Another Russian Shoe Just Dropped - and It's Tied to the NRA

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

18 July 18

Maria Butina was allegedly a very busy unregistered lobbyist on behalf of the Russian Federation.

h, my. Look what dropped! It’s…another shoe.

According to the affidavit in support of the complaint, from as early as 2015 and continuing through at least February 2017, Butina worked at the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government who was previously a member of the legislature of the Russian Federation and later became a top official at the Russian Central Bank. This Russian official was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control in April 2018. The court filings detail the Russian official’s and Butina’s efforts for Butina to act as an agent of Russia inside the United States by developing relationships with U.S. persons and infiltrating organizations having influence in American politics, for the purpose of advancing the interests of the Russian Federation. The filings also describe certain actions taken by Butina to further this effort during multiple visits from Russia and, later, when she entered and resided in the United States on a student visa. The filings allege that she undertook her activities without officially disclosing the fact that she was acting as an agent of Russian government, as required by law.

Butina certainly has been busy. Some of her work as an unregistered lobbyist involved work for the National Rifle Association. Investigative reporter Scott Stedman has been on this case at least since April.

And, at the end of June, the notion that the NRA laundered Russian money for the Trump campaign broke out widely. From Rolling Stone:

But Russia experts believe Torshin’s interest in U.S. gun culture masked a dark, ulterior motive. “It’s all a big charade, basically,” Glenn Simpson, founder of the research firm behind the infamous Steele Dossier, testified to the House Intelligence Committee. Much of what passes for civil society in modern Russia is, in fact, controlled by Putin. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee published a January 2018 report on “Putin’s Asymmetric Assault on Democracy,” which describes how the Kremlin has “sought to co-opt civil society by ‘devot[ing] massive resources to the creation and activities of state-sponsored and state-controlled NGOs.” Some of these faux grassroots groups buttress the Kremlin’s domestic agenda. Others are projections of Putin’s foreign policy. Sen. Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, says it is common for Russian groups that “appear to be independent” but are “really Putin groups” to build relationships with civic groups in Western democracies, like the NRA – “to have tentacles,” Cardin says, “to try and influence public opinion here in the United States. It is certainly part of Putin’s MO.”

Exactly how lousy with Russian money are Republican and conservative American politicians and political organizations is still an open question. (The same question concerning the Republican president* is as closed as a tomb.) It would explain, to an extent, the supine reaction by the Republican majorities in Congress to the depredations of this administration*. There is no question that the Russian government has an incredibly well-honed instinct for finding American suckers. Vladimir Putin may be the heir to the Tsars and the commissars, but it appears that, in international politics at least, he’s the heir to Bernie Madoff as well.