Erik Prince

◼ Origin

Erik Prince built a private army, sold its services to the US government at $1 billion in no-bid contracts, and on September 16, 2007, his employees massacred 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square — shooting into a crowd, firing on a child, killing people who were trying to flee. The State Department's own investigators called it unprovoked. Blackwater guards were convicted of murder and manslaughter; Prince was not charged. He separately settled with the State Department for $42 million over 288 ITAR violations — illegal weapons exports, including shipments to Sudan in violation of sanctions. The Mueller Report documented his 2017 Seychelles backchannel meeting, arranged to establish back-channel communications between the Trump transition team and Russian interests. He lied to Congress about it. He was not charged for that either. Prince then founded a new private military company, Frontier Services Group, positioned to operate in Africa and beyond, beyond accountability, beyond transparency, beyond any democratic oversight. His sister Betsy DeVos served as Secretary of Education. His family network — DeVos, Prince, Heritage Foundation, the broader Christian nationalist donor apparatus — has spent decades systematically defunding the public institutions that might have stopped men like him. The massacre at Nisour Square was not a failure of the system. It was the system operating as designed.

◼ Self-Made Verdict — YES

Founded and commanded Blackwater, whose contractors massacred 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians at Nisour Square in 2007. Subsequently pursued mercenary operations in Libya in violation of UN arms embargo, resulting in criminal indictment in Austria. Testified falsely to Congress about his role in a Trump-Russia backchannel meeting in the Seychelles.

◼ Documented marks