The forecast was based on interviews with hundreds of government executives, think tank experts, congressional staffers and Wall Street analysts. Most were conducted before the presidential election, and the study was not focused solely on the implications of a Trump presidency.

“Certainly in ’17 the prospects for higher spending in terms of topline are probably going to be pretty slim,” said the leader of one of the research teams during a Nov. 15 briefing with reporters. He spoke to the media on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Professional Services Council.

“There are so many other factors coming into play there, and our view is the economy is going to have to improve before we’re really going to be able to have a significant number of dollars to do the things that the president-elect would like to do with the Defense Department,” he added.

Without a large bump in the topline, the new administration might view spending on contractor services as an area where cuts could be made. That’s partly due to the fact that other areas of the budget might be difficult to squeeze, the briefer said.

Defense officials won’t want to skimp on funding for operations and maintenance because the force has been pushed hard for more than a decade, he noted.

“We see increasing spending in those areas because we have to recapitalize the force and revitalize the force,” he said. Forecasters “certainly don’t see any less pressure in the requirement to be operating globally, so those [spending priorities] aren’t likely to change.”

Although the size of the military has been decreasing since the height of the Iraq War, that trend could shift during a Trump administration. The president-elect has proposed significantly increasing the number of troops, especially in the Army and Marine Corps.

“We’re pretty well close to the … minimum numbers in the personnel accounts,” the briefer said. “Trying to find any money there is going to be very unsatisfying. In fact, the desire is to plus those up. Those [extra troops] come with a bill.”

As the Pentagon pursues it’s “third offset” strategy, which is aimed at maintaining the U.S. military’s technological edge over advanced adversaries, the results of the council’s survey suggest that spending on research, development, test and evaluation will remain “steady” for the foreseeable future, he said.

Meanwhile, buying high-tech equipment in pursuit of the strategy could lead to significant increases in procurement spending.

“While we’ve talked about the third offset as a way to generate the technology necessary to kind of get to that third offset position, we sometimes tend to forget the fact that technology becomes very, very expensive,” the briefer said.

In the coming years, the Defense Department is slated to procure a range of next-generation systems such as the F-35 joint strike fighter, KC-46 tanker, B-21 stealth bomber, Ford-class aircraft carrier and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine. Those high-priority programs are expected to come with a hefty price tag.

Savings from acquisition reform efforts are unlikely to materialize, the briefer said without further explanation.

“We have many, many large acquisition programs that extend over many years, and we’re not likely to be able to go to that well” to cut spending, he said. That could leave service providers as the odd man out.

“I think what we’re going to find out in the end, unfortunately, what cutting there’s going to be … is probably going to be seen probably in some of the service industry categories, which are sometimes seen as things that we can put off a little bit or maybe we do some consolidation there,” he said.

The Professional Services Council is expected to fully unveil its latest Vision Federal Market Forecast during a two-day conference in Falls Church, Virginia, on Nov. 16 and 17.

“I mean, it’s not like the foreign intelligence agencies leave a thank-you note after they’ve hacked and stolen your data,” Prince said to SiriusXM host Alex Marlow.

Prince claimed he had insider knowledge of the investigation that could help explain why FBI Director James Comey had to announce he was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s email server last week.

“Because of Weinergate and the sexting scandal, the NYPD started investigating it. Through a subpoena, through a warrant, they searched his laptop, and sure enough, found those 650,000 emails. They found way more stuff than just more information pertaining to the inappropriate sexting the guy was doing,” Prince claimed.

“They found State Department emails. They found a lot of other really damning criminal information, including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton went there more than 20 times. Hillary Clinton went there at least six times,” he said.

“The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress was so disgusting they gave it to the FBI, and they said, ‘We’re going to go public with this if you don’t reopen the investigation and you don’t do the right thing with timely indictments,’” Prince explained.

“I believe – I know, and this is from a very well-placed source of mine at 1PP, One Police Plaza in New York – the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional arrests they were making in this investigation, and they’ve gotten huge pushback, to the point of coercion, from the Justice Department, with the Justice Department threatening to charge someone that had been unrelated in the accidental heart attack death of Eric Garner almost two years ago. That’s the level of pushback the Obama Justice Department is doing against actually seeking justice in the email and other related criminal matters,” Prince said.

“There’s five different parts of the FBI conducting investigations into these things, with constant downdrafts from the Obama Justice Department. So in the, I hope, unlikely and very unfortunate event that Hillary Clinton is elected president, we will have a constitutional crisis that we have not seen since, I believe, 1860,” Prince declared.

Marlow asked Prince to clarify these revelations.

“NYPD was the first one to look at that laptop,” Prince elaborated. “Weiner and Huma Abedin, his wife – the closest adviser of Hillary Clinton for 20 years – have both flipped. They are cooperating with the government. They both have – they see potential jail time of many years for their crimes, for Huma Abedin sending and receiving and even storing hundreds of thousands of messages from the State Department server and from Hillary Clinton’s own homebrew server, which contained classified information. Weiner faces all kinds of exposure for the inappropriate sexting that was going on and for other information that they found.”

“So NYPD first gets that computer. They see how disgusting it is. They keep a copy of everything, and they pass a copy on to the FBI, which finally pushes the FBI off their chairs, making Comey reopen that investigation, which was indicated in the letter last week. The point being, NYPD has all the information, and they will pursue justice within their rights if the FBI doesn’t,” Prince contended.

“There is all kinds of criminal culpability through all the emails they’ve seen of that 650,000, including money laundering, underage sex, pay-for-play, and, of course, plenty of proof of inappropriate handling, sending/receiving of classified information, up to SAP level Special Access Programs,” he stated.

“So the plot thickens. NYPD was pushing because, as an article quoted one of the chiefs – that’s the level just below commissioner – he said as a parent, as a father with daughters, he could not let that level of evil continue,” Prince said.

He noted that the FBI can investigate these matters, “but they can’t convene a grand jury. They can’t file charges.”

“The prosecutors, the Justice Department has to do that,” he explained. “Now, as I understand it, Preet Bharara, the Manhattan prosecutor, has gotten ahold of some of this. From what I hear, he’s a stand-up guy, and hopefully he does the right thing.”

Marlow agreed that Bharara’s “sterling reputation” as a determined prosecutor was “bad news for the Clintons.”

Prince agreed, but said, “If people are willing to bend or break the law and don’t really care about the Constitution or due process – if you’re willing to use Stalinist tactics against someone – who knows what level of pressure” could be brought to bear against even the most tenacious law enforcement officials?

“The point being, fortunately, it’s not just the FBI; [there are] five different offices that are in the hunt for justice, but the NYPD has it as well,” Prince said, citing the Wall Street Journal reporting that has “exposed downdraft, back pressure from the Justice Department” against both the FBI and NYPD, in an effort to “keep the sunlight and the disinfecting effects of the truth and transparency from shining on this great evil that has gone on, and is slowly being exposed.”

“The Justice Department is trying to run out the clock, to elect Hillary Clinton, to prevent any real justice from being done,” he warned.

As for the mayor of New York City, Prince said he has heard that “de Blasio wants to stay away from this.”

“The evidence is so bad, the email content is so bad, that I think even he wants to stay away from it, which is really telling,” he said.

Prince reported that the other legislators involved in the case “have not been named yet,” and urged the NYPD to hold a press conference and name them.

“I wish they’d do it today,” he said. “These are the unusual sliding-door moments of history, that people can stand up and be counted, and make a real difference, and to save a Republic, save a Constitution that we actually need and love, that our forefathers fought and died for. For any cop that is aware of this level of wrongdoing, and they have veterans in their family, or deceased veterans in their family, they owe it to them to stand up, to stand and be counted today, and shine the light of truth on this great evil.”

“From what I understand, up to the commissioner or at least the chief level in NYPD, they wanted to have a press conference, and DOJ, Washington people, political appointees have been exerting all kinds of undue pressure on them to back down,” he added.

Marlow suggested that some of those involved in keeping the details quiet might want to avoid accusations of politicizing the case and seeking to influence the presidential election.

“Sure, that’s it. That’s the argument for it,” Prince agreed. “But the fact is, you know that if the Left had emails pointing to Donald Trump visiting, multiple times, an island with underage sex slaves basically, emails, you know they’d be talking about it. They’d be shouting it from the rooftops.”

“This kind of evil, this kind of true dirt on Hillary Clinton – look, you don’t have to make any judgments. Just release the emails,” he urged. “Just dump them. Let them out there. Let people see the light of truth.”

Prince dismissed the claims of people like Clinton campaign CEO John Podesta and DNC chair Donna Brazile that some of the damaging emails already released by WikiLeaks were fabricated, noting that “forensic analysis done shows that, indeed, they are not fabricated; they are really legitimate.”

“This is stuff coming right off a hard drive that was owned by Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin, Hillary’s closest adviser for the last 20 years,” he said of the new bombshells. “This is not from some hacker or anybody else. This is a laptop seized from a warrant in a criminal investigation.”

Prince confirmed that based on his information, Abedin is most likely looking at jail time, unless she cuts a deal with prosecutors.

“There’s a minimum of obstruction of justice and all kinds of unlawful handling of classified information,” he said. “Because remember, this laptop was in the possession of Weiner, who did not have a security clearance. And many, many of those emails were from her Yahoo account, which had State Department emails forwarded to them, so she could easier print these messages, scan them, and send them on to Hillary. That’s the carelessness that Hillary and her staff had for the classified information that the intelligence community risks life and limb to collect in challenged, opposed areas around the world.”

“That’s not who you want in the White House,” Prince declared.