GQ: Have You Heard the One About the Clinton-Soros Plot to Overthrow Trump?

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Have You Heard the One About the Clinton-Soros Plot to Overthrow Trump?

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Across Washington, the sort of theories that once elicited laughs are now finding powerful proponents. Why are Erik Prince and other self-proclaimed “nationalists” in Trump’s orbit so concerned with liberal billionaire George Soros?

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On Monday, The Intercept reported that along with an associate, Prince—the Blackwater founder and all-around international man of intrigue—has been pitching Donald Trump’s White House and the president’s allies on the creation of a private network of spies that would operate outside the normal structure of the CIA. Prince has denied the Intercept story, though CNN, citing an unnamed official, confirmed its broad outlines on Tuesday.

But there’s more. The Intercept reported that Prince’s partner in the venture, a former CIA officer, has been making some mighty wild claims: That White House national-security adviser H.R. McMaster has ordered surveillance of Trump’s family and of Steve Bannon, and that McMaster has “used a burner phone to send information gathered through the surveillance to a facility in Cyprus owned by George Soros.”

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Prince himself recently endorsed a separate jaw-dropping theory about Soros: He suspects the magnate of trying to orchestrate an effort to sabotage the Trump administration through a so-called “Purple Revolution.” This campaign of resistance was purported to have begun in the moments right after the election, spurred along—supposedly—by Hillary Clinton and her husband, who each wore purple on stage as Clinton offered her concession speech in November 2016.

Prince’s suspicions about a “Purple Revolution” offer a window into his worldview and those of his fellow travelers, self-proclaimed upstart “nationalists” who are waging something of a cloak-and-dagger fight to wrest control of U.S. intelligence, national security, and foreign-policy interests from the establishment players they call “globalists.” In the view of these nationalists, they are up against a well-coordinated and ruthless campaign by many of the country’s most powerful people to undo, and if necessary overthrow, Trump’s government. Such threats to democracy, they posit, could justify extreme measures in response.

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But when I pressed him for more information, Prince, who is fond of citing the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, invoked Sun Tzu instead, responding cryptically, “Know your enemy.” Then he quickly corrected himself, amending “enemy” to “opponent.”

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Condé Nast Will Be Anchor of 1 World Trade Center
By CHARLES V. BAGLI MAY 17, 2011

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