Erik Prince: Mercenary

[Howl]

One of the accounts I follow on Twitter confirmed that another account called Gregg Smith @OldGrunt0351 is a legitimate account, so I was curious and checked in on Gregg Smith

Smith was part of Frontier services and has some serious goods on Erik Prince.  At some point he became seriously disenchanted with Prince and has been tweeting prolifically about it.  Were I Gregg Smith, I'd sleep with one eye open, move frequently, be armed at all times, never take the same route twice, and get someone to taste all of my food. 

Link to his account:   https://twitter.com/OldGrunt0351  but you have to wander through the find all of the Prince stuff .

The point being that Erik Prince has certainly checked that the Gulf States (he lives part time in Abu Dubai) has no extradition treaty with the US.   

Highly likely that Erik Prince is being carefully investigated by Mueller, Dept. of State, CIA and whoever.  He's broken many US laws with his mercenary ventures.  He may also have been an intern to Dana Rohabacher back in the day. 

His latest deal is that he wants to doing mining of important minerals in some very dicey and dangerous places, using his mercenaries to guard the mines, and use the money made mining to pay the mercenaries. 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2018 by Howl

[Soulhuntress]

Betsy DeVos' little very hard core rad trad Catholic brother?  That Erik Prince?

[Howl]

Yup, the same.  He's a very, very busy guy.  Don't know how rad trad Catholic he is these days.  He's not yet 50, on wife #3 with a string of 5 kids.  

He's skated liability by selling off Blackwater ahead of massive law suits over Blackwater "employees" bad actions in Iraq and seems to have a pattern of doing that.  There's been Blackwater, Xe Services, Academi, and now Frontier Services.  

I think he'll pop up either in the Mueller probe, DoJ indictments, or as having successfully talked somebody into his Afghanistan or African ventures. 

In chronological order, but I'd recommend reading the last article on the list (from MilitaryTimes) first.  It's a short read and to the point. 

Also,  be aware that Vanity Fair is behind a paywall, but allows a few free articles each month. I'd start with the October 2018 article on DeVos and Prince.  

Vanity Fair, 2010: TYCOON, CONTRACTOR, SOLDIER, SPY

Forbes, April 4, 2018: Blackwater’s Dark Prince Returns  A decade after Blackwater's retreat amid scandal and a massacre, its founder Erik Prince wants to privatize and shrink the conflict in Afghanistan. Recent White House turnover has given his plan a fighting shot. 

Washington Post, May 4, 2018:  Behind Erik Prince’s China venture  The Blackwater founder has cut a lucrative security-training deal with Chinese insiders. But is it against U.S. interests?

ABC,  June 25, 2018: Special counsel obtains Trump ally Erik Prince's phones, computer

NBC, August, 17, 2-18:  Officials worry Trump may back Erik Prince plan to privatize war in Afghanistan  "I know he's frustrated," Blackwater founder Prince said of the president. "He gave the Pentagon what they wanted. And they haven't delivered."

MilitaryTimes.com, Sept. 5, 2018:  Here’s the blueprint for Erik Prince’s $5 billion plan to privatize the Afghanistan war

Vanity Fair, October 2018:  "I'm Tired of America Wasting Our Blood and Treasure": The Strange Ascent of Betsy DeVos and Erik Prince: Since the 1970s, the DeVos family has been quietly advancing a plan to make government act more like a private business. Now, they appear ready to take the next step.

The Daily Beast, Dec. 06, 2018:   Russia Probe Democrats Want Another Shot at Erik Prince   When the House intel panel changes leadership, three members of the committee want the Blackwater founder, ‘who refused to answer our questions,’ back for more Russia testimony.

MilitaryTimes.com, Dec. 20, 2018:  Mattis is out, and Blackwater is back: ‘We are coming’

Edited January 1, 2019 by Howl

[fraurosena]

44 minutes ago, Howl said:

I'm going to go all whacked out conspiracy theory here, but wondering if Trump's precipitous troop draw downs in Syria and Afghanistan are a strategy to leave an opening for Prince's mercenary plans, because there is no insanely crazy shit too insanely bat-shit crazy for Trump. 

Oh, I think this may well have figured into Erik's plans. Erik whispering into his ear that yes, it's what he should do, may have underlined the presiduncial decision to pull the troops, but his only reason to do so is because Putin (by way of Erdogan) told him to, and nothing else. 

Erik is in deep with the Russians and other bad actors in the world (remember the Seychelles meeting), and it wouldn't surprise me if Erik was quite aware of, and maybe even complicit in, the Russian plans in the Middle East. 

I hope the arrogant ass is caught by Mueller, but I'm afraid that he'll hide out in the Middle East if indicted.

[Howl]

I think Prince will definitely hunker down in Dubai. 

I have mixed feelings about impeachment, because I fear Pence for any number of reasons.  However, the Russian influence in the Trump administration at home and abroad is too damaging -- there are things being done that con't be undone, or at least for many years.  If the Democratic House can't contain this, Trump has got to go. 

[Howl]

and then there's this: 

 

Edited January 1, 2019 by Howl

[Howl]

Reuters: Blackwater founder launches fund to invest in car battery metals: FT

Spoiler

 

(Reuters) - Erik Prince, who founded the private security company Blackwater, is launching a fund to invest in metals used in electric vehicle batteries, he told the Financial Times.

The fund aims to raise up to $500 million and will invest in deposits of metals such as cobalt, copper and lithium, largely in Africa and Asia, he told the newspaper.

Prince said the fund would bring unexplored deposits into production and then sell them to larger mining companies, often based in China.

“Chinese companies are not necessarily interested in the very upstream exploration,” Prince said. “They want to buy something in production, which leaves that gap for us.”

He expects that metals used in car batteries will be in increasing demand in the coming years as the global automotive industry ramps up electric car production.

Prince sold Blackwater in 2010. Since then he has run a security and logistics business called Frontier Services Group and made investments in natural resources.

 

 

[AnnaSofia]

15 hours ago, Howl said:

Yup, the same.  He's a very, very busy guy.  Don't know how rad trad Catholic he is these days.  He's not yet 50, on wife #3 with a string of 5 kids. 

Wife #2 (Joanna) was his nanny. Her family knew the Prince family, and Erik and Wife #1 (Joan) hired her to take care of their 3 kids when they briefly came back to Michigan after Erik's father, Edgar, passed away. Erik started bangin' her while Joan was dying of cancer (I believe she was diagnosed roughly around the time Edgar died). 

Apparently Joan found out about the affair, and fired Joanna. Erik then gave Joanna some sort of job at Blackwater (still relatively new at the time), which he had founded with the money he inherited from the sale of his father's auto part manufacturing business after Edgar's death.  Joanna later showed up at Joan's funeral heavily pregnant with her and Erik's first child. Class acts, both of 'em. Wife #3 (Stacy) also worked at Blackwater, and true to form, that relationship started while he was married to Joanna.

I think he's still Opus Dei, though who knows what mental gymnastics are used to rationalize it all. I've always been surprised he became Catholic in the first place; his family were very staunch Dutch Reformed Calvinists, as is much of the area where he grew up. Supposedly he converted to marry his first wife, but I'm fairly certain that was not the primary appeal. He also has a very "Christian soldiers must vanquish the ebil Muslims" world view, but Catholicism is hardly a prerequisite for that.

[Howl]

8 hours ago, AnnaSofia said:

think he's still Opus Dei

Thanks for this awesome summary, @AnnaSofia!  I didn't think it could get any worse with Prince, but OPUS fu**ing DEI?   Opus Dei makes regular conservative Catholics look like a bunch of debauched libertines, so I can't imagine, after multiple marriages, Opus Dei has much use for him, but maybe there were convenient annulments, plus he hates those awful Muslims. 

Years ago, I read a book about Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who spied for Russian/Soviet intelligence services for over 20 years. He made the overtures to the Russians to sell data and information, not the other way around. 

Besides being a spy, he had a great guy friend who joined him in sexual adventures abroad and also helped him set up at at-home film system so said friend could watch him (Robert) have sex with his own wife from the den of the Hanssen home.  The book got buried under other books by my nightstand, and I ended up with a $40 overdue fine from the library at Big State University.  I actually explained to them how horrible Robert Hanssen was and how the book got buried, and they cancelled the fine. Anyway, Robert Hanssen's wife is so Catholic she never divorced him, even after finding out EVERYTHING.  He's serving multiple life sentences in a Federal super max in Colorado. 

Anyway, Robert Hanssen was a converted Catholic (from Lutheran Calvinism) and was big time into Opus Dei, which prompted me to read a book about Opus Dei.  Many powerful Catholics in DC belonged to the secretive and powerful Opus Dei and if you're weren't powerful (and rich helped), you weren't of much use to Opus Dei.

OK, where was I?  Happy New Year! One day closer to a Dem controlled house!  I'm sure Erik Prince will be called back again to testify to the House Intelligence committee. He's already testified twice (I think), as recently as late November, but maybe wasn't completely forthcoming. 

[GreyhoundFan]

@Howl -- Thanks for the info. I've always found the Robert Hanssen story to be interesting. His wife still lives in their home, which is not far from mine. I pass the park where he did his drops from time to time. The movie, "Breach", while not 100% true, was really good. Chris Cooper has the creepy down pat.

[AnnaSofia]

To clarify, I don't think Prince ever publicly admitted to being Opus Dei (I'm sorry if I gave that impression), but that's been the rumor going wayyy back (I live in the area the family is from) and I tend to believe it. Same with Joseph Schmitz, who was COO at Blackwater at one point. I think the only thing that would have motivated Prince to convert to Catholicism in the first place is if he found a subset that reinforced his batshit insane "God's Crusader" worldview.

It's possible he's distanced himself by now, although I think he's technically only had one divorce (wife #2, Joanna), and I wondered if some exception (and/or convenient annulment, as you mentioned) might have been made in his case.

I've read things claiming that he made his first wife sign divorce papers from her hospital bed as she lay dying of cancer, but I think that's just people conflating his story with the infamous one about Newt Gingrich. IIRC, Erik didn't marry Joanna until the year after Joan died, which is why their first kid was born out of wedlock (I suppose that alone might be a problem for truly diehard Catholics). He and Joan had 4 kids in total, then he and Joanna had 3. I don't *think* he has any with Stacy, and since she's around his age (50-ish) it seems unlikely they will, at least biologically. Stacy used to be a spokesperson for Blackwater. She's scrubbed a lot of her 'net presence, but if you Google Stacy DeLuke, she still shows up in older articles from around the time the shit really hit the fan. Her then-husband, Steve Capace, was one of Blackwater's many lawyers. Stacy and Steve divorced right around the same time Erik divorced Joanna. From what I've heard, the affair had been going on for awhile by that point.

Edited January 4, 2019 by AnnaSofia

[AnnaSofia]

Frontier Services Group, the security contractor led by Erik Prince, who created the controversial Blackwater company, will build a training base in Xinjiang, the western Chinese region where as many as 1 million Muslims have been put into extrajudicial detention camps.

Nothing to worry about, I'm sure.

[Howl]

Lordy, there's a tape!  Here's Erik Prince being caught in a Big Lie!  Expressions on the faces of the people in the audience watching this play out are priceless: 

 

Edited March 9, 2019 by Howl

[GreyhoundFan]

Dear Rufus, please let this be a YES: "Could Erik Prince be in perjury trouble?"

Spoiler

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that he would make a criminal referral to the Justice Department alleging that Trump associate Erik Prince may have committed perjury in his congressional testimony.

The move wasn’t altogether unexpected, given that Prince’s testimony appears inconsistent with the findings of the report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. But how compelling might a potential perjury case be? And how likely is DOJ to do anything about it?

At issue are Prince’s comments about a meeting with a Russian banker in the Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean. In 2017, The Washington Post reported that Prince, who founded the security firm Blackwater, traveled there during the transition between Trump’s election and his inauguration to discuss setting up a back channel between Russia and the Trump team.

Prince denied the report both publicly and later in a combative, closed-door appearance in front of the House Intelligence Committee. Prince also suggested it was a brief, unplanned encounter with the banker, Kirill Dmitriev, who is allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that he wasn’t familiar with him. The Washington Post first reported in March 2018 that Mueller’s findings contradicted Prince’s account.

Prince has made a number of other claims in his public comments that went further than his testimony. But for the purposes of perjury, it’s only his testimony that matters. Let’s compare what he said under oath to what the Mueller report says.

A chance encounter?

Prince: “After the meeting, they mentioned a guy I should meet who was also in town to see them, a Kirill Dmitriev from Russia, who ran some sort of hedge fund.”

Mueller: The report indicates this was much more of a planned meeting than Prince suggested, and that he was made familiar with Dmitriev beforehand. Prince spoke and emailed with an intermediary, George Nader, about Dmitriev before booking the trip.

“Nader and Prince discussed Dmitriev. Nader informed Prince that the Russians were looking to build a link with the incoming Trump Administration. [REDACTED] he told Prince that Dmitriev had been pushing Nader to introduce him to someone from the incoming Administration. [REDACTED] Nader suggested, in light of Prince’s relationship with Transition Team officials, that Prince and Dmitriev meet to discuss issues of mutual concern. [REDACTED] Prince told Nader that he needed to think further about it and to check with Transition Team officials.”

After the meeting, Nader sent Prince a Wikipedia entry on Dmitriev. The next day, Nader forwarded emails from Dmitriev to Prince. Prince opened attachments from the emails while he was in Trump Tower for a three-hour period. He eventually booked his ticket for the Seychelles on Jan. 7, four days after seeing Nader about the prospective meeting.

Prince clearly played down the provenance of the meeting and his familiarity with Dmitriev. But Prince doesn’t specifically say that it wasn’t planned beforehand or that he didn’t know who Dmitriev was, as he has stated more plainly in his public comments. Thus, proving what he said was a lie could be difficult.

A brief meeting — or two?

Prince: “The meeting ended after a maximum of 30 minutes. I’ve had no communications or dealings with him or any of his colleagues before or after that encounter last January.” He reinforced later that 30 minutes was the “maximum. It was probably more like 20 minutes.”

At another point, he said he believed there was only one meeting with Dmitriev on the trip:

SCHIFF: So the only two meetings you had while you were there were an hour-long meeting with the [United Arab Emirates] prince and his delegation and an approximately half-an-hour meeting in the bar with Mr. Dmitriev.

PRINCE: I think that’s the order of it, but I’m not -- yeah. Something like that.

Mueller: Prince told Mueller in May 2018 that the meeting was more like 30-to-45 minutes. What’s more, there was an impromptu second meeting, involving both Nader and Dmitriev. “At the second meeting, Prince told Dmitriev that the United States could not accept Russian involvement in Libya because it would make the situation there much worse,” the Mueller report states.

The length of the initial meeting might be a smaller point, but Prince clearly indicated that they had interacted only once. He talked about the 20-to-30-minute meeting and then said there were “no communications or dealings with him or any of his colleagues before or after that encounter,” according to the Mueller report. A second meeting with Dmitriev would seem to be another communication. Prince might argue that he meant the entire Seychelles trip as an “encounter,” but he never mentions the second meeting in his congressional testimony.

Mueller does confirm his team “did not identify evidence of any further communication between Prince and Dmitriev after their meetings in the Seychelles.”

Not representing the Trump campaign?

Prince:

REP. FRANCIS ROONEY (R-FLA.): Was the point of that meeting for you to represent the Trump campaign or Mr. Trump in any way?

PRINCE: No.

Mueller: See above. Nader made clear to Prince that Dmitriev was interested in the meeting because Prince was close to the Trump team. Prince even said he would check with officials on the Trump transition team about the prospective meeting. The report also says that “Prince acknowledged that it was fair for Nader to think that Prince would pass information on to the Transition Team.”

Prince may not have been there as an official member of Trump’s transition team or incoming government, but Rooney’s question was about whether he was representing Trump “in any way.” It seems that was how the meeting was set up and understood.

No back channel talks?

Prince:

SCHIFF: Did you discuss establishing a channel of communications with his country that would be discreet?

PRINCE: No.

SCHIFF: Did you discuss having any channel of communications between the United States and Russia?

PRINCE: No.

Mueller: Mueller’s report describes other efforts to create some kind of back channel between the Trump team and Russia, but it doesn’t directly describe one here. Instead, it refers several times to Prince and Dmitriev discussing U.S.-Russia relations and issues of common interest.

That said, there are significant redactions in these sections for information obtained via grand jury.

Didn’t talk to Trump team about it?

Prince:

SCHIFF: Did you ever tell anyone with The Trump Organization or transition team that you had had a meeting with Mr. Dmitriev?

PRINCE: No, I did not.

Mueller: “Prince said that he met [President Trump’s then-chief strategist Stephen K.] Bannon at Bannon’s home after returning to the United States in mid-January and briefed him about several topics, including his meeting with Dmitriev. . . . Prince also believed he provided Bannon with Dmitriev’s contact information. According to Prince, Bannon instructed Prince not to follow up with Dmitriev, and Prince had the impression that the issue was not a priority for Bannon.”

These seems pretty cut-and-dried. Perhaps Prince’s defense would be that he thought the question was about whether he had discussed his meeting with Dmitriev before it happened. But that would be curious, given that he also suggested it was an unplanned, chance encounter.

(Bannon, for what it’s worth, said he never discussed any of this with Prince.)

What it means

It’s worth noting that the bar for perjury is high and that Mueller’s investigation concluded without indicting Prince.

But former federal prosecutor Patrick Cotter said that that doesn’t necessarily mean Mueller didn’t think there was a case to be made. He noted that Prince’s alleged perjury came in congressional testimony and not to Mueller’s team. “This may be an example of something Mueller felt others (e.g. Congress) should pursue if they want to, like impeachment,” Cotter said in an email. “My read of the report suggests just that.”

Schiff also acknowledged Tuesday that Prince spoke with Mueller under the terms of an unspecified proffer agreement, which sometimes insulates people from being charged based upon their statements. (This wouldn’t apply to false statements in previous congressional testimony, but it would mean Prince’s statements to Mueller couldn’t be used to make the case.)

But even if there is a case to be made, that doesn’t mean it will be. Attorney General William P. Barr has suggested it’s time to turn the page on the Mueller probe, which bodes well for Prince.

If a case of perjury was brought, it would be one of the highest-profile prosecution cases to come out of the Mueller probe. Prince is the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and a controversial figure dating back to the early days of the Iraq War.

 

[fraurosena]

I am with you in your prayer to Rufus, @GreyhoundFan! Erik Prince is as evil as they come. However, I believe there will be a great amount of recalcitrance on the part of the DOJ. As long as Barr is in office, I don't think any prosecutions of anyone even remotely connected to this administration will follow through. 

Aside from getting Trump into the White House, the appointment of William Barr as head of the DOJ is quite possibly the most dangerous and detrimental act against democracy in America. 

[Howl]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

As long as Barr is in office, I don't think any prosecutions of anyone even remotely connected to this administration will follow through. 

Aside from getting Trump into the White House, the appointment of William Barr as head of the DOJ is quite possibly the most dangerous and detrimental act against democracy in America. 

Preach it, girl!  I agree 100%.  Barr is a scary, scary guy.  He's been placed there to protect Trump in order to further the implementation of the extreme Conservative alt-right agenda unimpeded. 

But where were we? Erik Prince is a damn mercenary whack-a-mole.  He just keeps popping up and he won't stop.  

Edited May 1, 2019 by Howl

[Howl]

On 1/1/2019 at 9:08 AM, fraurosena said:

Erik is in deep with the Russians and other bad actors in the world (remember the Seychelles meeting),

And here we are! Schiff makes criminal referral to DOJ for Erik Prince

Lies about the number of meetings in the Seychelles, who attended, and the nature of the meetings figure prominently in Schiff's decision. 

[Howl]

So Erik Prince was trying to set up an undercover civilian intelligence op in the US, to presumably to get dirty tricks done dirt cheap. Link to the Daily Beast article in the tweet.  It's short and to the point.  Kinda makes you wonder what Prince is up to that we DON'T know about.  Creepy. 

Edited May 4, 2019 by Howl

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

One of Prince's associates had a colon-clenching moment when the FBI came by to chat:

 

 

 

[fraurosena]

Holy moly.

Click through thread.

 

[Howl]

Maritania popped up in the news yesterday, and I thought it was weird.  There's an Erik Prince tie-in, because of course there is. 

[AnnaSofia]

Bumping this to mention that Gregg Smith, the former associate of Prince featured in the OP is currently running for congress in Colorado to try and unseat Lauren Boebert.

His twitter (it's changed a few times since the OP):
https://twitter.com/GreggSmithCO3

Just in case anyone is unfamiliar with Lauren Boebert, she's been accused of essentially leading a recon tour of the Capitol building the day before the January 6th insurrection. 

Washington Post coverage of Boebert's alledged role.

 

And back to Prince, article in the New York Times today:

Erik Prince, Trump Ally, Denies Role in Libya Mercenary Operation

The Libyan coup attempt he's accused of taking part in was investigated last fall by the Australian series Four Corners. Gregg Smith makes an appearance, and Robert Young Pelton (also mentioned in the OP) is heavily featured.

Prince doesn't come up until around 19:30, but I would recommend watching the whole thing, as it all ties up together.

Edited February 21, 2021 by AnnaSofia

[Howl]

Holy Schmoley, I had no idea that Gregg Smith was THAT Gregg Smith. I don't think he'll get traction.  His ranch is, I think, his vacation home until recently.

Anyway, no one seems to know exactly where Erik Prince is these days -- is he hiding or missing?

 

[AnnaSofia]

Yeah, from what I've read, Gregg Smith bought the property in 2008, but only moved there full time about a year ago. And he's been a Democrat for even less time than he's been a Colorado resident. I think he changed his party affiliation literally a day or two before announcing his candidacy.

Prince claims to be living and doing business in Wyoming.

in a pending lawsuit, Prince asserts the April 13 story from The Intercept was false, defamatory and “aimed … at Wyoming.” Because of the article, Prince says his “reputation and professional opportunities within Wyoming suffered,” along with his business interests and reputation in general.

Wyoming disagrees.

"... Defendants do not have property, bank accounts, or employees in Wyoming; further, they do not advertise or market toward Wyoming citizens and their articles are directed at national and international news, not Wyoming news," Johnson wrote.

 

I assume he's still living primarily in Abu Dhabi, where he's been for years, and engaging in his usual fuckery.