Russian woman charged with spying for Moscow by 'infiltrating' NRA

[Perknose]

Obligatory, "Move along, nothing to see here / good people on both sides / fake news / Hilary's emails."

A Russian woman has been charged with spying for Moscow in the US by infiltrating the National Rifle Association (NRA) in an attempt to influence the Republican party and American politics.

Maria Butina, who purported to be a pro-gun activist, met American politicians and candidates to establish “back channels” and secretly reported back to the Kremlin through a high-level Russian official, according to the US justice department.

[...]

Charging documents unsealed on Monday say Butina was directed by a “high-level official in the Russian government”. The unnamed official’s biography matched that of Torshin, but he was not identified by name.

Two unidentified Americans, one of them described as a “political operative”, were said in the charging documents to have assisted Butina in her efforts to make political contacts in the US. Neither was charged with a crime.

Butina has a longstanding working relationship with Paul Erickson, an NRA member and conservative operative based in South Dakota. Erickson did not respond to a voicemail left on Monday afternoon.

Prosecutors said Butina emailed the first American associate in March 2015, suggesting a specific political party “would likely obtain control over the US government after the 2016 elections” and noting the powerful role in this party played by a certain gun rights organisation.

While neither organisation was identified by prosecutors, their descriptions matched those of the Republican party and the NRA.

 

[sandorski]

Real Americans!

 

[carop]

"The Russophobic witch hunt has its first real life victim in 29 year old Maria Butina, whose life is to be destroyed for chatting up members of the NRA in order to increase Russian influence. With over 20 years of diplomatic experience, I can tell you that every country, including the UK and US, has bit part players of its own nationals who self-start in a country to make their way, and if they gain any traction are tapped by their national security service as potential “agents of influence”. I could name quite literally scores of such people, but have no desire to get anyone in trouble. The elevation of Butina into a huge threat and part of a gigantic plot, is to ignore the way the United States and the United Kingdom and indeed all major governments’ Embassies behave around the globe."

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/07/detente-bad-cold-war-good/

 

[vi edit]

Now that's quite the sleeper account. In almost 2200 days you've posted 91 messages. And you chose this topic?

 

[IronWing]

"We do the same thing in other countries" is not a valid defense against accusations of espionage.

 

[umbrella39]

"The Russophobic witch hunt has its first real life victim in 29 year old Maria Butina, whose life is to be destroyed for chatting up members of the NRA in order to increase Russian influence. With over 20 years of diplomatic experience, I can tell you that every country, including the UK and US, has bit part players of its own nationals who self-start in a country to make their way, and if they gain any traction are tapped by their national security service as potential “agents of influence”. I could name quite literally scores of such people, but have no desire to get anyone in trouble. The elevation of Butina into a huge threat and part of a gigantic plot, is to ignore the way the United States and the United Kingdom and indeed all major governments’ Embassies behave around the globe."

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/07/detente-bad-cold-war-good/

[eyeroll] You should have pasted the rest of this bullshit and your "opinion" of it, too for us to dissect.... [/eyeroll]

The war-hawks who were devastated by the loss of champion killer Hillary now see the prospect of their very worst fear coming true. Their very worst fear is the outbreak of peace and international treaties of arms control. Hence the media and political establishment today has reached peaks of hysteria never before seen. Pursuing peace is “treason” and the faux left now stand starkly exposed.

Thanks for spamming your head up your ass blog post Craig...

 

[mikeymikec]

"The Russophobic witch hunt has its first real life victim in 29 year old Maria Butina, whose life is to be destroyed for chatting up members of the NRA in order to increase Russian influence. With over 20 years of diplomatic experience, I can tell you that every country, including the UK and US, has bit part players of its own nationals who self-start in a country to make their way, and if they gain any traction are tapped by their national security service as potential “agents of influence”. I could name quite literally scores of such people, but have no desire to get anyone in trouble. The elevation of Butina into a huge threat and part of a gigantic plot, is to ignore the way the United States and the United Kingdom and indeed all major governments’ Embassies behave around the globe."

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/07/detente-bad-cold-war-good/

cool blog bro. You've got to love the "life is about to be destroyed" angle (used almost without exception in situations of someone doing something that everyone knows is wrong such as rape but for some reason holding them to account for it is implied to be bad), then "the entire liberal media and political establishment" as the opening line in your blog entry.

 

[fskimospy]

Interesting thing about this Butina lady. House Democrats wanted to interview her because they thought she was relevant to the Russia investigation. House Republicans refused to interview her and yet here we are with her indicted as a Russian spy a few months later.

Glad to see House Republicans were really interested in getting to the bottom of this.

 

[fskimospy]

[eyeroll] You should have pasted the rest of this bullshit and your "opinion" of it, too for us to dissect.... [/eyeroll]

Thanks for spamming your head up your ass blog post Craig...

For what it's worth our good friend Craig Murray is also a DNC hacks truther.

 

[UNCjigga]

This could be bigger than the Mueller investigation. Forget hacking the DNC, forget social media engineering, forget the Steele Dossier, and forget pee tapes. This alone could lead to treason charges and impeachment:

Ms. Butina sent this email to Aleksandr Torshin days before he was set to meet with Trump for the first time. She is likely referring to Donald Trump himself as "the Second Pozner"...literally a propaganda mouthpiece for the Russian Federation.

They were already using him as a mouthpiece promoting pro-Russia views on US national television before he publicly announced his presidential bid. The fact that Moscow could have such an agent leading from the White House probably led to all the other activities Mueller is investigating, but this tells us Trump was compromised from the start.

Edit: added next page, emphasis mine

 

[fskimospy]

But wait, THAT COULD BE ANY US POLITICAL PARTY AND GUN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION, RIGHT?

 

[UNCjigga]

But wait, THAT COULD BE ANY US POLITICAL PARTY AND GUN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION, RIGHT?

I'm pretty sure they're talking about the Democratic Party and the Liberal Gun Owners' group!!

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I'm pretty sure they're talking about the Democratic Party and the Liberal Gun Owners' group!!

Tea party and Poofy Hair Gun Owners' Group?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Now that's quite the sleeper account. In almost 2200 days you've posted 91 messages. And you chose this topic?

And it’s his first post outside of CPUs

Starting to think like me @vi edit I like it

 

[trenchfoot]

"This fake Russia thing" quote of Trump's is, ironically, both Trump's call to arms as well as his political epitaph.

From thinking back on how Putin has managed to constantly outplay, outgun and make Trump, and thus our entire nation out to be pliable putty in his hands exposes a rather sadistic side to his personality. He must be thrilled, ecstatic that he has the President of the United States behaving as a plaything, a doll, a puppet that he can do any manner of sadistic torturous thing to at will.

But most of all, Putin must derive so much satisfaction from the fact that he has managed to convince millions of Americans to help him keep his puppet Trump right where he wants him. Putin is showcasing his talents and the grip he has over our nation every time he makes Trump say nice things about him while having Trump's millions of supporters buy into or even worse, endure the fact that he has their POTUS in the palm of his hands to do with as he pleases.

 

[hal2kilo]

"The Russophobic witch hunt has its first real life victim in 29 year old Maria Butina, whose life is to be destroyed for chatting up members of the NRA in order to increase Russian influence. With over 20 years of diplomatic experience, I can tell you that every country, including the UK and US, has bit part players of its own nationals who self-start in a country to make their way, and if they gain any traction are tapped by their national security service as potential “agents of influence”. I could name quite literally scores of such people, but have no desire to get anyone in trouble. The elevation of Butina into a huge threat and part of a gigantic plot, is to ignore the way the United States and the United Kingdom and indeed all major governments’ Embassies behave around the globe."

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/07/detente-bad-cold-war-good/

So you are going with "move along". Got it.

 

[Homerboy]

Damn it. Read this on Reddit last night and forgot to post here this morning.
CRAZY shit going on.

 

[vi edit]

Tea party and Poofy Hair Gun Owners' Group?

Green Party (JILL STEIN HAD DINNER WITH PUTIN!@*&@!!!) and Glocks for Tots program.

 

[Homerboy]

There's lots of good accompanying articles and information in the reddit thread
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/8zdnot/russian_national_charged_in_conspiracy_to_act_as/

In fact here's Trump answering a question from the spy herself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fp1TioaLcg

with a GREAT in-depth analysis
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comme...onal_charged_in_conspiracy_to_act_as/e2hyyo6/

 

[Moonbeam]

Interesting thing about this Butina lady. House Democrats wanted to interview her because they thought she was relevant to the Russia investigation. House Republicans refused to interview her and yet here we are with her indicted as a Russian spy a few months later.

Glad to see House Republicans were really interested in getting to the bottom of this.

She is accused of arranging to use the NRA to form a backdoor communication channel between the Putin government and the Republican party. Why would the Ruspublican traitor party want that coming to light?

We are talking about a party that chose power over country by collusion with the Russian government to put Russia's favored candidate in office as our President because they felt he would be best for them in destroying the West and the damage done is already enormous.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

There's lots of good accompanying articles and information in the reddit thread
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/8zdnot/russian_national_charged_in_conspiracy_to_act_as/

In fact here's Trump answering a question from the spy herself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fp1TioaLcg

with a GREAT in-depth analysis
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comme...onal_charged_in_conspiracy_to_act_as/e2hyyo6/

PoppinKREAM is a rockstar on those reddit political threads. Superb information source.

 

[vi edit]

Can someone humor me a bit here. Russia has pretty prohibitive gun laws. Limited to hunting rifles and shotguns under certain conditions. Handguns are generally not permitted. Which under an authoritarian regime makes sense. It keeps the population a bit more in check from overthrowing you.

So...this chick starts up essentially "NRA Moscow" under what we can assume is Putin's allowance. Is that whole thing just a ruse to gain American buy in of their gun advocacy? I have to assume that Putin has little to no desire to actually advocate the advancement of gun rights. It's nothing more than a "Murica friendly ruse to toss to our mouth breathing, red meat eating Trump base. Right?

 

[Homerboy]

PoppinKREAM is a rockstar on those reddit political threads. Superb information source.

Yeah. He's... uh... smart and stuff.

 

[hal2kilo]

Green Party (JILL STEIN HAD DINNER WITH PUTIN!@*&@!!!) and Glocks for Tots program.

I put her in the useful idiot category.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Can someone humor me a bit here. Russia has pretty prohibitive gun laws. Limited to hunting rifles and shotguns under certain conditions. Handguns are generally not permitted. Which under an authoritarian regime makes sense. It keeps the population a bit more in check from overthrowing you.

So...this chick starts up essentially "NRA Moscow" under what we can assume is Putin's allowance. Is that whole thing just a ruse to gain American buy in of their gun advocacy? I have to assume that Putin has little to no desire to actually advocate the advancement of gun rights. It's nothing more than a "Murica friendly ruse to toss to our mouth breathing, red meat eating Trump base. Right?

Easy because Trump is strong and Obama’s is weak. Trumps teaming up with Strong Uncle Puti to make us safer. Russia has more gun laws because their police can be tough with all the gang bangers and stuff