Blackwater founder Erik Prince will be subject of a criminal referral to the Justice Department on Tuesday.
During a Washington Post Live event, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the House Intelligence Committee, of which he is chairman, would “going to make a criminal referral today” for misleading the panel.
After reading special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, Schiff said, “I do believe there is very strong evidence that he willingly misled the committee.”
.@repadamschiff says he plans to file a criminal referral with the Justice Department today on President Donald Trump’s associate Erik Prince, alleging that Prince willingly misled the House Intelligence Committee. https://t.co/FBWpswZQW9 #postlive pic.twitter.com/rkvhOPQBiH
— Washington Post Live (@postlive) April 30, 2019
Prince, a former Navy SEAL and an associate of President Trump, told congressional investigators in November 2017 that a post-election meeting in the Seychelles islands with a Russian financier close to Russian President Vladimir Putin was a chance encounter.
However, Mueller found Prince set up the meeting with Kirill Dmitriev nine days before Trump’s inauguration in advance.
Mueller’s team also found the man who helped put the meeting together, Lebanese American businessman George Nader, told Prince the Russians wanted to start creating ties with the incoming Trump administration and that Prince had indicated to him that the Trump team was on board. Prince had told Congress he was not acting as a representative of the Trump transition team.
