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.What makes this plausible is that Prince's sister is Betsy DeVois, who is President* Trump's Secretary of Education (and arguably the least-qualified member of Trump's cabinet, other than maybe Ben Carson).
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 be likely to require major concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions.
Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.
What weighs against it is that Prince seems to have a long track record of, well, stupid fuckery involving overstating his influence. (Not to mention the odd war crime.)
Guess we'll see how this plays out.
3 comments:
I was wondering what happened to him, sorta hoping he just didn't end up working for Trump, but assuming he'll just go away almost never seems to be a good idea.
-Doug in Oakland
Couple of Fedeal beefs with this...so, we'll see. Perhaps they were coordinating to borrow the Russian Education Agency's teaching materials, cause there's no gays in Russia?
Soon won't be any Jehovah's Witnesses there, either.
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