Follow up on Prince's private CIA-type agency

If you need it, here's a background post on Erick Prince's proposal for private spies to serve Trump. And here's The Intercept's story on the same. Now we have CNN fact-checking the administration's denial of such a thing.

National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton told CNN that "the White House does not and would not support such a proposal" and that, "I can find no evidence that this ever came to the attention of anyone at the NSC or (White House) at all."

  The Intercept

Also, our favorite smarmy, lying press secretary tried to deny it without actually denying it.

The Intercept was first to report the proposal. A CIA spokesperson told The Intercept, "You have been provided wildly inaccurate information by people peddling an agenda."

A spokesperson for Prince denied the claims in a statement to CNN's Erin Burnett.

[...]

The founder of the controversial military contracting firm Blackwater, Erik Prince, and his allies lobbied contacts inside the administration to provide the CIA with a private network of intelligence contractors, according to a US official with knowledge of the proposal. "This idea is going nowhere," the official said and stressed neither the agency nor the director of the CIA is or was ever considering the proposal. National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton told CNN that "the White House does not and would not support such a proposal" and that, "I can find no evidence that this ever came to the attention of anyone at the NSC or (White House) at all."

[...]

The Intercept was first to report the proposal. A CIA spokesperson told The Intercept, "You have been provided wildly inaccurate information by people peddling an agenda." A spokesperson for Prince denied the claims in a statement to CNN's Erin Burnett.

"The allegations made in Intercept's latest article about Erik are completely false and this was made clear to them before the article was published. Any meetings Erik did have with members of the intelligence community, current or former, focused on his well-publicized plan for saving the US taxpayer $42 billion in Afghanistan," the statement said.

Yeah, that's another problem. We don't need more private soldiers to do our nefarious bidding around the world.

Prince was also questioned by House lawmakers last month over reports that he met the head of a Russian investment fund in an apparent effort to set up a backchannel for Russian communication with the Trump administration, and that senior Trump officials had authorized the meeting.

[...]

He also downplayed his ties to the Trump's team, merely saying he was a Trump donor and had met the President on only one occasion, the sources said. CNN has previously reported that Prince met with members of Trump's incoming national security team during the presidential transition, and that he boasted about his influence in the Trump orbit around that same time.

More work for the Mueller team.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.