[2] At the CIA, Black trained for the clandestine service and volunteered for Africa based on his knowledge of the region from childhood travels with his father across the continent.

While assigned to Kinshasa, Zaire, Black was involved in the Reagan Administration's covert action program to arm anti-communist guerrillas in neighboring Angola.

This was at a low point in U.S.-Sudanese relations, due to the latter's sponsorship of terrorism and the harboring of Carlos the Jackal and Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.

Black oversaw the collection of human intelligence (HUMINT) on terrorist cells and support structures; toward the end of his tenure, he was targeted by Al Qaeda for assassination (see Woodward, Bush at War, p. 9).

The CTC had produced a "comprehensive plan of attack" against bin Laden and previewed the new strategy to senior CIA management by the end of July 1999.

[7] Working with a Malaysian security unit, the CIA watched al-Hazmi and his companion Khalid al-Mihdhar as they attended a January 2000 Al Qaeda conference in Kuala Lumpur, later determined to be where decisions about the "planes operation" were made.

[8] According to an internal CIA report on the performance of the agency prior to the 9/11 attacks, Black was criticized for not informing the FBI that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar had subsequently entered the United States.

A joint CIA-Air Force program of flights in autumn 2000 (dubbed "Afghan Eyes") produced probable sightings of the Al Qaeda leader.

After the attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon, some CTC staff refused an order to evacuate the CIA headquarters at Langley.

This included the shift of the Global Response Center on the exposed sixth floor, which Black would eventually argue had "a key function in a crisis like this."

[14] The CTC obtained passenger lists from the planes that had been turned into weapons that morning, noting the presence of Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.

On September 13, 2001, Black briefed President George W. Bush in the White House Situation Room and outlined a CIA-led campaign in Afghanistan in which small teams of CIA officers and Green Berets would work with the Northern Alliance to topple the Taliban government and expel Al Qaeda.

Tenet later said, How could [an intelligence] community without a strategic plan tell the president of the United States just four days after 9/11 how to attack the Afghan sanctuary and operate against al-Qa'ida in ninety-two countries around the world?

They warned Black about guerilla fighters being a major problem for the Russian army in Afghanistan, and provided a team to the CIA to assist with extensive on-the-ground intelligence, especially about topography and caves.

"[21] Testifying at the Congressional Joint Inquiry into the September 11 attacks in 2002, Black declined the offer of anonymity because "I want to look the American people in the eye.

"[22] During the "war on terror" Black is said to have played a "leading role in many of the [CIA]'s more controversial programs, including the rendition/kidnapping and torture /interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects and the detention of some of them in secret prisons [outside the USA].

[24] By some accounts, Abu Zubaydah was taken into custody in March 2002 in Pakistan, and after initial U.S. interrogation and treatment for gunshot wounds, sent to a secret CIA torture center in Thailand, where he was waterboarded in April or May 2002.

[25] In March 2006, Black allegedly suggested at an international conference in Amman, Jordan, that Blackwater USA was ready to move towards providing security professionals up to brigade size for humanitarian efforts and low intensity conflicts.

[34] In the wake of the Hunter Biden email controversy, a report from The Wall Street Journal associated Black's role at the firm with a group of "well-connected operatives in Washington to help persuade Ukrainian prosecutors to drop criminal cases against it.

[36] Black's name appears in volume five of the 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections produced following the investigation by special prosecutor Robert Mueller.

Joel Zamel, executive at Psy-Group, an Israeli private intelligence agency specializing in honey traps and perception manipulation campaigns, testified that apart from their pitch to the Trump campaign, the firm had proposed projects to three other clients: Russian oligarchs Oleg Deripaska and Dmitri Rybolovlev, and Blackwater founder Erik Prince, whom Black had introduced to Zamel in 2016.