House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff announced that he would be referring Erik Prince for criminal prosecution for perjury.
Rep. Schiff said at a Washington Post event:
Adam Schiff says at WaPo event that he is sending a criminal referral to the Justice Department today for Erik Prince, saying there‘s “very strong evidence” Prince “willingly” misled the House Intelligence Committee when he testified in 2017.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 30, 2019
Prince lied to Congress about a meeting in the Seychelles Islands nine days before Trump took office with a Putin ally, “Prince later told congressional officials examining Russia’s interference in the presidential election that the meeting happened by chance and was not taken at the behest of the incoming administration — testimony that congressional Democrats now think was false. Prince told special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigators a version of the Seychelles meeting that is at odds in several key respects with his sworn testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in November 2017.”
The criminal referral goes to William Barr and the DOJ, which means that nothing may come of it, but the House Intelligence Committee chairman is making a point.
Lying to his committee will not be tolerated by the Democratic majority. Anyone who lies to the Intel committee now, unlike when Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was the chairman, does so at their own risk.
The good old days of lying to Congress having the Republican majority turn a blind eye are long gone.
Prince clearly perjured himself. The story he told Mueller was different than what he told Congress. He was lying somewhere, and since Mueller had the power to criminally charge him, it wasn’t to the Special Counsel.
Erik Prince isn’t going to be the last person that House Democrats refer for criminal prosecution, as perjury was a main cog in the Russia cover-up for Trump.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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