By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The FBI is not happy with how prosecutors handled the indictment of Blackwater security contractors involved in a deadly shooting in Iraq, saying political appointees in the Justice Department intentionally undermined the case. The FBI wanted to have charges filed that could have sent the defendants to prison for life. Citing…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Four years after a judge dismissed the case, four former Blackwater security contractors were charged Thursday in the 2007 attack on Iraqi civilians in which 17 people were killed, Time reports. The men, who were hired to guard U.S. diplomats, are accused of using machine guns and grenades at a Baghdad Square…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Blackwater, the controversial security contractor that got in a whole lot of legal trouble for its deadly cowboy antics in Iraq, is trying once again to scrub clean that bad image. First it tried by changing its name to Xe Services LLC. But inevitably most articles included the phrase “formerly known…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com In their apparent zest to learn the truth about a controversial ATF program “Operation Fast and Furious”, and generate public pressure, staffers working for House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) may have gone too far — at least according to committee member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). The website Talking Points…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Two former Blackwater employees have been convicted in federal court in of involuntary manslaughter while working Afghanistan in 2009. Justin Cannon, 27, of Corpus Christi, Tex. and Christopher Drotleff, 29, of Virginia Beach, Va., were convicted Friday in Norfolk U.S. District Court. Both were working for Blackwater as contractors for the…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — Blackwater Worldwide, the security firm that became a toxic symbol of America in Afghanistan and Iraq, may be getting a bigger break than it ever imagined. James Risen of the New York Times reports that after nearly four years the federal government’s investigations and prosecutions against the Blackwater Worldwide…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Five ex-executives from Blackwater, the highly controsersial security firm, were charged Friday with illegally acquiring automatic weapons and filing false documents. Some weapons were gifts to the Kingdom of Jordan in hopes of landing a lucrative contract to build and run a training center, authorities said. The 15-count federal indictment out…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The infamous Blackwater Worldwide comapny may have changed its name a while ago, but it hasn’t managed to erase its troubled past. The New York Times reports that the Justice Department is investigating “whether officials of Blackwater Worldwide tried to bribe Iraqi government officials in hopes of retaining the firm’s security…
