A Michigan native and man of many talents, author or "Civilian Warriors" has some new chapters to add to his life.
‘Proud American’
Erik Prince’s Belt and Road Map
Erik Prince Helped Raise Money for Conservative Spy Venture
New details reveal the ambitions of an operation intended to infiltrate opponents of Donald Trump, including moderate Republicans as well as progressives and Democrats.
(Image credit: Erik Prince, founder of the private military firm Blackwater, helped raise money for a political-intelligence operation run by Richard Seddon, a former British spy.
Jeenah Moon/Reuters)
WASHINGTON — During the summer of 2018, as Richard Seddon, a former British spy, was trying to launch a new venture to use undercover agents to infiltrate progressive groups, Democratic campaigns and other opponents of President Donald J. Trump, he turned for help to a longtime friend and former colleague: Erik Prince, the private military contractor.
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Prince, the son of the late billionaire industrialist Edgar Prince, sold a rebranded version of Blackwater back in 2010, but he has other business interests. He runs a private equity commodities firm called Frontier Resource Group, that’s raising $500 million to mine metals in Africa and Asia to provide materials for electric cars.
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Independent Journalist Jeremy Scahill Blows The Cover Off Shadow Trump Advisor Eric Prince
Story January 18, 2017Blackwater Founder Erik Prince, the Brother of Betsy DeVos, Is Secretly Advising Trump
GUEST: Jeremy Scahill
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Mr. Prince took on the role of celebrity pitchman, according to interviews and documents, raising money for Mr. Seddon’s spying operation, which was aimed at gathering dirt that could discredit politicians and activists in several states. After Mr. Prince and Mr. Seddon met in August 2018 with Susan Gore, a Wyoming heiress to the Gore-Tex fortune, Ms. Gore became the project’s main benefactor. . .
Mr. Prince’s role in the effort, which has not been previously disclosed, sheds further light on how a group of ultraconservative Republicans employed spycraft to try to manipulate the American political landscape. Mr. Prince — a former C.I.A. contractor who is best known as the founder of the private military firm Blackwater, . .has drawn scrutiny over the years for Blackwater’s record of violence around the world and his subsequent ventures training and arming foreign forces.
His willingness to support Mr. Seddon’s operation is fresh evidence of his engagement in political espionage projects at home during a period when he was an informal adviser to Trump administration officials.. .New details [ ] provide additional insight into the ambition of the operation to use undercover operatives to target Republicans seen as insufficiently conservative, as well as to, as one document describes it, “research, penetrate and infiltrate the radical left networks.”
The Times previously reported that, in 2016 and 2017, Mr. Prince recruited Mr. Seddon to join the conservative group Project Veritas to teach espionage skills to its operatives and manage its undercover operations. Mr. Prince also allowed Project Veritas to use his family’s Wyoming ranch for training. Mr. Seddon launched his privately funded spying effort after leaving Project Veritas in 2018. . .
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How Donald J. Trump Still Looms
During the 2018 meeting with Ms. Gore, according to one person familiar with it, Mr. Prince and Mr. Seddon said the goal of the private spying operation was to gather dirt both on Democrats and “RINOs” — slang in conservative circles for “Republicans in name only.” The plan was to begin in Wyoming, they said, and expand operations from there.
Over two years, Mr. Seddon’s undercover operatives also developed networks in Colorado and Arizona, and made thousands of dollars in campaign donations posing as Democrats, both to the Democratic National Committee and individual campaigns. Funneling money surreptitiously to campaigns through other donors — known as straw man donations — would violate federal campaign finance laws.
Mr. Prince is separately under investigation by the Justice Department on unrelated matters, according to people familiar with the case. The scope of that investigation is unclear.
Mr. Prince declined to comment. Mr. Seddon and Ms. Gore did not respond to messages. . . Later that year, Mr. Prince turned to Mr. Seddon to help train the Project Veritas operatives. The two men had known each other since Mr. Prince’s days running Blackwater, and shared an affinity for guns and the American West. Mr. Seddon owns a cabin that he keeps stocked with guns, food and other supplies as preparation for a cataclysmic event in the United States. . ."
READ MORE:
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Interview / Amy Goodman Democracy Now May 2019
War & Peace
Ex-Blackwater CEO Erik Prince Makes a Comeback Under Trump
LINK > TruthOut.org VIDEO ". . . Erik Prince in the spotlight after more than a decade of largely working in the shadows after Blackwater shut down.
In a major new report, The Intercept looks at Prince’s latest actions, including his pitch to privatize the war in Afghanistan
his creation of a mercenary army for the United Arab Emirates
a history of mismanaged projects that have soured his relationships with leaders around the world
and his comeback, made possible with the help of the Trump administration. We speak with Matthew Cole, the investigative journalist who wrote the story.
It’s titled “The Complete Mercenary: How Erik Prince Used the Rise of Trump to Make an Improbable Comeback.”
THE COMPLETE MERCENTARY:
HOW ERIC PRICE USED THE RISE OF TRUMP
TO MAKE AN IMPROBABLE COMEBACK
Erik Prince now offers a complete mercenary supply chain: anything from military hardware to social media manipulation in partnership with Project Veritas.
By Matthew Cole __________________________________________________________________________________
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