The Washington Post just dropped another bombshell in the Trump-Russia saga. According to their report, Erik Prince, brother of Betsy DeVos and founder of the evil Blackwater served as a liason between the Russians and the Trump transition.
He was apparently seeking a back-channel so Trump and Putin could communicate with one another.
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 likely require major concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions.
Prince would be a likely messenger for something like this, particularly given the relationship between Alfa Bank and the DeVos family. It is an Alfa Bank server, as you may recall, that was making contact with a computer in Trump tower.
Although Prince vehemently denies that any meeting took place, he did play a role in the election of Donald Trump, all the way into the transition.
This, for example:
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.
Prince is close with Steve Bannon, too. Flynn as well, apparently.
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.
Add Erik Prince to the list of Trump-Russia players now. Between the family link to Alfa Bank, his close relationship with the Trump team, and this report about setting up a back-channel line of communication to Vladimir Putin, it's looking like he's right in the center of the storm.
UPDATE: Here's another thread in the unraveling fabric of this story.
