Much more on Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince and his testimony before Congress later today, but first Josh Marshall and the fine folks at TPM provide an indispensable primer on the Little Prince.
Erik Prince is 37 years old. He founded Blackwater in 1997 with money he inherited from his father, Edgar Prince, the head of Prince Automative. The elder Prince and his wife were major Republican and conservative activists and funders. And Prince himself co-founded The Family Research Council with Gary Bauer and apparently provided the key early funding for the group.
According to Bauer, “I can say without hesitation that, without Ed and Elsa and their wonderful children, there simply would not be a Family Research Council.”
Prince’s sister, Betsy DeVos, is married is the former Chair of the Michigan Republican Party and her husband is Dick DeVos, failed candidate for governor of Michigan and scion of the DeVos family, founders of Amway and major funders of Republican and conservative causes.
Amway is privately owned by the DeVos and van Andel families. And to give some sense of the scale of their political giving, according to a 2005 Center for Public Integrity study, Dick & Betsy DeVos were the fifth largest political givers in the country during the 2004 election cycle. Richard DeVos Sr. & his wife were ranked third. And Jay Van Andel was ranked second.
Let’s just say they give some real money to the Republican party and its candidates. And of course there are the DeVos Family Foundations which give money to conservative causes.
Back back to Betsy’s brother Erik Prince, founder and CEO of Blackwater. Back in 1990 Prince interned for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA). Blackwater’s lobbyist in DC is Paul Behrends, a former Rohrabacher aide who he met when the two worked for the congressman. Later he interned in the first Bush White House. But after doing so, he and his father broke with President Bush and supported the insurgent candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan.
The then-22 year old Prince told the Grand Rapids Press, “I interned with the Bush administration for six months. I saw a lot of things I didn’t agree with — homosexual groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act, those kind of bills. I think the administration has been indifferent to a lot of conservative concerns.”
In addition to running Blackwater Prince also serves on the board of Christian Freedom International.
And as powerful as these massively wealthy GOP donors of the Prince family and friends are — quite literally billionaire political activists of the First Order of Wingnuttia here — Erik Prince is still planning on taking the stand by all accounts. As I’ve said on many an occasion, the question is “Why?”
What’s driving him? Professional and personal pride bordering on arrogance? Marching orders from on high that the dutiful ex-soldier is bound to follow? Or has a deal already been cut?
We’ll find out in a few hours.
Keep in mind the report made to Waxman’s committee isn’t exactly filled with good news for Blackwater either.
Guards working in Iraq for Blackwater USA have shot innocent Iraqi civilians and have sought to cover up the incidents, sometimes with the help of the State Department, a report to a Congressional committee said today.
The report, based largely on internal Blackwater e-mail messages and State Department documents, depicts the security contractor as being staffed with reckless, shoot-first guards who were not always sober and did not always stop to see who or what was hit by their bullets.
In one incident, the State Department and Blackwater agreed to pay $15,000 to the family of a man killed by “a drunken Blackwater contractor,” the report said. As a State Department official wrote, “We would like to help them resolve this so we can continue with our protective mission.”
The report was compiled by the Democratic majority staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is scheduled to hold a hearing on Blackwater activities on Tuesday. That hearing is sure to be contentious now that the chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, and other members have the staff’s findings to study.
A Blackwater spokeswoman, Anne Tyrrell, had no immediate comment. “We look forward to setting the record straight,” she told The Associated Press. Erik Prince, Blackwater’s founder and chairman, is to testify before Mr. Waxman’s panel. The State Department said several of its senior officials would address the issues in the report at the hearing on Tuesday.
But here’s the worst part for Blackwater and the GOP:
The report is likely to raise questions not only about the wisdom of employing private security forces in Iraq, but also about the basic American mission in the country.
Let the games begin.