-- THE RECENT SHAKE-UPS ARE ALSO EMPOWERING AND ELEVATING SHADOWY FIGURES LIKE ERIK PRINCE, WHO HAS SPENT THE PAST DECADE IN THE WILDERNESS AFTER ALL THE BLACKWATER SCANDALS. “HE SPENT $250,000 TO HELP GET TRUMP ELECTED; HIS SISTER BETSY DEVOS NOW SERVES AS TRUMP'S SECRETARY OF EDUCATION; AND WHEN PRINCE PITCHED A PLAN TO PRIVATIZE THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN LAST YEAR, THE WHITE HOUSE TOOK HIM SERIOUSLY,” FORBES’S NOAH KIRSCH WRITES IN A NEW PIECE. “HE ACTUALLY HAD THE MOST COGENT ARGUMENT, MUCH MORE THAN THE GUYS WHO WERE 'STAY THE COURSE,’” FORMER TRUMP CHIEF STRATEGIST STEVE BANNON TOLD THE MAGAZINE. “ONE MAJOR IMPEDIMENT TO HIS PRIVATIZATION CONCEPT WAS NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR H.R. MCMASTER … BOLTON'S SELECTION, PARTICULARLY, IS ‘GOING TO TAKE US IN A REALLY POSITIVE DIRECTION,’ A SOURCE CLOSE TO PRINCE [SAID]. ‘DO THE MATH.’ THE ASSUMPTION, OF COURSE: PRINCE WOULD REAP A BIG CUT OF THE ACTION.”
- Bill O’Reilly’s settlement with former Fox News producer Andrea Mackris required her to dismiss any evidence of harassment “as counterfeit or forgeries” if it became public. The first details of O’Reilly’s settlements are emerging after a judge denied his request to keep them sealed amid a defamation lawsuit from three of his accusers. (CNN)
ANOTHER FAMILY VALUES REPUBLICAN WITH A ZIPPER PROBLEM:
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his wife Judith are divorcing. The pair have been together for 15 years. (Page Six)
-- Rex Tillerson’s departure from the State Department has left his planned redesign of the agency with a murky future and a huge price tag. Politico’s Nahal Toosi reports: “[A]round $12 million dollars [were] spent just for private consultants who in some cases charged the State Department more than $300 an hour. … Most of the money has gone to the consulting firm Deloitte as part of a pre-existing federal contract whose ceiling was lifted to $265 million, an indication of the redesign’s ambitions. As many as 90 consultants worked on the project, according to one document. Many of the consultants have spent extensive time at the State Department, meeting with top officials, collecting and analyzing data, creating PowerPoint presentations and leading group discussions with skeptical employees.”
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