The White House is said to be considering a proposal developed by a private contracting firm to build a global spy network that would operate separately from U.S. intelligence agencies.
Blackwater founder Erik Prince reportedly developed the proposals with the help of Oliver North for the Trump administration.
In a story on Tuesday, The Intercept revealed the plan and its purpose, according to sources, to work around ‘deep state’ actors trying to undercut President Donald Trump within in the U.S. intelligence agencies.
The White House is said to be considering a proposal developed by a private contracting firm to build a global spy network that would operate separately from U.S. intelligence agencies put together by Erik Prince of Blackwater fame
Program is said to be heralded by CIA Director Mike Pompeo, seen here at the White House in June
Prince reportedly developed the proposals with the help of Oliver North for the Trump administration. North was convicted of crimes in association with Iran-Contra that were reversed
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she was ‘not aware’ of anything like what was described this afternoon.
She denied that a new spy network was under discussion – although she admittedly had not had a conversation with the president about it.
According to the Intercept, Prince, a retired CIA officer, and North, a former marine, pitched the plan to keep enemies of the administration from interfering with the White House’s covert operations.
The operation would see spies with no official cover deployed to ‘denied areas’ that government workers are prohibited from entering such as Iran and North Korea.
Referring to CIA Director Mike Pompeo, one source told the Intercept: ‘Pompeo can’t trust the CIA bureaucracy, so we need to create this thing that reports just directly to him.
‘It is a direct-action arm, totally off the books,’ the source said. ‘The whole point is this is supposed to report to the president and Pompeo directly.
North’s role in the operation was the sell the proposal to the White House, the publication said.
A noted historian and author, North was a member of the National Security Council in the Ronald Reagan administration during Iran-Contra, an illegal arms selling scheme. He was convicted of crimes in association with the scandal in 1980s but they were vacated and dismissed by 1991.
Pompeo himself lobbied the White House to adopt the plan to help Trump get around the deep state, according to a report
Contributors to the effort are said to have met with Trump donors asking them to help fund the operation.
‘I can find no evidence that this ever came to the attention of anyone at the NSC or [White House] at all,’ said Michael Anton, a spokesperson for the National Security Council. ‘The White House does not and would not support such a proposal.
Sanders said during her daily briefing with reporters that she also is ‘not aware of any plans’ that are ‘similar to that definition.’
According to the Intercept, Pompeo himself lobbied the White House to adopt the plan.
A CIA official told the publication, however, that its sources were wrong. ‘You have been provided wildly inaccurate information by people peddling an agenda.’
Prince is said to have been enlisted by Trump to help with numerous ventures since he took office, including a plan to use private contractors in Afghanistan. He’s the founder of Blackwater, a since overhauled government security firm that had top-dollar contracts with the State Department and the CIA.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she was ‘not aware’ of anything like what was described this afternoon
Blackwater has a checkered past, with three guards being convicted of manslaughter or murder in 2014 in response to an incident in Iraq seven years earlier where they opened fire and killed 17 people and wounded 20 more.
In 2009 Prince resigned as CEO. The next year he fully unsaddled himself and moved to Abu Dhabi to work for the crown prince.
His sister, Betsy DeVos, is the education secretary. Prince manages Frontier Resource Group, a private equity firm, and has residences in Virginia and the UAE.
He was seen in Washington at the end of last month on Capitol Hill as he testified before a closed-door session of the House Intelligence Committee.