With all the news of Russian spy Maria Butina being charged in federal court this week, it’s easy to get caught up in a bunch of details that end up being mostly meaningless to the layperson — when really, all you need to know is that she used the National Rifle Association as cover in order to get closer to US Republicans and even presidential candidates.
In fact, the news has been so shocking to the political right that they’ve even gone back to try and discredit the video of Butina directly asking Donald Trump at FreedomFest 2015 whether, should he become president, he intended to continue the policy of sanctions against Russia. Those sanctions, of course, were enacted under the Magnitsky Act during the Obama administration, the law named for the Russian citizen assassinated by the government for his whistleblower role in uncovering government tax fraud in his home country. In that case, a man whose name you might recognize from the Trump-Putin joint press conference helped Sergei Magnitsky publicize the Kremlin crimes — Bill Browder, one of the American citizens Trump is considering turning over to Putin for questioning.
There’s not really any question that it was Butina at the conference — She posted pictures from the event on her own Instagram account that same day:
Somewhat overshadowed by the conservative denials that it was the same Russian spy specifically asking the future president about sanctions is the fact that Trump’s reply was NO, he didn’t think we would “need” them.
But why wouldn’t it have been Maria Butina at that forum? After all, there is no shortage of pictures of her showing up in friendly poses with any number of prominent Republicans. From gun-friendly governors to would-be world leaders, Maria Butina rubbed shoulders with them all.
Here she is with David Keene, the former director of the NRA:
And with Wayne LaPierre, a man to hold that title even more recently:
Here she is with perennial Republican villains Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, and even Scott Walker:
And just in case none of these guys is quite enough of an unsavory character for you, here’s an image of Butina in a large group with America’s Second-Least Favorite Sheriff (after Joe Arpaio), David Clarke, with their faces circled in red in case you can’t make them out:
As you can see, Maria Butina made the rounds in her role as a Russian infiltrator. There may actually be more pictures out there that nobody’s uncovered yet, and I would almost assume there are, since none of these feature her with Sean Hannity, and that guy seems like he’s connected to everything treasonous the Republicans have done since Donald Trump “won” the electoral college.
We’ll let you know what we find.
Featured image [Butina with Liberty Bell at NRA conference] via Twitter
