And now the Trump-Russia connections include notorious Blackwater founder Erik Prince.
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. [...]
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.
The talks took place in the Seychelles islands about a week before the inauguration, were held over two days, and apparently were meant to explore whether the two sides could come to an arrangement over Iran and Syria. But while in January Prince was giving the impression of being Trump's "unofficial envoy", now that the meeting's come to light his spokesman is angrily revising that notion.
“Erik had no role on the transition team. This is a complete fabrication,” said a spokesman for Prince in a statement. “The meeting had nothing to do with President Trump. Why is the so-called under-resourced intelligence community messing around with surveillance of American citizens when they should be hunting terrorists?”
Well, but that's the thing, Erik. The intelligence community isn't messing around with surveillance of American citizens, they're surveilling suspicious foreign agents and people closely connected to Donald Trump keep freaking popping up in those conversations, over and over, whether it be in Trump Tower or in the Seychelles. You'll have to forgive them if after the dozenth or so time it began to look a little damn odd.
So that's another data point for the Trump-Russia speculation files. And though Prince currently is denying it, the Washington Post’s sources stated that the officials that arranged the meeting with Prince, for their parts, seemed to be under the specific impression that Prince was acting as an unofficial Trump “representative.” Whether Prince was lying to them then, or is lying to the Post now, has yet to be determined.