![]() It was not clear if Prince’s new endeavors in the UAE were approved by U.S. ![]() The Stop Outsourcing Security Act was not supported by Obama and was never enacted, but Hillary Clinton’s early support of the bill put her directly in the crosshairs of Erik Prince, who had made his fortune from government outsourcing of security services.Īfter resigning from Blackwater, Prince went to live in the United Arab Emirates and with $529 million in funding from the UAE created an 800-member mercenary army, staffed largely by men from Colombia, to “conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts.” Constellis was purchased in 2016 for $1 billion by Apollo Global Management, however Constellis is now up for sale and took initial bids earlier this year. The Stop Outsourcing Security Act, introduced in the Senate at the end of 2007 by Bernie Sanders, took direct aim at Blackwater, as well as DynCorp owned by Stephen Feinberg, and Triple Canopy, a security company later bought by Constellis, which also bought Blackwater (which had been renamed Xe Services, and then Academi). In 2008, then Senator Hillary Clinton signed on as the first co-sponsor of a bill to ban the use of State Department private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. A series of investigations and lawsuits followed and Erik Prince resigned as Blackwater CEO in March 2009. In 2007 Blackwater employees shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians and seriously wounded 20 civilians, in what became known as the Nisour Square massacre. Throughout the 2000’s Blackwater grew to become a primary military subcontractor for the CIA and the State Department, earning $2 billion, from work such as secretly arming and maintaining drones in Pakistan and training CIA hit teams. Erik had returned home and created the private security contractor company Blackwater. In 1993 Prince joined the Navy SEALs.Įrik’s father passed away in 1995 and his company was sold a year later for $1.35 billion. Prince considered himself a libertarian and developed a strong conservative network, including interning with Huntington Beach, California Republican Rep. Naval Academy and did an internship in the early 1990s in the White House under George H.W. Erik’s father, Edgar, founded Prince Corporation, an auto parts and machinery manufacturer that in 1972 developed a sun visor with an illuminated vanity mirror.Īfter Erik Prince graduated from Hillsdale College, he briefly attended and then quit the U.S. Secretary of Education and married to Dick DeVos, whose father co-founded Amway. Formative YearsĮrik Prince was raised in Michigan with three older sisters, including Betsy - who is now U.S. Time will tell if Prince will succeed, or if he will follow in the footsteps of Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort and encounter legal ramifications from Mueller’s investigation. Prince has re-emerged in the past few years, pitching new deals and leveraging strong connections within the Trump administration, to promote his career. Prince who founded the private security company Blackwater seemed to reach his peak around 2006, became embroiled in highly publicized investigations into civilian deaths in Iraq the next year, and then left his company and country, to rebuild his career overseas. Among this group of frenetic deal-makers, Erik Prince may be the most prolific in pitching and launching new business ideas, while striving to spread his influence and operations around the world. In the Trump-Russia story, a few people in Trump’s orbit have appeared repeatedly, attending ‘secret’ meetings and pursuing self-enriching business deals - Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Elliot Broidy, George Nader.
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