There are some people who are especially harmful.
Erik Prince was a center of evil in the Bush presidency, creating a mercenary force embraced by the Bush administration, allowing it to both do things without the values and accountability under the law of the military, and to make great profits at taxpayer expense, which could then be turned around to political support for the politicians ensuring the tax dollars… etc.
His mercenary company, Blackwater, became so infamous that in a smooth PR move it changed its name to one far harder to discuss, “Xe”.
Prince has been at the center of all kinds of evil by Republicans.
And so, of course, he’s been close to trump. Jeremy Scahill — who has been the best exposer of Prince, who wrote the book ‘Blackwater’— had this to say:
Well, you know, remember, Erik Prince views himself as the rightful heir to the legacy of "Wild Bill" Donovan, who was the head of the agency that was the precursor to the CIA. And, you know, immediately after 9/11, Erik Prince became very, very close to a number of people within the CIA and also Dick Cheney and Dick Cheney’s office. And they jointly came up with this idea that Erik Prince could run a kind of off-the-books hit squad that could roam the world conducting assassinations for the United States, and there would be no effective paper trail and no ability for Congress to engage in any oversight...
Right, well, Robert Mercer, the billionaire hedge funder, his daughter Rebekah ran one of the most important super PACs to Trump, Make America Number 1 super PAC. And Trump—and Erik Prince and his mother, Elsa, were two of the largest contributors to one of the most significant super PACs that supported Donald Trump. Erik Prince is very close to Robert Mercer. Prince was also at the "Heroes and Villains" party that Mercer threw in Long Island after the election. And, in fact, there’s a picture that Peter Thiel, the right-wing billionaire who destroyed Gawker—a picture of Peter Thiel, Donald Trump and Erik Prince, that Peter Thiel says is not safe for the internet. But it’s clear that Erik Prince, through Betsy DeVos, through Robert Mercer and through his very right-wing paramilitary crowd, has the ear of President-elect Donald Trump. And our understanding, from a very well-placed source, is that Prince has even been advising Trump on his selections for the staffing of the Defense Department and the State Department.
So, now, the DeVos appointment is making more sense — it’s not just Pence.
And that’s one more very good reason to oppose DeVos.
I know there is some vague awareness of Prince having had a secret advisory role with trump, but I think it’s under-investigated and under-reported.
Like Bannon, trump is the type to find a new key trusted evildoers and empower them now that he has the enormous power of the presidency to share.
It was an incredible racket under Bush — all the Cheney/Prince/Rove/Norquist K Street Project organized crime ruling the country — and this is seeming similar to to head that direction.
Well, however evil he is, at least he’s serving the US, Republicans might say to defend him.
From Wikipedia:
After Blackwater faced mounting legal problems in the United States, Prince was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and moved to Abu Dhabi in 2010. His task was to assemble an 800-member troupe of foreign troops for the U.A.E., which was planned months before the Arab Spring.[33] He helped the UAE found a new company Reflex Responses, or R2, with 51 percent local ownership, carefully avoiding his name on corporate documents. He worked to oversee the effort and recruit troops, among others from Executive Outcomes, a former South African mercenary firm hired by several African governments during the 1990s to defeat violent rebellions in addition to protecting oil and diamond reserves...
Prince currently heads a private equity firm called Frontier Resource Group and is chairman of Frontier Services Group Ltd, a Bermuda-incorporated logistics and transport company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.[35] Frontier Services Group is backed by China's state-owned CITIC Group and Hong Kong-based investor Chun Shun Ko.[36][37] Prince's ventures advise and support Chinese investment in oil and gas in Africa.
Oh hell, while I’m at it, his biography mentions he was politically influenced by being a White House intern earlier, quoting him:
I saw a lot of things I didn't agree with--homosexual groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act.