Multiple White House sources have told reporters that the Trump administration has been negotiating with Erik Prince (founder of the war-crimes plagued mercenary firm Blackwater; brother to pyramid-scheme billionaire/Education Secretary Betsy Devos) and ex-CIA operative John R. Maguire to assemble a private army of deniable, off-the-books spy/mercenaries who could target Trump's "deep state" political enemies in the USA, and kidnap and render similar figures overseas.
Prince denied the report and threatened to sue The Intercept for publishing it. Mercenaries who had worked for Prince at Blackwater confirmed the story to Jeremy Scahill (one of the foremost experts on Blackwater) and Matthew Cole, whose in-depth story is a must-read.
According to the story, US intelligence chiefs were not briefed on Trump's plan. Also said to be involved in the plan is Oliver North, a disgraced perjuring war criminal implicated in Reagan's Iran-Contra terrorism-funding project.
“[Maguire] said there were people inside the CIA who joined in the previous eight years [under Obama] and inside the government and they were failing to give the president the intelligence he needed,” said a person who was pitched by Maguire and other Amyntor personnel. To support his claim, Maguire told at least two people that National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, in coordination with a top official at the National Security Agency, authorized surveillance of Steven Bannon and Trump family members, including Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. Adding to these unsubstantiated claims, Maguire told the potential donors he also had evidence H.R. McMaster used a burner phone to send information gathered through the surveillance to a facility in Cyprus owned by George Soros.Amyntor employees took potential donors to a suite in the Trump Hotel in Washington, which they claimed was set up to conduct “secure communications.” Some White House staff and Trump campaign supporters came to refer to the suite as “the tinfoil room,” according to one person who visited the suite. This account was confirmed by another source to whom the room was described. “John [Maguire] was certain that the deep state was going to kick the president out of office within a year,” said a person who discussed it with Maguire. “These guys said they were protecting the president.”
Maguire and others at Amyntor have boasted that they have already sent intelligence reports to Pompeo.
Trump White House Weighing Plans for Private Spies to Counter “Deep State” Enemies [Matthew Cole and Jeremy Scahill/The Intercept]
(Image: Trump's Hair; Gage Skidmore, CC-BY-SA)