The Dept. of Justice is currently deciding whether or not to charge Erik Prince, a top Trump ally who has been linked to the Trump transition team. Prince, a former Navy SEAL, is the founder of the private, para-military company originally known as Blackwater, and is also the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
The Wall Street Journal reports the DOJ is “in the late stages” of deciding if it should charge Prince after “an investigation into whether he lied to Congress in its Russia probe and violated U.S. export laws in his business dealings overseas.”
Prince could potentially be charged with making false statements to Congress and violating the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, including allegations of arms-trafficking.
Prince’s remarks to Congress in 2017 about his meeting with an advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin appear to be problematic. Those comments at the time came under scrutiny but last year the Mueller report appeared to make them seem contradictory.
“A Lebanese-American businessman, George Nader,” the WSJ reports, “who pleaded guilty in Virginia federal court in January to charges including possessing child pornography, approached Mr. Prince about Mr. Dimitriev in early January 2017 and said the Russians were ‘looking to build a link with the incoming Trump Administration,’ the report said.”
Read the entire WSJ report here.