Tuesday's entry in our continuing series, What In The Fck Is Going On Here?, takes us to the golden shores of the Seychelles Island, where, as The Washington Post informs us, a curious meeting took place as gentle breezes blew and seabirds wheeled in the sky.

The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladi­mir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials. The meeting took place around Jan. 11 — nine days before Trump's inauguration — in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean, officials said. Though the full agenda remains unclear, the UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, a Trump administration objective that would be likely to require major concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions. Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.

On any list of loathsome Americans, Erik Prince has to be right at the top. He got rich behind Blackwater, the renegade mercenary army that is responsible for a great deal of the hatred directed toward this country in the Middle East. (Privatized hatred was Blackwater's primary gift to the world.) Since his brand cratered (Blackwater was renamed Xe, pronounced, I believe, "Kill." It is now known as Academi. Why? Who knows?), Prince has become an International Man of Sleaze, taking on clients from China to the UAE, which is probably how the meeting in the Seychelles came about, since it was brokered by the UAE government, and since prying Russia and Iran apart is something that the UAE would love to see happen. But what in the hell is Erik Prince doing negotiating on behalf of the United States government, even given the fact that administrations of both parties have done business with him overseas?

Well, Erik Prince was one of the first—and most vigorous—passengers on the Trump Train. He was a member of a kind of shadow transition team and, as Jeremy Scahill told Amy Goodman in this interview from Democracy Now!, Prince is also tied in with Robert Mercer, the hedge-fund cowboy who is one of the primary financial powers behind El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago.

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.

And, of course, Prince's sister, Betsy DeVos, is now the Secretary of Education.

Erik Prince is a focal point for the confluence of influence peddling that has become this administration's trademark. He is tied into an unaccountable military financed by an unaccountable money power. And he was out there brokering deals in our name. This might make a kind of mad sense if the administration on whose behalf he was running these errands weren't also shot through with a kind of manifest incompetence. But I do hear the Seychelles are quite nice that time of year.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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