Blackwater founder Erik Prince, ex-CIA officer John R. Maguire, and Iran-Contra linchpin Oliver North have been shopping a proposal to President Trump's White House and CIA Director Mike Pompeo to create a private global network of expendable spies that would report directly to Trump and Pompeo, and Pompeo wants Trump to approve the contract, The Intercept reports, citing "several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals." The Intercept confirms and expands on BuzzFeed's report that intelligence contractor Amyntor Group, Maguire's employer, is a potential organizer of the new private spy network.
"Pompeo can't trust the CIA bureaucracy, so we need to create this thing that reports just directly to him," a former senior U.S. intelligence official tells The Intercept, paraphrasing White House discussions. "The whole point is this is supposed to report to the president and Pompeo directly." Maguire was on Trump's transition team and used to work for Prince, and North, a Fox News regular, was reportedly brought in to help enlist Trump's support. The apparent pitch to Trump was creating an intelligence apparatus that will counter the "deep state" trying to undermine his presidency.
"John [Maguire] was certain that the deep state was going to kick the president out of office within a year," a person who discussed it with Maguire told The Intercept. Maguire also told at least two people that H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, had approved surveillance on Stephen Bannon, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump, The Intercept reports, and "used a burner phone to send information gathered through the surveillance to a facility in Cyprus owned by George Soros." The National Security Council, CIA, and Prince all denied the global spy network; NSC spokesman Michael Anton said "the White House does not and would not support such a proposal." Current and former intelligence officials say that's not true. You can read more at The Intercept. Peter Weber
Former Vice President Joe Biden is really, really close to running for president. There's just one thing holding him back: his family.
Biden rejected a 2016 run because his campaign would've had to start just after the May 2015 death of his son Beau Biden. And this time around, Biden is worried opponents will turn his family into a weapon, Biden aides tell NBC News.
Even though Biden hasn't announced an official run or even an exploratory committee, primary polls have consistently put him on top of the extra large Democratic field. He's reportedly joined potential opponents in discussing a run with former President Barack Obama, and in recent weeks, upped his likelihood of running "from 70, to 80 and even more recently 90 percent," Democrats and party figures tell NBC News. He's also reportedly called and congratulated some 2020 candidates on their announcements, despite saying in December he's "the most qualified person in the country to be president."
Biden has also gone so far as to threaten to physically fight President Trump, so there's no concern over his willingness to rumble. He's just worried about "reprehensible" attacks on his family — something Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) explained when speaking with NBC News after consulting with Biden about 2020. "Trump demonstrated in the 2016 election an enthusiasm for attacking not just his opponents but his family, including famously by making things up," Coons said, adding that he thinks Biden should "let others take up the mantle of defending his family."
Still, Biden has a few more "gut-check conversations with his children and grandchildren" to check off before making a final decision, NBC News says. Read more about his reservations at NBC News. Kathryn Krawczyk
Chicago police said on Thursday that actor Jussie Smollett staged a fake hate crime because he wasn't happy with his Empire salary.
After bringing Smollett into custody and charging him with filing a false police report, police said in a press conference that Smollett orchestrated a "publicity stunt" that has left a "scar on Chicago." Authorities for the first time alleged a motive in the case, saying Smollett was dissatisfied with his pay.
Smollett had claimed he was attacked by two men who beat him, tied a rope around his neck, and screamed, "This is MAGA country!" But Chicago police said Thursday he actually paid the two men, two Nigerian brothers, $3,500 to attack him, and that they have the checks to prove it. The brothers, one of whom worked on Empire, were the ones to tell police about Smollett's motive, authorities added.
Police also said Smollett was not hurt "other than scratches on his face" and that these injuries "were most likely self-inflicted." Smollett had said he received a threatening letter prior to the alleged attack, but police said Smollett was also responsible for sending this letter.
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson went after Smollett for his alleged hoax, asking, "Why would anyone, especially an African-American man, use the symbolism of a noose to make false accusations?" Johnson also said that Smollett "took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career" and that what he did is "shameful." Brendan Morrow
Apple is looking for another route into your wallet.
After facing pretty slow adoption of its Apple Pay system, Apple has teamed up with Goldman Sachs to create an iPhone-linked credit card, The Wall Street Journal reports. Employees will test the cards within the next few weeks, and it'll be available to the public later this year, the Journal says.
iPhone sales have slowed recently, possibly as customers start to realize Apple is charging more and more for a barely changed product. So along with its forays into Hollywood, news curation, and music streaming, Apple is "turning to fee-generating services" to hopefully make an additional $50 billion by 2020, the Journal says.
Meanwhile, mega-bank Goldman Sachs is trying to recoup losses in securities trading with its new online consumer bank Marcus, the Journal says. Still, it hasn't exactly caught on with average consumers — something the bank is seemingly trying to correct with this reported Apple collaboration. Goldman Sachs has never issued a credit card before, so it's reportedly designated $200 million to build its own payment system. It's also building "customer-support call centers around the country," sources tell the Journal.
The so-called Apple Pay card will be on MasterCard's payment network, and customers will reportedly earn about 2 percent cash back, per the Journal. That percentage could be higher on Apple product purchases, some sources said. It'll all reportedly be integrated with the iPhone's Wallet app, allowing users to "set spending goals, track their rewards, and manage their balances," the Journal continues. Read more at The Wall Street Journal. Kathryn Krawczyk
Two polls Wednesday found that a plurality of Virginia voters don't think Gov. Ralph Northam (D) should resign over his revelation that he dressed in blackface once in 1984, after a photo of a man in blackface standing next to a man in a KKK robe was found on his 1984 medical school yearbook page. In Quinnipiac's poll, 56 percent of black voters opposed Northam's resignation. There are several possible explanations for Northam's apparent political survival, but one of them is that blatantly racist yearbook photos were shockingly common in the 1970s and 1980s, USA Today found.
In a review of 900 yearbooks from 120 universities and colleges in 25 states in the '70s and '80s, USA Today found "students saluting in Nazi uniforms on Halloween or wearing orange paint and a headdress to depict a stereotype of a Native American on game day," a swastika banner, and photos of "'slave sale' fundraisers that auctioned off young women, 'plantation parties,' and a 'sharecroppers ball,'" the newspaper said. "But the vast majority of the offensive material show racist imagery, such as students in blackface or KKK robes," sometimes including nooses and mock lynchings.
"The volume of shocking imagery found in the examination, which was not comprehensive, suggests that there are likely more yearbooks that recorded racism on campuses nationwide — and countless more acts never captured on camera or submitted for publication," USA Today notes. Experts called this a systemwide failure at universities, and Andre M. Perry at the Brookings Institute had a theory. "The way to fit in, sadly, is to make fun of black people," he told USA Today. "It's a unifying act. It's sad but racism pulls people, particularly white people, together." You can read more at USA Today. Peter Weber