The really important fact about Erik Prince that is not mentioned in The New York Times reporting that he has been using retired US and British spies, presumably human intelligence offers (HUMINTers), to teach James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas employees to be more effective is not that Prince founded and used to run Blackwater, nor that he’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVoss’s brother, nor that he’s very close with the President and others in the administration and the reelection campaign. The really important fact is that Erik Prince’s Frontier Services Group, the company of military contractors that he runs, is owned by DVN Holdings, which would ultimately make Prince its chairman. DVN Holdings is owned by Hong Kong investor Johnson Ko Chun and the Chinese International Trust Investment Corporation (Citic), which is a People’s Republic of China (PRC) owned investment fund. Johnson Ko Chun is also on the board of directors of Cambridge Analytica’s spin off Emerdata Ltd along with Rebekah Mercer, her sister Jennifer, as well as former senior officials from Cambridge Analytica. Emerdata is also still tied to the former Cambridge Analytica’s parent firm SCL Group.
The important fact that everyone keeps missing is that Erik Prince’s operations are funded by the People’s Republic of China. He is now their asset. If he is involved with O’Keefe’s merry band of political ratfuckers, then he is only involved so long as Xi and the PRC want him to be. The same goes for Emerdata. And anything else that Prince involves himself with. Despite having a long history of looting his own companies and skimming from his investors and backers, such as the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates, Prince’s financial backing from the PRC state owned Chinese International Trust Investment Corporation means that he works for the PRC and does so only as long as he advances their interests.
Xi and the PRC conduct their influence operations – from weaponizing diplomatic, information, economic, financial, intelligence, and legal power – as a form of 21st Century warfare very differently than Putin and the Russians do. Xi’s and the PRC are subtle and precise, where Putin and the Russians are brutish and imprecise. The role of Prince’s Frontier Service’s Group in advancing Xi’s One Belt, One Road initiative, which is definitely NOT in the United State’s strategic interests, is evidence of who is in charge in this relationship. Xi and the PRC call the shots. And while they might give Prince a lot of rope to conduct business in his usual dodgy manner, it should never forget that they are the hands on the end of that rope. If Prince is paying former intelligence officers to train Project Veritas employees who will then interfere in domestic politics in the US, then he is doing it because it suits not just his or his sister’s or the President’s purposes. He is doing it because it suits Xi’s and the PRC’s purposes. Who his paymasters are and how they exert control over their assets is the really important piece of information that everyone reporting on Prince’s connection to Project Veritas and commenting on the reporting is missing.
Open thread.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Even the liberal General McCaffrey:
Omnes Omnibus
And yet they hired Prince and teamed him with O’Keefe?
Cheryl Rofer
Quick question, Adam, and then I’ll be doing something else for a while but will come back:
I’ve lost track of Prince’s corporations and his place in them, at about the same time that I thought he was getting out of Ze, or whatever iteration of its name was. But my impression is that at some point, he separated himself from China and also from the management of his mercenary force to go into educating mercenaries.
Can you give a more coherent account of all those changes?
frosty
The news just gets worse every day. Thanks for the update. I guess.
West of the Rockies
I’m guessing the press will pay more attention to disproven Burisma nonsense. Oh, and both sides, right, Peter Baker?
Morzer
Well, that’s just what we need – Xinnie the Pooh and his merry band of crackpot pranksters doing their best to keep the Plague Rat Donald in the White House.
NotMax
AFAIK Prince remains obsessed with equipping and running his own private for-hire air force and these sorts of antics are lucrative sidelines.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: The company that Prince was running when the Emiratis busted him for stealing from them was called Frontier Services. When he went to work for the PRC via Ko Chun and CITIC, the vehicle was DVN Holdings. They then made him the director (Ko Chun is still the Executive Director and the Deputy Director) and reflagged DVN as Frontier Services Group. Prince, via Frontier Services Group, then bought a stake in a Chinese security school, which is what you’re thinking of. Here’s several good run downs of that:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/world/wp/2018/05/04/feature/a-warrior-goes-to-china-did-erik-prince-cross-a-line/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/01/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-to-build-training-camp-in-chinas-xinjiang
https://de.reuters.com/article/us-china-silkroad-companies/blackwater-founders-fsg-buys-stake-in-chinese-security-school-idUKKBN18Q0WR
My understanding is they’re training “security personnel” as part of Xi’s Belt and Road initiative.
Mary G
O/T:
Bill Arnold
Since open thread, in case somebody else hasn’t done it first:
CPAC: conservative conference guest tests positive for coronavirus – Both Donald Trump and Mike Pence attended the event but did not have contact with the attendee, organization says (Joanna Walters, 7 Mar 2020)
A certain American flag needs to be tested for SARS-CoV-2
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: You see anyone but me talking about it today when this news broke? You see any of the reporters even bothering to do the keyword search of “Erik Prince China”? The subtlety is this was done through shell corporations and fronts like Ko Chun. And I’m sure there are several that are hidden and can’t be found with simple keyword searches.
ETA: I didn’t mean for the above to read so harshly. I get your point that Prince isn’t exactly a scalpel and O’Keefe is such a blunt object that he gives 2X4s a bad name. I know about this because I’ve spent the past several years tracking all of these connections, but the PRC has made all these acquisitions, infiltrated corporate boards, abused financial and legal processes to take over companies and then move all their intellectual assets to Hong Kong and the PRC proper, and nary a peep out of anyone. They are very, very, very good.
Adam L Silverman
@frosty: Always happy to help!
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: That’s where the skimming from the Emiratis come in. If you click the link in the post up top to The Intercept’s really long form reporting on him and how he runs his businesses (like an organized criminal), you’ll get all the details. It is a really well done article.
Bill Arnold
Sheesh, that Erik Prince material is hours of reading and background searches. Thanks, though.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Except for AIPAC attendees.
Also, that Bibi is definitely a jenius!
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: That flag needs to be tested for STDs.
Frankensteinbeck
Hey, Adam. I’ve been wondering about this. I saw some Israeli news that said the vote counting is finished and all the conservative parties together have 58 seats. Do I understand that correctly as ‘Netenyahu is screwed’?
chris
Sometimes Wikipedia makes me laugh. It opens with, “Eric Dean Prince is an American businessman.”
Uh huh, you could say that…
It also mentions that he interned with Dana Rohrabacher in the early 90s while he was in college. Adds a little Russian flavouring, no?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@chris: Think of it as Russian Dressing.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: Hey, if Bibi wants to quarantine the virus inside Israel by way of AIPAC, I say more power to him!
debbie
@Mary G:
Will Bibi have small children escort the passengers to their quarantine quarters? //
Mallard Filmore
Between Russia and China, whether they work together or at cross purposes, the desired result is the same. They each will be happy when the USA is neutered.
Adam L Silverman
@Frankensteinbeck: Maybe. Bibi can’t form a government because he doesn’t have 61 members of Knesset in his coalition. But Gantz cannot either unless he can either get Lieberman on board, which I don’t see happening unless Gantz jettisons the Arab Joint List, which makes no sense as the latter has 15 seats in Knesset and Lieberman’s party only has 7. So Gantz would be in worse shape if he did that as he’d lose a seat.
This leaves Gantz either trying to form a coalition with Likud that requires Likud to jettison Bibi, which I don’t see them doing because, remember, for Bibi it is reelection and remaining prime minister or prison.
Everyone is waiting to see if legislation can get pushed through making it impossible for someone under indictment to be named or remain prime minister. If this gets through, that takes Bibi out of the equation, and may break the logjam.
The other issue is that if Lieberman’s anti-Bibi/anti-religious takeover of the Israeli government fan dance doesn’t produce a government this time and Israel has to go to a fourth election three months or so from now, he’s likely to loose a lot of his support. The logical place for that support to go is actually Likud, not Gantz’s center right to center left party.
I honestly have no idea what is going to go on other than Bibi will try to do what he’s done the last time: drag the process of trying to form a government out as long as possible, use up all the mandated time while remaining prime minister of a caretaker government and call new elections, which buys him another three months.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
He’s a walking advertisement for a RICO indictment, shielded mainly by his connections with prominent political figures, on whom he no doubt keeps voluminous files of damning and semi-damning info.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: 18,000 people attended AIPAC. Most from all over the US. They are now back in their home cities and towns. I told my mother that she couldn’t go to synagogue this morning until the synagogue worked out how they were going to deal with this because the rabbis, most of the board, and a decent chunk of the congregation all went. Until/unless they all self quarantine for 2 weeks and then disinfect the building as most of those folks went to services this morning, I will be pestering my mom not to go back.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: You’re going to wind up summoning Popehat if you keep up the RICO talk.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
How does he equip a private air force? It was my impression that the only way to buy the really cool toys was via government-to-government deals. ETA: and that the really-cool-toy makers around the world are strictly regulated so they don’t do any deals off the books.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/air-war-for-profit-inside-erik-princes-push-to-rule-the-skies
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/11/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-drive-to-build-private-air-force/
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I believe the appropriate remedy is burning.
Mary G
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Unfortunately.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Mary G:
I saw that. Honestly, I don’t get it. Reality is going to keep on happening. If he makes things worse, it’s going to catch up with him and he won’t be able to hide it .
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks! I probably will not remember all of this, but it makes sense of the fragments I have, although my recollection that he separated from China is obviously incorrect. Probably all these maneuverings were intended to give that impression, or at least confuse most of us.
Jeffro
How do China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia decide on any given day which of them is going to run our country‘s government? Do they take turns? Does China get Mondays and Thursdays, Russia gets Wednesdays and Saturdays, and Saudi Arabia gets the rest?
thanks trumpov
thanks GOP enablers, traitors, and sellouts
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: You’re welcome.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: They have a schedule.
different-church-lady
Look, I was pretty convinced Trump was going to kill us all using nuclear winter, so the idea that he’s only going to kill half of us through mismanagement of a viral outbreak is something I’ll put in the pyrrhic win column.
cokane
This blog is becoming more and more a font of misinformation. I’m sorry but you don’t know these facts: “The important fact that everyone keeps missing is that Erik Prince’s operations are funded by the People’s Republic of China. He is now their asset. If he is involved with O’Keefe’s merry band of political ratfuckers, then he is only involved so long as Xi and the PRC want him to be.”
He is now their asset. He’s only involved with them so long as Xi wants.
Where’s your evidence? I know that you have a background in these kinds of subjects. But you have no facts, unless you wanna present them, about *this* particular relationship.
cokane
The facts are that Prince’s company also does biz with China (which you presented). And did biz with Project Veritas (which the breaking news story showed). But where are your facts that prove some linkage there?
NotMax
@Jeffro
Rolling d3s.
:)
Immanentize
@Jeffro:
@Adam L Silverman:
Israel gets Sunday.
Adam L Silverman
@cokane: Prince’s company is owned and funded the the PRC owned investment fund CIVIT. They own it, their man Ko Chun oversees their interests in it and Prince. Just the financial backing alone establishes their monetary control over him.
Immanentize
@cokane: Didn’t check out the links, did you? How odd that defending Eric Prince is your Boogaloo.
ETA I for one am always up for contrary or conflicting information so that I can come to my own decision. Please supply me with something solid? Rather than “nanny nanny boo boo?”
Rommie
To paraphrase General Grant, I’m damned tired of hearing about what <insert not-friendly foreign power here> is doing to us, I’d like to hear what we are going to do to them.
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks for all the info
Immanentize
@Rommie: That is really a piss poor paraphrase. The real deal:
Another Scott
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-10/blackwater-mercenary-prince-has-a-new-1-trillion-chinese-boss – also too. (From February.)
(Behind a paywall.)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: You’re welcome. I would very much like to reach a point where I do not have to do posts on this type of thing anymore. But given the state of US politics, international politics, and the way the news media often fails to provide the important context, I doubt that is going to happen any time soon.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: I am aware. I’ve read it. I have it bookmarked. But for some reason it kept locking up all of my various browsers this evening, so I decided not to use it as a link.
Immanentize
@Adam L Silverman: I think it is pretty clear you need to do these posts for the foreseeable future. I love reading them! I do hate getting into the comments though. Which is why I hope you will persist.
Sandia Blanca
@rikyrah: Yes, thanks Adam. I always appreciate the breadth of your knowledge and expertise. Shared on Twitter.
HRA
CNN now has an article that says some of the crew on the ship near CA may have jumped ship.
Adam L Silverman
@HRA: They’re going to try to do the Alcatraz triathlon aren’t they?
Though I guess they’ll have substituted jump for dig…
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: The BBC tonight just had a story about a newborn in China that got the coronavirus. From its mother, who along with the rest of her family, were all infected. The story was about the infant being released from the hospital (after 2 weeks? not sure about that).
If it’s this infant, then it was apparently in the hospital for a month.
Bibi – Super Genius.
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Beatings will continue until morale improves!
TS (the original)
@different-church-lady:
And many of the ones dying in this scenario would be trump supporters
HRA
@Adam L Silverman: This is good. Although at first I thought it was an ad. Kudos on this post. I like being informed.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Hmmm, that’s interesting. If I access the site via Edge setup as an app it tells me I’m posting too fast, If I just access as another tab in Edge the comment will post.
?BillinGlendaleCA
OK, now it works from Balloon Juice set up as an app. Strange.
Adam L Silverman
@HRA: It’s actually a t-shirt or a sweatshirt. They sell them all over San Francisco. I have one. As a criminologist I thought it was funny.
Adam L Silverman
Thoughts and prayers!!!!
Adam L Silverman
Adam L Silverman
What kind of Jewish parents name their daughter Colby?
Jerzy Russian
@Adam L Silverman: Colby’s mother and father.
Adam L Silverman
@Jerzy Russian: Thank you Captain Obvious!
JaySinWA
@Adam L Silverman: Pardon my goyishness, but what is wrong with a Jewish Colby?
Jerzy Russian
@Adam L Silverman: Looking back, it seems you did ask “what kind” instead of “who”. Unfortunately I cannot answer that, since I don’t know who Colby is or who her parents are.
Yutsano
@Adam L Silverman: Because her Hebrew name might be Hepsibah and she has to attend school in the US? Just guessing.
Aleta
In addition to the coverage by the Post for the last two years (Emily Rauhala and Marc Fisher) that Adam linked, Bloomberg Quint has written about this:
(From Feb 2019), Blackwater Mercenary Prince Has a New $1 Trillion Chinese Boss
Beijing’s CITIC tightens grip on his young Hong Kong company
(Gives a timeline of “China’s Growing Role” in FSG, from 2013 when he met with Chang Zhenming (chairman of CITIC) in Beijing to Jan 2019.)
…
Fallon is interviewed in the 2018 Post article by Fisher and Rauhala that Adam linked.
Adam L Silverman
@JaySinWA: Oy vey…
Adam L Silverman
@Aleta: I am aware of that article. It is excellent. It is also behind a paywall and locked up two different browsers on my MacBook Pro while I was writing the post.
Another Scott
In other news, Reuters:
Donnie is going to be bigly upset.
Yay!
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Aleta: I also know Sean McFate. His ex-wife used to be my boss. The strangest job interview I ever had was interviewing for a position in his department at National Defense University. He asked a question about the leadership at my current program, specifically referencing the program manager (one of my bosses) and the director of social science (his then soon to be ex-wife and my other boss). Since I had no idea what his colleagues did and did not know about what was going on in his marriage, I just referred to her by her title and last name as if they weren’t married and barely acquainted.
Aleta
@Adam L Silverman: Try the link I used for the quotes. It’s a little different than the paywalled one.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: (Just as a datapoint, it works fine on this mid-2012 MBP running 10.15.3 using Chrome with uBlock Origin.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Aleta: I did, thanks, and have updated one of the sentences up top with it.
joel hanes
@Bill Arnold:
Matt Schlapp shook hands with one of the people who have tested positive.
Matt Schlapp also shook hands with Donald Trump, on stage.
Not sure of the order of events.
Rooting for injuries.
Adam L Silverman
I’d like to report a murder!
trollhattan
A suburban Sac school district has cancelled classes next week due to virus scourge. Sac City school district has sent communications indicating classes as usual next week. The twist–said suburb, Elk Grove Unified is the state’s fifth largest. Sac is 13.
Adam L Silverman
@joel hanes: As soon as someone tells him he’s going to freak out. My guess is he also fires Mercedes Schlapp.
trollhattan
@joel hanes:
Did he lick Trump as per usual?
joel hanes
@Jerzy Russian:
Yossarian and Lieutenant Scheisskopf saw what you did there.
joel hanes
@Adam L Silverman:
So no one will tell him. That’s what he demands from the people around him, and he fires anyone who tries to tell him things he doesn’t want to hear.
Tokyokie
@Adam L Silverman:
Cheesy ones.
Marcopolo
OT but loving Elizabeth Warren in the SNL cold open. What a lovely surprise!
Mary G
Adam L Silverman
@Tokyokie: Well played!
Eljai
@Mary G: My favorite! “Maybe I’ll just pull a New York Times and endorse them both.”
Steeplejack (phone)
@Aleta:
That link worked for me.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
Quarantining President Trump is an excellent idea. In fact, it should have been done long ago.
Mary G
This is no way to run a railroad:
Honest to Dog. You shouldn’t have to have CBS tweet at your senator to talk to the vp to maybe get some help in two days.
And I think I may have to give up twitter. Between the people blaming this lady for taking a cruise with cancer and the massive effort to claim Joe Biden has dementia I am ready to go off. I probably blocked 50 “people” in half an hour.
Morzer
@Amir Khalid: Let’s be a little more ambitious and go for the full plague pit and carcass into quicklime solution – yesterday.
JaySinWA
@Tokyokie: That’s gouda ’nuff for me.
Mary G
Adam, if you are still around can you take my last comment out of moderation? I abused the number of allowed links embedding two tweets.
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
Negative pressure chamber. On the ISS. “Sir, we provided you with a screen door.”
lumpkin
The United States of America is becoming a giant corpse that all the various magats around the globe are now feeding on.
Suzanne
@Adam L Silverman: Colby is a super-Mormon name, Though they’d spell it Cowlby or some shit.
Mart
Raven Onthill
Traitors. Why does it have to be traitors, and why is treason so much of a thing? (And yes, Mx. Pedantic, this may not be technically treason, but it sure isn’t loyalty.)
Jake Gibson
@cokane:
Never connect any dots.
bemused
@Adam L Silverman:
OMG, is this for real? Bibi actually said this?
RAM
@Adam L Silverman: The kind that REALLY like Wisconsin cheese.
Uncle Cosmo
@Adam L Silverman: Cue the Barry Manilow karaoke tape:
Would that it were so (ψ)…
germy
Mehdi Hasan did an good interview with Erik:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOB4V-ukpBI
(With audience questions)
Uncle Cosmo
The ones that name their sons Monterey Jack. SATSQ
Uncle Cosmo
@lumpkin: Nah. Uncle Sam is hanging on Trump’s doublecross while Putin & Xi are at its foot shooting craps for his duds.
(Leonard Cohen, “Dress Rehearsal Rag.”)
Duane
@Uncle Cosmo: No one wants to say it but his parents are Muensters.
J R in WV
Thanks Adam! Your posts are full of intrigue and stuff the Masters of the Universe wish to be more secret. This also fills the threads with delightfully cheesy puns and equally interesting comments.
What is Colby’s last name? Are we sure Colby is Jewish?
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: Istkowitz.