A billionaire mercenary using the legal system to try to silence our journalism

Details: Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00; Written by editor

Let’s be clear: Erik Prince’s lawsuit against The Intercept is aimed at intimidating us.

Our journalists aren’t going to stop reporting on this billionaire’s mercenary activities. We stand by our reporting, and we’re fighting back in court.

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Jeremy Scahill and other Intercept journalists have reported on Prince for years, tracing his activities from the days of Blackwater’s deadly operations in Iraq to his more recent turn as a Trump apparatchik.

He sold the company formerly known as Blackwater in 2010, but we’ve continued to report on his activities as he’s pursued a variety of new ventures in the murky world of international private security.

Now he claims that an article examining efforts to sell military services to a sanctioned Russian company defamed him.

Just months ago, Prince told a reporter from another outlet that “if you publish private information about me, I’ll be sure to return the favor.”

At The Intercept, we never want to walk away from any important story for fear that legal harassment could shut us down. But to keep bringing the actions of the wealthy and powerful to light, we need to be ready to fight — and that means reaching this critical year-end goal.

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