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A central argument in this book is that Russia collusion is not just about Trump but about the Republican party writ large, which is why Paul Ryan said keep it in the family. (Chapter A).
The party of Trump is at least guilty after the fact-Devin Nunes and friends have moved Heaven and earth in attempting to shield this illegitimate ‘President’ from any accountability. They have obstructed the Russia investigation and setup a parallel narrative and rather than investigate Trump they’ve investigated the investigators.
But there is reason to ask if they are implicated-Trump’s co-conspirators-not only after the fact-ie, by obstructing investigations to get to the truth and hold those responsible accountable-but perhaps, in the act of Russia collusion itself.
Remember that the DCCC was also hacked and that the Russians didn’t only seek to sabotage Clinton but also Democratic House candidates-Roger Stone was involved in at least one of those regarding information he received from Guccifer 2.0 in Florida as we saw in (Chapter B).
Then there are all the GOP operatives who reached out to both Wikileaks and G2 about emails. But the recent guilty plea by Maria Butina brings the fact of GOP complicity into particular sharp relief:
The guilty plea Thursday of a woman accused of infiltrating the National Rifle Association on behalf of the Russian government has thrust the powerful conservative group into an uncomfortable spotlight as the organization appears to be facing declining donations and signs its fearsome political influence may be waning.
Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of Russia, admitting that she worked for more than two years to forge relationships with conservative activists and leading Republicans in the United States.
One of Butina’s main targets was the NRA — a group she identified in a 2015 memo as an organization that “had influence over” the Republican Party, according to court filings. Her relationships with the group, she wrote, could be used as the groundwork for an unofficial channel of communication to the next presidential administration.
Later that year, she helped organize a delegation of top NRA leaders to visit Moscow, arranging for them to meet Russian government officials, and she attended the group’s annual conventions as an honored guest.
Butina and Alexander Torshin, a former Russian government official who helped direct her activities, then used their NRA connections to get access to GOP presidential candidates, according to court filings.
Butina’s case exposed how Russia saw the NRA as a key pathway to influencing American politics to the Kremlin’s benefit. And it has intensified questions about what the gun rights group knew of the Russian effort to shape U.S. policy and whether it faces ongoing legal scrutiny.
The 30-year-old — the first Russian national convicted of seeking to influence U.S. policy as a foreign agent before the 2016 election — agreed to cooperate in a plea deal with U.S. investigators in exchange for less prison time.
What is stunning is her admission to being directed by Torshin-a high ranking Russian official. Senator Ron Wyden:
“Who at the NRA knew Butina’s agenda, and what did they get in return?” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked in a tweet Thursday.
Wyden, who has sought to learn more about the NRA’s Russia ties as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the organization has turned over documents related to Butina but has not provided financial records he has requested.
“Everything I have learned about the NRA to date has made me more concerned about its activities leading up to the 2016 election, not less,” Wyden said in a statement to The Washington Post.
On Thursday, Wyden sent letters to three past presidents of the group, asking that they agree to be interviewed by the committee about the group’s interactions with Russia.
After seeing Putin’s explanation, it’s clear why he and Trump get along so famously-they share a brain:
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed Butina’s case at a meeting of a Kremlin council on human rights in Moscow, saying: “I asked all the heads of our intelligence services what is happening, ‘Who is she?’ No one knows a thing about her.”
Soon after the election Trump had claimed ‘I don’t know Putin’-just like in 2013 he’d claimed not to be able to pick Felix Sater out of lineup.
But what’s notable regarding Butina’s case is that it shows how Russia directed her to forge these ties with the NRA, Trump, and the larger GOP.
Butina cultivated ties with NRA leaders at a time when the conservative movement broadly was growing increasingly intrigued by Russia.
Social conservatives admired Russia’s hard-line stance on gay rights. Nationalist conservatives were attracted to Putin’s insistence that Russia’s issues were of little concern to the United States. Foreign policy conservatives saw Putin as a natural ally in the fight against Islamist terrorism.
As we saw in (Chapter C) after 9/11 Putin had gone out of his way to cultivate this relationship with nationalist conservatives across the West using their common Islamophobia as a bridge.
Torshin, who penned a 2010 Russian-language booklet that echoed NRA rhetoric to support the expansion of gun rights in his country, was introduced to Keene at the NRA’s annual meeting that year by a conservative Nashville lawyer named G. Kline Preston IV, who had done business in Russia for years.
Preston said this week that he had no regrets about making the connection and saw nothing wrong with Butina’s activities.
“I don’t know what their goals were, but if the goal was to improve U.S.-Russia relations, I don’t see what the problem is,” said Preston, who said he has not been interviewed by U.S. authorities about the relationship.
He said he always believed Butina was acting as a private citizen. But, he added, “the question becomes, okay, perhaps she was working at the behest of the Russian government. But if it’s a commercial arm of a foreign government that’s trying to expand ties with another country, is that wrong?”
Uhhhhhh-if this attempt to ‘expand ties’ includes taking any action to influence an American election then I’m going with yes.
Then there’s Butina’s romantic GOP partner, Paul Erickson:
Butina and Torshin’s efforts to use the NRA as a springboard to broader influence in the Republican Party was evident in the run-up to the NRA’s 2016 annual meeting in Louisville, where Trump was scheduled to speak.
About 10 days before the event, an American Republican operative named Paul Erickson emailed a campaign aide to Trump. Erickson, who was romantically involved with Butina, wrote that his involvement with the NRA had placed him in a position “to slowly begin cultivating a back channel to President Putin’s Kremlin,” according to a copy of the email read to The Post.
“The Kremlin believes the only possibility of a true reset in this relationship would be a new Republican White House,” he continued. He suggested that during the NRA convention, Trump meet Torshin, whom he described as “President Putin’s emissary on this front,” as a “first contact.” He wrote that Trump could then visit the Kremlin before the election.
“Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump,” Erickson wrote.
Indeed, regarding quid pro quo, Butina was the first question Trump took at the FreedomFest in 2015.
What was her question about: sanctions.
Butina asks Trump a question at FreedomFest, a libertarian event held that year in Las Vegas. As president, she asked, would Trump continue the sanctions imposed against Russia in 2014?
“I know Putin, and I’ll tell you what, we get along with Putin,” Trump replied.
Do you see that?! After the election he was saying he didn’t know Putin but he sure knew him then:
“Putin has no respect for President Obama. Big problem. Big problem. And Russia has been driven — you know I’ve always heard, for years I’ve heard, one of the worst things that can happen is if Russia ever gets driven to China. We have driven them together, with the big oil deals that are being made. We’ve driven them together. That’s a horrible thing for this country. We have made them friends because of incompetent leadership. I believe I would get along very nicely with Putin, okay? And I mean where we have the strength. I don’t think you’d need the sanctions.”
So in early July 2015 Trump came out against sanctions. The quo in quid pro quo.
Speaking of Putin-while he claims ‘not to know Butina’ he also says she’s totally innocent-but I thought he doesn’t know her?
“This poor girl is in jail, our Butina, she is facing 15 years imprisonment, for what? When I heard that something was going on with her … first I asked all the heads of our special services, who is this? No one knows anything about her at all; the only person who knows something about her is in the Federation Council; she was perhaps working for one of the deputies there, that’s all.”
Putin is clearly trying to infer what Trump is always trying to infer-nothing to do with me. As if a deputy at the Federation Council would do something on this level without Putin’s knowledge, much less permission.
Speaking at a meeting of the Presidential Council for Human Rights in the Kremlin on December 11, President Vladimir Putin expressed puzzlement over the fate of Maria Butina, the Russian agent indicted in the United States.
Putin said that Butina was “guilty of nothing” – a claim she refuted herself on the morning of Thursday, December 13, when she pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC two days after the Russian president pronounced her innocent.
Putin’s claim that “no one knows anything about her at all” is also false on multiple levels.
Firstly, Putin is a friend and close associate of Alexandr Torshin., the figure described in the U.S. indictment as the “Russian official and Butina’s handler.”
So Torshin is not just some junior level staff of a deputy-Putin’s equivalent of Coffee Boy, evidently-but a close friend an associate of Putin himself:
During Putin’s years in power, Torshin, a highly decorated government official, appeared at public events standing next to Putin – an honor reserved for those in the Kremlin inner circle who are closest to the president.
The FBI’s criminal complaint against Butina, which she described in court as a “true and accurate” account of her actions, includes quotes from her direct message exchanges with Torshin and emails to her American associate – identified by prosecutors as “U.S. Person 1” – in which she refers to Putin’s direct approval of her “mission” at least on seven occasions.
In a letter dated March 30, 2016, Butina refers to a conversation between Torshin and Putin, writing that Torshin “suggested to President Putin that he consider coming to the Prayer Breakfast next year, Feb. 2017, and Pres. Putin did not say ‘no’!” She also suggests that for Putin to attend the National Prayer Breakfast, he must receive a personal invitation from the U.S. president.
If what Butina is pleading it true that’s Russia collusion game-set-match. Yes, as always those who insist on deputizing themselves out as ‘President Trump’s’ defense attorney can argue she’s not trustworthy anyway. This is always something of an ironic ‘defense’-there are those who argue you shouldn’t believe Cohen because he’s a liar so that clears Trump. But as noted in (Chapter D) if you couldn’t get the mob boss without having the testimony of a busload of nuns, you’d never get the mob boss. As as Seth Abramson has argued, when criminal co-conspirators turn against the boss, it’s more believable as they are testifying against their own interests.
Butina clearly doesn’t benefit from what she’s admitting. And if what she says is true, Putin was directly involved.