Maria Butina is a Russian Spy who has been working with US politicians and the NRA to develop special relationships.
That spy is now being charged by the US Justice Department.
From WaPo:
Butina is accused of developing relationships with American politicians and a “gun rights organization,” none of which are named in the affidavit supporting the criminal complaint. FBI Special Agent Kevin Helson wrote that Butina was attempting to “establish a ‘back channel’ communication for representatives of the Government of Russia.”
The affidavit also contains apparent communications, by direct message on Twitter, between Butina and the unnamed Russian official. “Your political star has risen in the sky,” the official told Butina. “Now it is important to rise to the zenith and not burn out (fall) prematurely,” and they later discussed the “Russia-USA friendship society.”
In 2017, Butina and the official attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, the affidavit states.
Is your representative in Congress one of Maria Butina, friend of the Proboscidea’s traitors? (Though perhaps I should not assume all the turncoats are Republicans.)
Here’s her facebook page, by the way.
Click here to find out who represents you in Congress.
Then, click here to find out if they are a spy for Putin.
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Turns out the Presidential candidate she was meeting with was Scott Walker.
I think the talk of Macedonians that Hillary keeps bringing up should be ridiculed.
It’s clear the Russians don’t need any help in figuring out which candidates to approach.
Yes, he flamed out early, but Scott Walker was an excellent choice, far better than Jeb or Fiorina or Christie that National Review and Weekly Standard were pushing.
The fact that you think the amoral and integrity free Walker was an “excellent choice” speaks volumes.
The transformation of the “Party of Lincoln” to the “Party of Putin” is nearly complete. Still, it is surprising, especially in so far as the recent rate of transformation has been quite rapid. Human rights, human decency, honor, fairness, justice, things that the party of Eisenhower could rightly claim as their values, have all been discarded by the modern Republicans, in favor of kissing up to an American president who in turn kisses up to a Russian tyrant. How hierarchical. Absolutely fucking amazing. Russia, the country who helped instigate two of our worst modern wars ( Korea and Viet Nam) and who left the infrastructure and wreckage that culminated in 9/11 and the Iraq and Afghanistan war; Russia, a country that has been conducting active spy operations and various active measures against the US since the end of WWII, has helped us select a passionate Russia lover as our president. And the Republicans, one of whose few remaining tenets is blind loyalty to power, have rolled over, embraced Russia, and are pretending that they haven’t crapped all over the memories of the dead and wounded who suffered as a result of Russian instigated wars.
Republicans, you are a complete fucking disgrace.
Have a nice day.
Lincoln was the original real estate President making deals with Russia. The rest was the Soviet Union.
I was wondering if anybody knows who the candidate is, referred to in the 12 Russian indictment. This is from pages 15-16 of the indictment:
I am very curious as to who this could be, as this seems like actual collusion with Russia.
It’ll come out. When it does, that will be further, incontrovertible evidence of collusion. Although the failure of DTJr et al. to inform the FBI that they were being offered information damaging to HRC by the Russians was also a clear shift from passive collaboration with Russian interference with the election to active collusion with it.
BBD:
I am sure it will come out – but was curious if it has come out yet. Not to my knowledge. I am not even sure of the party of the candidate (yet).
I don’t agree that DTJr et al failure to inform the FBI is active collusion. Having a meeting about dirt on Hillary is not the same as getting dirt on Hillary and then using it. The getting of the dirt and using it is collusion. No dirt was ever provided – it was just a meeting set up to get dirt and then turned into lobbying to repeal the Magninsky (guessing on spelling) act.
Did Hillary actively collude with Russia because she paid a law firm to do oppo research on Trump, who used Steele who paid Russians for dossier material? I would not say so – but perhaps using your definition you might think so?
RickA, the indictment says they didn’t know it was Russians, right?
Roger Stone has identified himself as one of the people, obviously not the Congressman.
BBD, that just shows Trump is a better dealmaker. He was willing to meet to get for free from Russia info damaging to Hillary, while Hillary campaign was paying Russia for info damaging to Trump.
Somehow, both cases were treated as reason to investigate Trump.
MikeN, two days and that weak deflection was the best you could come up with?
Meanwhile it appears that Butina was co-habitating with Paul Erickson, GOP operative who was in communication with the Trump campaign regarding his being able to act as a conduit between Putin’s government and the campaign, via the NRA. It appears that Butina was living with Paul Erickson for “business purposes”, i.e. as directed by her handlers:
“The detention memo also alleged that Butina had a relationship with “U.S. Person 1,” [Paul Erickson] but offered sex to someone else to get a spot in a special interest group that the memo does not identify. “Butina complained about living with U.S. Person 1 and expressed disdain for continuing to cohabitate with U.S. Person 1.”
There’s a reason why attractive young women spies are able to gain access to powerful older men …
And this is why mikeN is an ass. Fusion GPS (working for the campaign) hired Steele while keeping the Clinton campaign in the dark about what they were doing, and Steele did not know for whom he was doing the research. After the election HRC’s organization cut ties with Fusion and its CEO provided the remaining money to pay Steele.
The comment about Trump being a good “negotiator” because he got dirt free is one of the most astronomically stupid statements mikeN has made, as it completely ignores all of the evidence that shows the Russians cast their lot with Trump early on and did all they could to help him. Good lord these right wing idiots are dishonest.
Clinton camp didn’t know what they were buying, sure.
And notice that they violated campaign finance laws in doing so, but for some reason it’s only Trump’s potential campaign finance law violations that interest liberals.
They cut ties, and handed off to a group of donors to keep Steele’s work going.
RickA: CA Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R), who was warned in 2012 that he might be the target of Russian recruitment efforts, and is known for taking rather outspoken pro-Russian positions. He, of course, is claiming that the indictment and arrest of Butina is stupid and part of the Deep State plot to undermine Trump.
In his own words:
“It’s ridiculous,” Rohrabacher told Politico, referring to the indictment brought by the Department of Justice. “It’s stupid. She’s the assistant of some guy who is the head of the bank and is a member of their Parliament. That’s what we call a spy? That shows you how bogus this whole thing is.”
Well, she’s more than that, as she met regularly with suspected and *known* Russian intelligence operatives while in the US, was in e-mail contact complaining about co-habitating with Paul Erickson (apparently under orders), etc. Unless the indictment is entirely fictitious it would seem that her spy-ness is definitely real.
dhogaza:
So do you think Dana Rohrabacher (R) was the candidate who received stolen documents from Guccifer 2.0?
I was actually not referring to the indictment of Busina, but rather the 12 Russians who hacked the DNC.
I couldn’t tell from your comment if you thought Rohrabacher was the candidate referred to in the indictment or just thought the indictment of Busina was stupid.
Yea, Rorhrabacher is one of the more prolific LFT (liars for trump) members. But then, if you buy into the deep state and other stuff, you’re not very sharp to begin with — the comparison would be to a dull butter knife.
The deflection of her repeated reach-outs (reach arounds?) to republicans in various positions is amusing — or would be, if the right wasn’t so unconcerned with
the lies and actions of their own.
She hasn’t been indicted for being a spy.
RickA, I had also missed the switch of indictments.
MikeN: “She hasn’t been indicted for being a spy.”
She didn’t perform espionage, however the indictment makes clear that she was a covert agent being handled by Russian intelligence, which fits the colloquial definition of being “a spy”.
MikeN: “She hasn’t been indicted for being a spy.”
And Al Capone wasn’t convicted of being a mobster, just for failing to pay income tax on money he made as a mobster. Holy nitpicking, Robin.
>And Al Capone wasn’t convicted of being a mobster,
OK, that explains why they brought this case on such weak details like attending a prayer breakfast and some e-mails. Thanks.
The indictment is far from weak and you might look up the phrase “superceding indictment” and ponder why prosecutors don’t always reveal their full hand in a first indictment.
RickA:
“I couldn’t tell from your comment if you thought Rohrabacher was the candidate referred to in the indictment”
Ah, that indictment. He’s certainly *a* candidate for being that Congressman, too. He’s the Representative with the closest and most active connections to the Russian leadership AFAIK.
According to an FBI affidavit:
Further (emphasis in this quote is mine)
Yeah, every reason to think the indictment is stupid. That is, there is every reason to think it is stupid if you are
morally bankrupt and don’t care about our political process.
I wonder how much Sanders is being paid for the speed with which she rattles off lies and misrepresentations.
I think in terms of sheer dishonesty and lack of concern for the country mikeN outranks Sanders by several orders of magnitude. Trump should move to hire him.
He doesn’t pay as much as the Russians.
“He doesn’t pay as much as the Russians”
If you were working for him you’d be in danger — he has a long history of stiffing people he hires and not paying them.
However, you’d be working for the Office of the President, so you’d get paid. Of course, since folks like you hate anything the government does, that would cause a problem.
If Ron Paul can support subsidies for his district, I can take money from the government.
Ron Paul was the best friend racist groups ever had – they got to buy space in his newsletters any time they wanted to and spread their crap though him. He agreed with it of course, but still not a good trait.
In other ways – the only time he ever stated a position contrary to the rest of the conservatives was when he realized he’d been out of the news cycle and wanted to get back in the spotlight. Once he got his attention he fell back in line
So – he was a good friend to racists and completely without integrity. So yes, your self reference to him is a good one.
So the Republican party and the American Conservative Union have been successfully infiltrated by Russian secret agents. Mariia Butina and her boss Alexander Torshin have done a wonderful job of giving Vladimir Putin, and his Russo-symp buddies ( MikeN and Trump base comes to mind ), a malignantly large influence in the direction of the Republican party and, in the 2016 election, a disproportionate influence on the outcome [ Note to right wingers out there: Any influence on the outcome of a democratic election by an outside power is disproportionate].
Obama was attacked by Trump for not being American, thwarted from selecting a Supreme Court judge by the devious Senator Itch McCornhole, and accused of being a Nazi and a fascist by Republicans with absolutely no credible reason to call him one.
Republicans support Trump despite his love and support of dictators; despite his touching all the definition points of a being a fascist; despite his trying to rip open the scars of institutionalized racism; despite his corrosive overall effect on our entire multi-ethnic nation while he cultivates his primarily white, angry, privilege, scared, spoiled, entitled, narrow minded base; despite his constant lying; despite his obvious selfishness and generally rotten bullying mobster personality; despite his ignorance of and even antagonism towards science; despite his attacks on international alliances that have made us a world leader since WWII; despite his misogyny; Republicans love and support this big fake and are going to have to make some major readjustments to their thinking when the Trump regime comes crashing down on they dumb widdle heads. Can’t wait.
RickA, I guess we would have to see which candidate unleashed material on their opponent that most likely came from hacking. Of course it’s likely the candidate received material of no use.
The most interesting thing in Wikileaks is that it took the Hillary camp 12 hours and 12 people to write one tweet.
Yes. It will be hard to tell from looking at public information from the various campaigns.
I suspect we will have to wait for Mueller to release more information. Clearly they know, because they have the email with the documents to the candidate.