrutiny, both from federal investigators and the press.

Less than a week before the Seychelles meeting, U.S. intelligence agencies released a report accusing Russia of intervening clandestinely during the 2016 election to help Trump win the White House.

The FBI was already investigating communications between Flynn and Kislyak. The Washington Post’s David Ignatius first disclosed those communications on Jan. 12, around the time of the Seychelles meeting. Flynn was subsequently fired by Trump for misleading Vice President Pence and others about his discussions with Kislyak.

Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador in Washington, declined to comment.

Government officials in the Seychelles said they were not aware of any meetings between Trump and Putin associates in the country around Jan. 11. But they said luxury resorts on the island are ideal for clandestine gatherings like the one described by the U.S., European and Arab officials.

“I wouldn’t be surprised at all,” said Barry Faure, the Seychelles secretary of state for foreign affairs. “The Seychelles is the kind of place where you can have a good time away from the eyes of the media. That’s even printed in our tourism marketing. But I guess this time you smelled something.”

Trump has dismissed the investigations of Russia’s role in the election as “fake news” and a “witch hunt.”

The level of discretion surrounding the Seychelles meeting seems extraordinary given the frequency with which senior Trump advisers, including Flynn and Kushner, had interacted with Russian officials in the United States, including at the high-profile Trump Tower in New York.

Steven Simon, a National Security Council senior director for the Middle East and North Africa in the Obama White House, said: “The idea of using business cutouts, or individuals perceived to be close to political leaders, as a tool of diplomacy is as old as the hills. These unofficial channels are desirable precisely because they are deniable; ideas can be tested without the risk of failure.”

Current and former U.S. officials said that while Prince refrained from playing a direct role in the Trump transition, his name surfaced so frequently in internal discussions that he seemed to function as an outside adviser whose opinions were valued on a range of issues, including plans for overhauling the U.S. intelligence community.

He appears to have particularly close ties to Bannon, appearing multiple times as a guest on Bannon’s satellite radio program over the past year as well as in articles on the Breitbart Web site that Bannon ran before joining the Trump campaign.

In a July interview with Bannon, Prince said those seeking forceful U.S. leadership should “wait till January and hope Mr. Trump is elected.” And he lashed out at President Barack Obama, saying that because of his policies “the terrorists, the fascists, are winning.”

Days before the November election, Prince appeared on Bannon’s program again, saying that he had “well-placed sources” in the New York City Police Department telling him they were preparing to make arrests in the investigation of former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) over allegations he exchanged sexually explicit texts with a minor. Flynn tweeted a link to the Breitbart report on the claim. No arrests occurred.

Prince went on to make unfounded assertions that damaging material recovered from Weiner’s computers would implicate Hillary Clinton and her close adviser, Huma Abedin, who was married to Weiner. He also called Abedin an “agent of influence very sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Prince and his family were major GOP donors in 2016. The Center for Responsive Politics reported that the family gave more than $10 million to GOP candidates and super PACs, including about $2.7 million from his sister, DeVos, and her husband.

Prince’s father, Edgar Prince, built his fortune through an auto-parts company. Betsy married Richard DeVos Jr., heir to the Amway fortune.

Erik Prince has had lucrative contracts with the UAE government, which at one point paid his firm a reported $529 million to help bring in foreign fighters to help assemble an internal paramilitary force capable of carrying out secret operations and protecting Emirati installations from terrorist attacks.

The Trump administration and the UAE appear to share a similar preoccupation with Iran. Current and former officials said that Trump advisers were focused throughout the transition period on exploring ways to get Moscow to break ranks with Tehran.

“Separating Russia from Iran was a common theme,” said a former intelligence official in the Obama administration who met with Trump transition officials. “It didn’t seem very well thought out. It seemed a little premature. They clearly had a very specific policy position, which I found odd given that they hadn’t even taken the reins and explored with experts in the U.S. government the pros and cons of that approach.”

Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said he also had discussions with people close to the Trump administration about the prospects of drawing Russia away from Iran. “When I would hear this, I would think, ‘Yeah that’s great for you guys, but why would Putin ever do that?’ ” McFaul said. “There is no interest in Russia ever doing that. They have a long relationship with Iran. They’re allied with Iran in fighting in Syria. They sell weapons to Iran. Iran is an important strategic partner for Russia in the Middle East.”

Following the New York meeting between the Emiratis and Trump aides, Zayed was approached by Prince, who said he was authorized to act as an unofficial surrogate for the president-elect, according to the officials. He wanted Zayed to set up a meeting with a Putin associate. Zayed agreed and proposed the Seychelles as the meeting place because of the privacy it would afford both sides. “He wanted to be helpful,” one official said of Zayed.

Wealthy Russians and Emirati royalty have a particularly large footprint on the islands. Signs advertising deep-sea fishing trips are posted in Cyrillic. Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov owns North Island, where Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, went on their honeymoon in 2011. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, president of the UAE, built a hilltop palace for himself with views across the chain of islands.

The Emiratis have given hundreds of millions of dollars to the Seychelles in recent years for causes including public health and affordable housing. But when the Emirati royal family visits, they are rarely seen.

“The jeep comes to their private jet on the tarmac and they disappear,” said one Seychellois official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as criticizing the Emiratis.

Zayed, the crown prince, owns a share of the Seychelles’ Four Seasons, a collection of private villas scattered on a lush hillside on the main island’s southern shore, overlooking the Indian Ocean, according to officials in the Seychelles. The hotel is tucked away on a private beach, far from the nearest public road.

Current and former U.S. officials who have worked closely with Zayed, who is often referred to as MBZ, say it would be out of character for him to arrange the Jan. 11 meeting without getting a green light in advance from top aides to Trump and Putin, if not the leaders themselves. “MBZ is very cautious,” said an American businessman who knows Zayed and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “There had to be a nod.”

The Seychelles meeting was deemed productive by the UAE and Russia but the idea of arranging additional meetings between Prince and Putin’s associates was dropped, officials said. Even unofficial contacts between Trump and Putin associates had become too politically risky, officials said.

Sieff reported from the Seychelles. Julie Tate, Devlin Barrett, Matea Gold, Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/na ... cbd084cd90



1. SHADY
Blackwater Founder Reportedly Met With Russian Official on Trump’s Behalf

REUTERS/LARRY DOWNING
Blackwater founder Erik Prince held a two-day meeting in the Seychelles with a person close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a bid to create a secret line of contact between the Kremlin and then-President-elect Donald Trump, The Washington Post reported Monday. The January 11 meeting was reportedly brokered by officials in the United Arab Emirates. Prince is the founder of private security firm Blackwater, which has been the subject of numerous human rights abuse allegation, civil suits, and criminal cases, including one in 2007 when Blackwater employees killed Iraqi civilians. Prince is also the brother of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, and a prominent Trump donor, giving $250,000 to Trump and affiliated PACs during the 2016 presidential campaign. While Prince had no official role in the Trump transition, officials told the Post that he presented himself as an unofficial conduit for the Trump administration. The full details of Prince's two-day meeting are unclear, although the UAE's involvement suggests the meeting could have addressed Russia's relations with Iran, a country with which the UAE has intense rivalry. The identity of the Putin confidant is also unknown. Both the White House and Prince refuted elements of the Post's story. Prince's spokesperson did not deny that Prince had been in the Seychelles, but told the Post that “the meeting had nothing to do with President Trump.” The Trump administration reportedly decided not to pursue further meetings, as communications between Trump and Russian officials were seen to be too risky.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/201 ... ce=copyurl


Betsy DeVos' Brother Established a Secret Trump-Putin Back Channel, Says Washington Post
http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.co ... ngton_post


Betsy DeVos’ brother secretly met with Vladimir Putin rep during Donald Trump transition
By Bill Palmer | April 3, 2017 | 0

Erik Prince, the founder of security firm Blackwater and the brother of Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, secretly met with a close representative for Russian President Vladimir Putin during the Trump transition period in January. This bombshell new report from the Washington Post raises further questions about potential ties between DeVos and the Kremlin, which Palmer Report first documented nearly two months ago.

Prince held a secret offshore meeting with the Putin rep just nine days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, by which time Trump had already publicly announced Prince’s sister DeVos as his Education Secretary nominee. The Post is characterizing its own report as a “secret Seychelles meeting to establish Trump-Putin back channel,” though in that same story, Prince is quoting that the meeting had anything to do with Trump.

Back on February 11th, Palmer Report first reported that the private email server inside Trump Tower, which had been set up almost exclusively to communicate with a Russian bank, also kept a private channel open to a Michigan based health care company called Spectrum Health. Betsy DeVos and her husband Dick DeVos essentially control Spectrum Health, with two DeVos family members on its board of directors (link). Then on March 9th, CNN reported that the FBI was still actively investigating that same Trump Tower email server (link). On March 20th, FBI Director James Comey publicly confirmed during House Intelligence Committee hearings that his agency is in fact investigating the Trump campaign and Russia for election meddling, though Comey did not mention the server.

So this latest Washington Post report about Betsy DeVos’ brother meeting with a Vladimir Putin rep during the Trump transition period (link) is not the first time in this election cycle that DeVos and the Kremlin have found themselves connected with regard to Donald Trump. As always, we’ll keep digging.
http://www.palmerreport.com/news/brothe ... rump/2163/



Betsy DeVos company Amway-they have offices in Moscow-Yekaterinburg & Novosibirsk in Russia
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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