The blandly named America's Frontier Fund—which has so far received no media attention—will be led by a who's who of the defense establishment combined with close associates of Schmidt's ventures in business, finance and public policy. The high-powered investment vehicle appears to be modeled on In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit venture capital firm with close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency that has faced allegations of serious conflicts of interest among its trustees.

In fact, AFF will be helmed by the former chief executive of In-Q-Tel, Gilman Louie, and a former executive at Schmidt Futures, Jordan Blashek. A roster of well-connected defense insiders will populate the board and serve as its anchor funders, including Michèle Flournoy, former undersecretary of defense under President Barack Obama, former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and H.R. McMaster, U.S. national security advisor at the Trump White House.

Also listed among the new group's "Board of Directors and anchor funders": Eric Schimdt himself, according to a draft press release briefly published on its website, which suggested it was preparing for an official launch as soon as this week. The draft release was viewed by TTP before it was taken down.

The exact source and amount of public money involved remains unclear. However, the draft press release acknowledged AFF's unusual nature, referring to it as the nation's first "public-private" fund able to "leverage public, private and philanthropic capital" for defense-related tech investments.

"This structure enables AFF not only to raise and deploy long-term private capital, but also to invest government funding designated for technology development," it stated.