First Goldman Sachs, now Blackwater:
Federal prosecutors charged the former president of Blackwater Worldwide and four other former senior company officials on Friday with weapons violations and making false statements in the first criminal inquiry to reach into the top management ranks of the private security company.
The executives were some of the closest advisers to Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince, and helped him steer the company during its swift rise to become the leading contractor providing security for American diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan, working for the State Department, the C.I.A. and the Pentagon.
Okay, I am going to admit that I thought both Goldman Sachs and Blackwater were effectively untouchable. One has all the money and the other has all the guns. So, color me impressed by today’s news. A little bit more of this and I’ll have to start reconsidering my biggest gripe with the Obama administration.
And just when I was getting resigned to the Look Forward mantra. This is mixing it up big time. And with BW are we looking at the Prosecutor’s technique of little fish flipping for the big fish?
Be still my heart!
Interesting that this is happening just before a tough election season.
I am surprised. Really surprised by this.
Was hoping it’d be for murder or rape, but I guess criminal felony charges are criminal felony charges.
That takes place inside the barred walls
It takes times to build a case, and it takes even more time to build a strong case. There is no point in wasting taxpayer money if you don’t have a case that you feel confident in winning. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we see more of this in the near future, and it probably has less to do with an approaching election than it has to with the fact that Obama has now been in office for more than a year and one major legislative initiative has been completed (health care) and another is about to be battled over. Obama is nothing if not careful and deliberate, and I think we will definitely come to appreciate it.
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See my recent diary covering the Blackwater – Camden County Sheriff’s joint venture in AK-47’s.
Xe Foreign and Domestic Contracts
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
And one of the consequences is the slow, steady shift of the exercise of governmental power in the direction of the winners.
Eric Holder’s Justice Department, Mary Schapiro’s Securities & Exchange Commission, and Hilda Solis’ Labor Department are some of the consequences of Obama’s election.
For executives at Blackwater, Goldman Sachs, and Massey Energy, those are bad consequences.
For those of us who felt our country had been hijacked by the previous administration, those are good consequences.
Good news, but the absence of the boss criminal, Erik Prince, leaves a gaping hole. I hope it’s because they’re going to use the ones they did indict to build a solid case against him for far worse crimes than are covered by these charges.