[BREAKING] Trump Ally Erik Prince Violated Libya Arms Embargo

BY Tara Dublin February 19, 2021

A late-breaking bombshell from the New York Times on Friday night revealed that Erik Prince, a longtime Trump ally and the brother of the former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, is in violation of the Libya Arms Embargo. The Times cited a U.N. Report that Prince, the former head of the security contractor Blackwater Worldwide, sent weapons to a militia commander who was attempting to overthrow the government.

Prince, a former Navy SEAL, is alleged to have deployed a force of foreign mercenaries armed with weapons with cyberwarfare capabilities to eastern Libya at the height of a major battle in 2019. As part of the operation, which the report said cost $80 million, the mercenaries also planned to form a hit squad that could track down and kill selected Libyan commanders.

WASHINGTON – OCTOBER 02: Erik Prince, chairman of the Prince Group, LLC and Blackwater USA, testifies during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill October 2, 2007 in Washington, DC. The committee is hearing testimony from officials regarding private security contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

This is far from Prince’s first international military scandal. In 2017, his private Blackwater mercenaries killed seventeen Iraqi citizens. The accusation that Prince violated the U.N.’s arms embargo on Libya exposes him to possible sanctions, including a travel ban and a freeze on his bank accounts and other assets, though Prince has so far refused to cooperate with the U.N.

Confidential UN report: Erik Prince violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya by sending weapons to a militia commander (scoop by @declanwalsh)

For some background on that commander (Haftar), and his alleged systematic war crimes👇https://t.co/lAcV0iv214

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) February 19, 2021

He may want to reconsider, as the report (which is comprised of 121 pages of code names, cover stories, offshore bank accounts, and secretive weapons transfers spanning eight countries) raises the question of whether Mr. Prince played on his ties to the Trump administration to pull off the Libya operation. Investigators had also obtained phone records showing that Prince’s friend and former partner made several calls to the main White House switchboard in late July 2019, after the mercenary operation ran into trouble.

BREAKING: A UN report says Betsy DeVos' brother Erik Prince violated an int'l arms embargo on Libya by deploying a force of mercenaries to help a militia leader try to overthrow the gov't, according to reporting by @nytimes. Here's what else you need to know about the Trump ally pic.twitter.com/VTxqYVTsPN

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) February 19, 2021

[This is a developing story, please check back for updates]