Erik Prince, the businessman who is said to have represented the Trump campaign during a meeting with a Russian representative in the Seychelles islands in January, is scheduled to testify before the House intelligence committee this week.
The founder of Blackwater – a private military firm later known as Xe Services and now known as Academi – Prince is set to appear Thursday before the committee behind closed doors. The appearance was described by the committee as "open in a closed space," indicating that a transcript will likely be released after the interview.
The Seychelles meeting, which was revealed by The Washington Post in April, was apparently brokered by the United Arab Emirates in an attempt to revamp Russia's relationship with Iran, possibly in exchange for concessions from the U.S. on sanctions against Moscow. Though Price had no official role in the Trump campaign or on the transition team, he was seen at the Trump transition offices in December, is a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump and large donor to his campaign. His sister, Betsy DeVos, currently serves as Trump's secretary of education, and campaign insiders told the Washington Post that Prince's "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."
As I have mentioned before I have little confidence in the Russian investigation being conducted by Congress.
They have already demonstrated that they are hoping to vindicate Donald Trump by finding no signs of any real collusion. And Democrats on the committee have stated that there is evidence they are trying to thwart the investigations.
Which is why I was hoping that Prince had already testified to the Mueller team, as its seems he likely has much to share.
However as of last month it did not yet appear that Mueller had seen fit to question the founder of Blackwater.
Which could indicate that either he sees no value in that testimony, or that he is first building a case so that when Prince does testify any lies will be easily identified.
I'm thinking more of the latter.
Source http://ift.tt/2jvCGtP
