Government

Maria Butina Plea Reminds Us How Easy It Is To Turn Thirsty Men

The scheme to turn the NRA into a Russian front involved some basic ass men.

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(Photo by Alexandria Sheriff’s Office via Getty Images)

The Maria Butina plea agreement did not disappoint. She pleaded guilty to a multi-year scheme to influence American politics through relationship building with the National Rifle Association. She all but admitted to acting at the behest of Russian central banker Alexander Torshin, receiving at least $125,000 of funding to operate.

And all of it seemed to happen because South Dakota Republican activist, Paul Erickson, wanted a hot Russian girlfriend. Butina and Erickson are described as “paramours” and it was Erickson pulling strings for her to meet important and powerful people throughout the Republican establishment.

Erickson denies his involvement in the scheme, but the picture Butina lays out of Erickson’s activities would be treason, in the colloquial sense at least.

It’s tempting to think that the Russia scheme to influence American politics as some kind of high-tech hacking operation or at least a Red October level of subterfuge. Instead, the picture that is emerging from both this pleading and admissions from people like Michael Cohen is that it really involved a bunch of horndogs and idiots.

Alexi: How shall we crack the intricate American system?
Sergi: Comrades, we must use alpha protocol, the disintegrating electromagnetic pulse will disrupt their satellites, destroy their financial system. In the chaos we shall rise.
Vlad: Nyet. Send money and woman.
Sergi: Their emerging television leader, he is too strong. He speaks with the strength of their people.
Vlad: Send him two woman. When they pee, we shall have him.

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That’s pretty much all it took. Butina wrote out what she called a “Description of Diplomacy Project” and it was pretty much: infiltrate American “Gun Rights Organization” which holds influence over the Republican party. That “infiltration” apparently involved making goo-goo eyes at Erickson until he told her where all the bodies were buried. From the Washington Post:

Requesting $125,000 from a Russian billionaire and citing the NRA’s influence on the Republican Party, Butina traveled to conferences to socialize with GOP presidential candidates, host “friendship dinners” with wealthy Americans, bond with NRA leaders and organize a Russian delegation to the influential National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.

Butina’s initiative came during what the U.S. intelligence community has said was a concerted Russian government effort to help elect Trump, including by hacking and distributing emails stolen from Democrats…

Erickson also tried to get Trump to meet Torshin when both attended the NRA’s convention in May 2016, referring to Torshin as “Putin’s emissary” in an email to a campaign official. The campaign declined a meeting, but documents provided to Congress show Butina and Torshin met briefly during the event with Donald Trump Jr., one of the president’s sons.

Yep, Donald Trump Jr. That guy again. He just keeps popping up, taking meetings with Russians.

The next target for this investigation is Erickson. He’s already been informed that he is a literal target by prosecutors, so he should be well and lawyered up. When he flips — and I’m assuming that he’ll flip because if he rolled on America for a Russian girlfriend I’m sure he’ll roll on all of his associates for a reduced jail sentence — it’ll probably reveal some equally thirsty or stupid man.

Maybe it’ll eventually get all the way up to the dumbass pussy-grabber-in-chief.

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Russian Maria Butina pleads guilty in case to forge Kremlin bond with U.S. conservatives [Washington Post]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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