According to an RNC fundraising document uncovered on Wednesday, RNC “Young Eagles” — party major donors under 40 — will meet at the facility in the spring.

Also on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) has written a letter to the Justice Department asking for an investigation of Raytheon’s alleged use of the Blackwater subsidiary, Paravant, for a contract in Afghanistan.

Levin has also suggested that the Pentagon should no longer consider granting a $1 billion contract to Xe Services LLC (formely, Blackwater) due to “serious questions” about the contractor’s conduct.

It was recently reported that Blackwater employees took hundreds of firearms from both the U.S. Mmilitary and Afghan police forces using the South Park alias “Eric Cartman.”

Blackwater RNC Fundraiser: RNC Will Hold Fundraising Meeting At Contractor’s Compound.

In a December 2008 lawsuit, the former employees said top Blackwater officials had engaged in a pattern of deception as they carried out government contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The lawsuit, filed under the False Claims Act, also asserts that Blackwater officials turned a blind eye to “excessive and unjustified” force against Iraqi civilians by several Blackwater guards.

Blackwater has earned billions of dollars from government agencies in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks, when the company won contracts to protect American diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan. The former employees who filed the lawsuit, a married couple named Brad and Melan Davis, said there was little financial oversight of the money.

Last year, an audit by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction and the State Department’s inspector general found that the State Department had overpaid Blackwater $55 million because the company had failed to adequately staff its teams assigned to protect American diplomats in Iraq.

The documents detailing the Davises’ accusations were unsealed after the Justice Department declined to join in the case against Blackwater, which last year changed its name to Xe Services. A Xe spokeswoman did not return a message seeking comment about the case.

In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Davis said that she and her husband had decided to proceed with the case because “it’s the right thing to do,” and that it was time for “the truth from inside the company” to be made public. If the government is able to recover money from Blackwater as a result of the lawsuit, the Davises could claim a percentage as whistleblowers.

Mr. Davis, a former Marine, performed a number of jobs for the company, including working as a private security guard in Iraq.

Ms. Davis was fired from the company, and she is challenging the legality of her dismissal. Mr. Davis voluntarily resigned from the company.

According to the lawsuit, Ms. Davis raised concerns about the company’s bookkeeping with her bosses in March 2006, when she was handling accounts for the company’s contracts with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The lawsuit claims she was told to “back off,” and that she “would never win a medal for saving the government money.”

Ms. Davis also asserts that a Filipino prostitute in Afghanistan was put on the Blackwater payroll under the “Morale Welfare Recreation” category, and that the company had billed the prostitute’s plane tickets and monthly salary to the government.

more…..

Brad and Melan Davis, Ex-Employees, Accuse Blackwater Security Company of Fraud – NYTimes.com.

Same Blackwater, Different Names

After Blackwater contractors were accused of shooting 17 civilians in Iraq, the State Department announced it would stop doing business with the company, but ABC News has found that several other agencies, including the CIA and the Pentagon, continue to employ the controversial company, under a myriad of names, often via secret, classified contracts.

Blackwater, which changed the name of its parent company to Xe Services last year because of bad publicity, is also operating subdivisions under a variety of altered handles intended to lower its public profile. In some instances the flagship company has tried to distance itself from these offshoots, insisting they are merely “affiliates.”

Public records and a source familiar with their ownership suggest, however, that the companies are nothing more than new names on the same old Blackwater. All are owned by Blackwater founder Erik Prince.

According to several military and government sources familiar with Xe’s contracts, Xe also operates under the names Paravant and XPG. Both “affiliates” are based at the same Moyock, North Carolina address as Xe. Other Prince-owned companies that have received government contracts include Greystone, Raven, Constellation, US Training Center, GSD Manufacturing, and Presidential Airlines. The companies are among a total of 20 different limited liability corporations owned by Prince and registered to the same address as Blackwater-Xe.

In September 2007, Blackwater guards escorting a State Department convoy through Baghdad shot and killed 17 civilians in Nissour Square, resulting in international outrage, the loss of Blackwater’s State Department security contract and criminal charges against the guards. Late last month Vice President Biden announced that the U.S. government would appeal a recent federal court decision to throw out charges against the guards involved in the shooting.

Damage control after the Nissour Square incident is what inspired Blackwater executives to scrap the iconic brand name of the parent company. According to several government and military officials, the incident lead to a company shakeup and name change intended to clean up Blackwater’s image and limit legal liabilities.

Blackwater dropped the crosshairs from its company logo, and some executives were forced out. Then, after a lengthy internal name search, Blackwater decided to become Xe Services. “Blackwater” had referred to the water of the North Carolina swamp where the company was headquartered, but Xe, according to a company spokeswoman, had no connotations.

The change from Blackwater to Xe was announced in February 2009. Less known is that a variety of affiliated companies were also renamed. In the wake of the Nissour Square shooting Xe was barred from Iraq, and the corporate relaunch was supposed to include a de-emphasis on security contracts and a new focus on providing training. However, Xe and its rebranded affiliates still work in Afghanistan, and continue to provide security and training, though they often operate as security subcontractors to other contractors.

A recent review by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, known as SIGAR, has found that Xe Services has operated under different names. It often acts as a subcontractor, fulfilling training contracts originally won by other companies such as Raytheon, according to a person who has reviewed the SIGAR materials. According to several sources apprised of the contract, in Afghanistan Raytheon worked with the Blackwater entity called Paravant, LLC.

via Same Blackwater, Different Names – ABC News.

Twenty-seven year-old Justin Cannon and 29-year-old Chris Drotleff have been indicted on charges of second-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons charges, the AP reports.

The two were charged because of an incident last year at an intersection in Kabul, when the two allegedly opened fire on a vehicle and killed two Afghans. Blackwater, now known as Xe, fired them soon after over the incident.

This is the latest setback in what was been a rough year for Xe, but that hasn’t stopped the military contractor from pushing for even more Defense Department contracts

AP: Two Ex-Blackwater Guards Charged With Murder | TPM LiveWire.

The Iraqi government also will ask the U.S. Justice Department to appeal a federal judge’s “unfair and unacceptable” dismissal of the charges Thursday, spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

An Iraqi man wounded in the 2007 incident also voiced his anger Friday, saying U.S. District Judge

‘s dismissal of the charges showed “disregard for Iraqi blood.”

Urbina found Thursday that prosecutors wrongly used the guards’ own statements against them.

“We were expecting that American justice system is fair and independent,” said Hassan Jaber Salman, a lawyer. “It’s clear that the justice system in America is unjust and unfair.”

More at CNN

Iraq to sue ex-Blackwater guards – CNN.com.