(John Sommers II/Getty Images)
By Cathy Burke | NEWSMAX
Trump announced last week the panel would be headed by Alabama GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions.
“And I have quite a few more,” he tells the Post. “But that’s a group of some of the people that we are dealing with. We have many other people in different aspects of what we do. But that’s pretty representative group.”
The five he named are:
- Keith Kellogg, a former Army lieutenant general who currently is an executive vice president at Virginia-based CACI International, an intelligence and information technology consulting firm, the Post reports; Kellogg worked as chief operating officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad following the invasion of Iraq.
The London-based Independent reports CACI was at the center of controversy in 2004 when its members were accused of partaking in torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq; the company denied the allegations and no charges were ever brought.
- Joe Schmitz, a former inspector general at the Department of Defense in the early years of George W. Bush’s administration; he previously worked for Blackwater Worldwide, the private military and security contractor that provided services to the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Independent reports Blackwater received notoriety in 2007 when a group of its employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured 20 in Nisour Square, Baghdad. Four Blackwater security guards were later convicted in a U.S. court.
- Walid Phares, who has taught at the National Defense University and Daniel Morgan Academy in Washington, has advised members of Congress, and has appeared as a television analyst on terrorism and the Middle East.
- Carter Page, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy who rose through the ranks at Merrill Lynch and now is managing partner of Global Energy Capital, the Post reports; previously he was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he focused on the Caspian Sea region and the economic development in former Soviet states.
- George Papadopoulos, director of an international energy center at the London Centre of International Law Practice, the Post reports; he previously advised the presidential campaign of Ben Carson and worked as a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.