That NRA gal?
by digby
Josh Marshall looked at the complaint against Butina and notes that it's clear she was involved in a Russian government operation to infiltrate the NRA with the purpose of influencing American politics. I think his conclusion may be correct:
But reading the complaint gave me a different sense. Here’s Butina, in active conversation with the man who is in effect her handler, Torshin, working with two Americans to find points of entry into U.S. political networks during the 2016 campaign and before, “building a team of advisors on Russia for a new President.” These are almost exactly the kinds of semi-furtive relationships we seem to see all around the Trump world and the Trump campaign – unexplained meetings that are all of course happenstance and by chance. But here it is spelled out in some detail, with key telling emails and more. If you’ve watched this story in detail, there are lots of players like this in the mix. It’s hard to imagine there aren’t lots of Russians like Butina working with Americans like U.S. Person 1 and 2. In most cases, we know or can pretty well predict who they are. I could not read this complaint without thinking it was a template for more we are likely to see soon, and probably ones Mueller is unlikely to hand off to outside prosecutors.
This is from a subscription only article. I urge you to subscribe if you can. Josh's insights on this story are valuable.
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