It has come down to this: if you are a Russian and you are caught talking to anyone in any way influential, there is potentially hell to pay because the FBI will be watching you. You are automatically assumed to be part of a conspiracy. Once “evidence” is collected, you will be indicted and sent to prison, mostly to send a message to Moscow. It is the ultimate irony that how the old Soviet Union’s judiciary used to function is now becoming standing operating procedure in the United States.
Philip Giraldi
As it is known, America has not persecuted witches for several centuries. That's recently changed. Outside the US, it is
difficult to imagine to what extent the bottomfeeders now rule in USA politics and media (the trend began before Trump, but after
his election gained pace). Butina's arrest and the howling in the bastard neoliberal MSM about the "Russian spy" is basically an
episode in the Deep State
rat war for preserving and expanding the military budget (and fleecing ordinary Americans using "Russian threat"). At the same time
this is a clear abomination and perversion of justice. And she is not even a political opponent of the regime so we can't
talk about similarity with Moscow trials in the USSR. She is just an eccentric woman that is englamored with guns and gun
toting culture of the USA who was crashes to "make the point". As in Michael Ledeen bon-mot "Every ten years or so, the United
States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business" but
applied to a person, a young woman.
It is impossible now to talk about any respect for "American justice system". It courses almost physiological disgust
toward the US politicized justice system, especially for the presiding judge -- Tanya Chutkan. Hopefully, Butina in a few months will be able to break out of the dirty clutches of the
US "justce" system
and hopefully will be able tell the truth about the bottomfeeders.
Of couse she is not without her own foult. Marina Butina is a strange, fringe character for sure. Self proclaimed female gun advocate. Also her behaviour in the USA taking into
account anti-Russian hysteria that has stated in 2016 and about which it is impossible not to be aware for any person with IQ above
100 was reckless. Looks like she deliberately raised some red flags. Just her attempt to establish connections to the gun
lobby and to physical guns was a huge red flag.
That would be OK if she has Israeli citizenship. Unfortunately for her she also has Russian
citizenship and as such she was chosen to serve as a very convenient scapegoat for neo-McCarthyism witch hunt and was thrown to jail.
She not the first (The USA McCarthyism history is rich -- the first period was over 10 years, I think) and probably not the last
Don’t you think it is in the least bit weird that Judge Deborah A. Robinson is also the same judge
who presided over the Scooter Libby trial, over the Manafort charges, dismissed the lawsuit brought
by the relatives of the Benghazi attack, advised over the ruling Hillary Clinton did not endanger
the Libya Ambassador when she communicated his scheduled visit to Benghazi over her unsecured
server we now know was hacked and is now presiding over this case as well? Think about it: There
are 23,000 magistrates yet this one seems to get all of these high profile trials and charges. . .
Just rather strange. . .
They destroyed her life and probably sincere romance. One interesting fact
Mariia worked for Susan Rice at American University (AU). Their
offices were next to each other. Ambassador Rice was President Barack Obama's National Security
Advisor from 2013 to 2017.
Rice's job at American University was to review NSA and FBI
surveillance data, then organize it, for the benefit of the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign.
As Dean, Professor James Goldgeier was in charge of selecting 70
other students to help analyze the data with Butina as their student leader.
There was not need for this strange and somewhat stupid woman is now imprisoned on trumped-up charges by a judge
Tanya S. Chutkan appointed by Obama with rather strance history.
Interestingly enought he same jusdge also handles cases of Fusion GPS, and Imran Awan:
Tanya Chutkan is one of 13 judges on the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia. An additional eight work part-time
as Senior Judges.
Chutkan has been a U.S. Federal District Judge in the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. since June 5th, 2014. To get her
appointed, President Barack Obama created or "packed" the D.C. Court with a "new position". At her Judicial Nomination
hearing, Chutkan was asked about her lack of experience in criminal law. She had none. Nor did Chutkan have trial experience.
How can paperwork be timestamped when the court is closed? <img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/598a66006b8f5b013edc46c1/t/5c5d6731f9619a074c095377/1549625145085/Butina+case+filed+on+a+Saturday+.png"
alt="Butina case filed on a Saturday .png" />
Court-shopping is rigging the system to get one's legal case steered to the judge most likely to rule in one's favor. It is only illegal if caught. And if the opposing party objects to it. Is this how Judge Chutkan got steered the Awan and Fusion GPS cases too?
Is that cause for a reversal? How does the Justice Department keep on getting away with it?
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-FL, has a brother, Steven, who works as a U.S. Attorney in the Prosecutors' Office in the District
of Columbia. She is former campaign chairman for the DNC and the Hillary Clinton Campaign for President. Wasserman Schultz
is also the one who gave her passwords to Imran Awan.
Is that how the Butina, Awan, and Fusion GPS cases got "assigned" to Judge Chutkan?
What does this say about the rest of the D.C. District Court? What are they doing to rein in Judge Chutkan's judicial misconduct?
Butina case can be viewed as a textbook case how neo-McCarthyism operates in the
USA and why it is so dangerous. Philip Giraldi in his article
Butina Case Neo-McCarthyism
Engulfs America wrote that "it would be difficult to imagine why anyone would consider the NRA to be a legitimate
intelligence target"
August 8, 2018
The United States Department of Justice would apparently have you believe that the Kremlin sought to subvert the five-million-member
strong National Rifle Association (NRA) by having two Russian citizens take out life memberships in the organization with the intention
of corrupting it and turning it into a mouthpiece for President Vladimir Putin. Both of the Russians – Maria Butina and Alexander
Torshin – have, by the way, long well documented histories as advocates for gun ownership and were founders of Right to Bear Arms,
which is not an intelligence front organization of some kind and is rather a genuine lobbying group with an active membership and
agenda. Contrary to what has been reported in the mainstream media, Russians can own guns but the licensing and registration procedures
are long and complicated, which Right to Bear Arms, modeling itself on the NRA, is seeking to change.
Maria Butina, a graduate student at American University, is now in solitary confinement in a federal prison, having been charged
with collusion with Torshin and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. It is unusual to arrest and confine someone
who has failed to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, but she has not been granted bail because, as a Russian
citizen, she is considered to be a “flight risk,” likely to try to flee the US and return home. It is to be presumed that she is
being pressured to identify others involved in her alleged scheme to overthrow American democracy through NRA membership.
Indeed, in any event, it would be difficult to imagine why anyone would consider the NRA to be a legitimate intelligence target.
It only flexes its admitted powerful legislative muscles over issues relating to gun ownership, not regarding policy on Russia. In
short, Butina and by extension Torshin appear to have done nothing wrong. Both are energetic advocates for their country and guns
rights, which they appear to believe in, and Butina’s aggressive networking has broken no law except not registering, which in itself
assumes that she is a Russian government agent, something that has not been demonstrated. To put the shoe on the other foot, will
every American who now travels to Russia and engages in political conversations with local people be suspected of acting as an agent
of the US government? Once you open the door, it swings both ways.
One might dismiss the entire Affair Butina as little more than a reflection of the anti-Russia hysteria that has been sweeping
the United States since Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, but that would be unfair to those remaining honest FBI agents who
may have investigated Butina and Torshin and come up with what they believed to be a plausible case for an indictment. There were
possibly suspicious money transfers as well as email intercepts that might be interpreted as incriminating.
But two important elements are clearly missing. The first is motive. Did the Kremlin seriously believe that it could get anything
substantial out of having a gun totin’ attractive young Russian woman as a life member in the NRA? What did the presumed puppet masters
in Moscow expect to obtain apart from the sorts of group photos including Butina that one gets while posing with politicians at the
annual NRA convention? Sure, the photo might even evolve into a cup of coffee together, but what is the end game?
Second is the lack of any of the hallmarks of an intelligence operation, which is referred to in the business as tradecraft. Spies
meet secretly or at least outside the public eye with prospective agents whereas Maria operated completely in the open and she made
no effort to conceal her love for her country and her desire that Washington and Moscow normalize relations. Spies also communicate
securely, which means that they use encrypted systems or various cut-outs, i.e. mis-directions, when maintaining contact with those
who are running them. Again, Maria did none of that, which is why the FBI has her emails. Also spies work under what is referred
to as an “operating directive” in CIA-speak where they have very specific information that they seek to obtain from their contacts.
There is no indication that Maria Butina in any way sought classified information or intelligence that would relate either to the
security of the United States or to America’s political system. And finally, Maria made no attempt to recruit anyone and turn them
into an actual controlled Russian agent, which is what spies eventually seek to do.
It has come down to this: if you are a Russian and you are caught talking to anyone in any way influential, there is potentially
hell to pay because the FBI will be watching you. You are automatically assumed to be part of a conspiracy. Once “evidence” is collected,
you will be indicted and sent to prison, mostly to send a message to Moscow. It is the ultimate irony that how the old Soviet Union’s
judiciary used to function is now becoming standing operating procedure in the United States.
Nah, there is freedom of speech in China. The thing is China has its own internet
ecosystem - its own social medias, own search engines, own newspapers, own websites etc. etc.
- and they're all in Chinese.
What happens is the West doesn't know what is going on in China for the simple fact they
don't read Chinese. This opens a flank for a "survivor bias" scenario, where the Western MSM
decides which the Western people can know and which they can't know - and the lies they
should believe. Westerners cannot double check for the source because they don't know
Chinese.
--//--
@ Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 29 2020 1:32 utc | 25
Two completely different cases: Maria Butina never claimed to be a journalist, and didn't
spread fake news about the USA. She didn't commit any crime, and served as an scapegoat to a
bigger conspiracy.
The Russian government is set to expel a prominent human-rights activist, with former
president Dmitry Medvedev claiming there's a co-ordinated campaign by international
organizations to stoke unrest in the world's largest state.
Vanessa Kogan, the director of the Stichting Justice Initiative project, told Britain's
Guardian newspaper that Russian authorities had notified her of the revocation of her residency
permit. She will now have two weeks to leave the country, where she has lived for more than ten
years. She also has two children with a Russian national.
The Stichting Justice Initiative is an NGO which, it says, provides legal support to
Russians in cases of perceived human rights abuses. It has been less open about its funding in
recent years, but in 2010 and 2011, it was bankrolled by the Dutch government and the Hungarian
billionaire George Soros. via his 'Open Society' pressure group, which has been banned in
Russia and declared "undesirable."
Kogan's work has previously focused on the North Caucasus region, where her group has
represented people alleging victimization at the hands of authorities. Its activity in the
majority Muslim area has reportedly brought tensions with local leaders, such as Ramzan
Kadyrov, the head of the Republic of Chechnya.
Now the Deputy Chairman of Russia's Security Council, Medvedev, who has also served as
Russia's prime minister, told reporters on Thursday that well-funded foreign groups were using
networks in Russia to "exacerbate the internal political situation in certain regions,
including through Russian non-profit groups they associate with."
He went on to add that these NGOs "depend on internet media, and use various far-fetched
reasons for rewriting the events of our national history." He called this a "large-scale
information campaign, being conducted to discredit the leadership of some specific territories
and Federal Subjects."
In November, the country's State Duma debated new legislation that would expand the
definition of foreign agents, enabling the label to be applied not only to NGOs and media
organizations, but also to ordinary citizensIn 2018, the United States imprisoned a Russian
citizen, Maria Butina, claiming that she was a foreign agent operating on behalf of Moscow.
Authorities allege that she had infiltrated conservative-leaning organizations to promote
better ties between Washington and the Kremlin. She served five months in prison, some of it in
solitary confinement, before being deported back to Russia.
Zeta029 43 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:01 PM
This is a most dangerous situation. Being unable to openly defeat Russia on a battlefield
(not that they didnt try, most recently in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria), the Empire is
focusing on certain NGO and people like Navalny to weaken the leadership of Russian
Federation. This is the undisputed truth and so these measures should be swift and harsh, for
National Security sake.
cangoroo Zeta029 16 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:28 PM
And those NGOs are funded with "printed money" in the Empire. Now Australia has joined the
money-printing party of their big-brother US; at the rate of $5billion a week. Money-printing
means PIRATING money from the holders of their money, including foreign CentralBnks like
China's. It was SEA-PIRACY on which the Empire Britannia was built during the reign of QE1 in
the 16th century. Genes, I guess.
Count_Cash Zeta029 18 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:26 PM
It's a multifaceted interference in Russia. The biggest play is economic , the next play is
internal friction based on wealth disparity, the third is to create perception that
westerners have better rights. The medium is external media, internal media, external courts,
attacks on internal courts and political institutions - But there is one thing the western
strategists haven't figured - nuclear weapons and their deterrent is aimed at preventing not
only military attacks but also other attacks that attempt to politically and economically
dominate Russia. While the west think all this activity has no cost, as was shown in the
places you reference, there can be a military cost for the western games of interference and
pushed far enough it could be a nuclear one. Nuclear Weapons their not just for countering
military threats!
TheFishh 40 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:04 PM
Funded by Soros and Dutch government? There you have it. I wonder what Netherlands and the US
would do, if some organizations operating there were getting money from Moscow. They'd lock
up everyone involved in it. They wouldn't just be told to go back to Russia.
Nonenity TheFishh 16 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:28 PM
They ought to be in OP and making their reports on the war crimes and human rights abuses
there - ongoing since before 1948...
Madbovineuk 1 hour ago 3 Dec, 2020 12:58 PM
Expel all NGOs from Russia especially those with American ties
WhoWantsAIDS Madbovineuk 13 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:31 PM
As an American if Putin wants to send Soros workers or sympathizers home in a box he would be
doing the world a favor. 💯🔮
Count_Cash Madbovineuk 25 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:19 PM
Yes just boot her and the rest out. They are just trouble makers, if they were straight up
they would be running to Iraq or Afghanistan to help people abused by the US.
Timothy-Allen Albertson 1 hour ago 3 Dec, 2020 12:56 PM
Soros, the nazi, needs to be hanged for Crimes Against Humanity. Too bad the Russian
Federation did not imprison this Soros agitator for a long term at hard labor.
She should work all her life, and still I dont think she would repay the harm she did.
Badgecub 1 hour ago 3 Dec, 2020 01:25 PM
Kogan, if you are worried about human rights abuses go to the UK and help Julian Assage
Nonenity Badgecub 18 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:26 PM
And all of those many, many US folks in prison for long periods, mostly for minor offences,
because it was their third time stealing a slice of pizza. You don't hear/read/see it on the
MSM, but these prisoners are all but slave labor and usually for multinational companies like
S...bucks... Indeed in at least two states they are slave labor because they do not even get
the cents (well under a dollar) per hour that prisoners in most states do. And should the
prisoners refuse to do this labor, they often end up in solitary confinement - well known to
be psychological torture...And there are political prisoners as well (not called that, of
course, given who and where they are)...not to mention Guantanamo and the various Black Sites
around the world and controlled by the CIA.... Stephen Kinzer's book on The Poisoner in
Chief...a good read about the post war decades and the human rights abuses by the
exceptionalist nation...
TheFishh Badgecub 35 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:09 PM
Yes. And these sorts of contradictions is what gives away these so-called western human
rights organizations as a bunch of nefarious fakes.
DoubleKnot 1 hour ago 3 Dec, 2020 01:14 PM
NGO - Non-Gentile Organization
TheFishh DoubleKnot 37 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:07 PM
BING!
Marko Podganjek 15 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:29 PM
I thought that such organizations and people were expelled from Russia long ago. Because on
west they want to imprison people that were just on trip in Russia. Not to say if somebody
would get money from Russia. The relations and approaches here has to be comparable on both
sides.
Smanz 20 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:24 PM
Anything linked to Soros generally only exists to create chaos and ruin the country it is in.
dunkie56 8 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:36 PM
i will say it again...throw the West and it's agents provocateurs out of Russia...all Western
companies must leave forthwith and restrict who comes into Russia and tighten the borders!
Preferably raise up the iron curtain once again!
SrJustice 5 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:39 PM
Politicians in the US think that improving relations with other countries is a bad thing
because they need enemies, enemies are better than friends to have for Washington, very
twisted minds. They just want to scare their people so they can suck more tax money and spend
on the weapons manufacturers, where most of those politician invest their money.
The 57-year-old multimillionaire also appeared on several podcasts, including a November
23 appearance in which he said: "I'm a free agent, and I'm self-funded, and I'm funding this
army of various odd people," according to the
Daily Beast .
"It's really going to make a great movie someday," he added.
Byrne claims he's funding teams of "hackers and crackers" who realized all the way back
in August that Dominion voting machines could be used to steal the election from Trump .
Since the election, those voting machines have figured prominently in Trump supporters'
allegations of fraud, despite the company's repeated denials and any actual proof the
voting tallies were changed. -
Daily Beast
Byrne says he's been communicating with former Trump attorney Sidney Powell for weeks -
who last week
filed two lawsuits in Michigan and Georgia alleging massive schemes to rig the election
for Joe Biden.
According to Powell's Georgia lawsuit: "Old-fashioned ballot-stuffing" has been "
amplified and rendered virtually invisible by computer software created and run by domestic
and foreign actors for that very purpose," adding that "Mathematical and statistical
anomalies rising to the level of impossibilities, as shown by affidavits of multiple
witnesses, documentation, and expert testimony evince this scheme across the state of
Georgia."
In Michigan, Powell claims that "hundreds of thousands of illegal, ineligible, duplicate,
or purely fictitious ballots" enabled by "massive election fraud" facilitated Biden's win in
the state.
The suit claimed that election software and hardware from Dominion Voting Systems used by
the Michigan Board of State Canvassers helped facilitate the fraud.
Speaking to Christopher McDonald of The McFiles in a recent interview, the former head
of a $200 billion e-commerce company that has never once gotten hacked revealed that
Dominion Voting Systems were used to perform a "Drop and Roll" technique of voter fraud
that slyly padded the vote for Biden in at least five key swing areas of the country.
Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Maricopa County, Arizona (Phoenix) were
all rigged prior to election day to strip President Trump of his rightful win in each of
these states. Byrne also mentioned Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas) as another election
fraud locale, though this one was more secondary.
According to Byrne, who is not a supporter of President Trump but rather a "small l"
libertarian, these five (or six if you include Clark County) areas are where a bulk of the
election fraud took place. It did not have to be widespread because these were the key
swing areas that Biden needed to "win" in order to steal the election.
" By cheating those five counties, you flip five key states, you flip the electoral
college, " Byrne says. " In places where Trump lost by 10,000, there may be 300,000 fake,
illegal votes for Biden. So this isn't even close. "
He further contends that the election systems that govern elections in America "are a
joke," especially those run by Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic software.
* * *
Is Byrne's 'army' Sidney Powell's research team?
play_arrow
MadameDeficit , 4 hours ago
Do you really believe she was a Russian guns rights activist?
Doom Porn Star , 2 hours ago
Does it matter what I think about Butina? What matters is what I think about Byrne.
WHY did the FBI / DOJ need Byrne to spy for them?
What did Byrne get out of it? We may not know who Butina was working for; but, we sure
do know who Byrne said he was working for.
Trump did NOT get money for speeches in Russia. -Bill Clinton did.
Trump did NOT get money from the wife of the Mayor of Moscow. -Hunter Biden did.
Trump did NOT sell off Uranium assets in the USA to Russian businessmen. -Hillary
Clinton did.
Trump Jr. did NOT get a high paying no show gig @ Bursima. -Hunter Biden did.
"In a strange, post-Mueller twist, the conviction of Maria Butina , the redheaded gun
nerd and
unregistered Russian agent , has led to the resignation of a prominent e-commerce
executive. On Thursday, Overstock.com
CEO Patrick Byrne announced
that he would step down from the company he founded, days after
releasing a bizarre statement describing his involvement with Butina, the "Deep State,"
"Men in Black," and Russian-linked "political espionage" campaigns against Hillary Clinton
and Donald Trump. In a
letter to shareholders, Byrne lamented that his continued presence at the company "may
affect and complicate all manner of business relationships."
"While I believe that I did what was necessary for the good of the country, for the good
of the firm, I am in the sad position of having to sever ties with Overstock, both as CEO
and board member," Byrne
said in the statement. The company's stock price had plummeted
more than 40% in the days after Byrne first revealed his participation, earlier this
month, in what he called a "political espionage" case involving Russia. Following his
resignation, the company's market capitalization soared
more than 8% .
It was an ignominious end for Byrne, a celebrity in Libertarian circles, whose
labyrinthine involvement in the Russia scandal is difficult to verify. In an
interview with journalist and Fox News contributor Sara Carter published last month,
Byrne said he had been approached by Butina at FreedomFest in 2015, and came to suspect
that she might be a Russian agent. Byrne reached out to the FBI to share his concerns, but,
he said, was told to carry on with the relationship and report back. Over the next three
years, he and Butina had a sporadic intimate relationship.
The story gets weirder from there. Byrne said he came to have doubts about his
"nonstandard" relationship with the FBI and the intelligence community. He told Carter that
he believed he "was being used in some sort of soft coup" against Trump. (Butina's lawyer
confirmed the two had a relationship, while the Department of Justice said it could not
comment.)
It wasn't until Byrne appeared on Fox Business
Network, about two weeks later, that investors got spooked. Byrne claimed to have turned
over evidence of a conspiracy involving Clinton and Trump. "I think we're about to see the
biggest scandal in American history," Byrne told host David Asman. "Everything you think
you know about Russia and Clinton investigations is a lie.... it was all political
espionage. I think [Attorney General William Barr ] has gotten to the bottom of it."
"
SO, Patrick Byrne the Deep State tool is back with another bombshell?
What happened to the last bombshell?
ALL Byrne has done so far is get in bed with the FBI / DOJ Russiagate team and get a
Russian woman he was ckufing sent to prison and deported.
MadameDeficit , 2 hours ago
It's definitely a strange situation and relevant in terms of Byrne's potential
motivation, but who she was working for is the most important question.
The whole thing reeks of Deep State entrapment so...I'll give him the benefit of the
doubt for now.
Misesmissesme , 7 hours ago
So sad, that with all this evidence, a private citizen has to go to these lengths
because Barr and Wray are so far in the pockets of the deep state.
"There are many questions that are currently unanswered but there is one fact:
IF military personnel were killed by the CIA,
THEN the civil war between the people, the Deep State (and by extension, Russia, China
& Iran) has started."
Doom Porn Star , 7 hours ago
Patrick Byrne wasn't a free agent when he helped the FBI send Russian guns rights
activist Maria Butina to prison as part of the RussiaGate hysteria that was initiated by
Hillary Clinton to discredit and villainize Trump.
littlewing , 7 hours ago
Barr is a Bushie.
Go watch the Bush Sr. funeral again and the cards they got during.
Watch Biden get a card too, because the Bush Dynasty was both parties.
Clinton, Obama were also part of it.
Carter wondering why he didn't get one, turns to his wife and she didn't get one.
Notice Pence gets a card too, he is part of it.
Notice **** Cheney very aware of what is happening.
Dave Janda who worked in GHW Bush admin said he was a really bad guy and was involved in
human trafficking too.
Sick Monkey , 6 hours ago
The boards on these machines are quite simple like a phone. They were reset asap along
with any server data.
Nothing to see here unless operators are complete idiots. You need one of the boards to
check for wireless device maybe but I doubt it.
One of Gulliani's witnesses said he witnessed usb dives inserted 24 times without proper
chain of custody.
That's about as close as anyone will get to anything useful on the hardware.
Son of Loki , 7 hours ago
Dominion execs testified in Congress twice their machines could easily be hacked. Given
the data we have so far, there is zero probability that Biden won with legal votes.
Someone Else , 6 hours ago
This is all catching on like wild fire for many people. Sadly not for many others. If
you watch MSM (if you must) they still preface everything with "without evidence" and
"baseless". We know that simply isn't the case but a lot of people who hear this enough
believe it.
This is sewing discord between us who know and those kept in the dark. And its going to
get real ugly. It's a crime what the MSM is doing. Almost like programming mindless
soldiers with the WRONG program.
Doom Porn Star , 7 hours ago
Patrick Byrne, former CEO of Overstock.com , is an FBI stooge. He set up Maria Butina as
part of the RussiaGate disinfo campaign.
Leftsmasher , 6 hours ago
570,000 Pennsylvania votes For Biden in two hours in the early morning is not "slyly"
when the machines count 3000 per hour.
Ceickets feom Barr, busy getting ready for his next gig.
ze_vodka , 4 hours ago
At this point, we all need to realize that the election was entirely fake... and that
they are never going to let the fraud be pulled back.
There are two choices left:
1. Accept their dystopian future for us Deplorables (across the globe, not just the
USA)
2. Start doing something about it... start small and locally.
Onthebeach6 , 7 hours ago
The IT evidence is now overwhelming and I imagine it will be explained in detail to each
of the Legislatures.
If Biden stood down now it might save the Democrats but I doubt Xi would contemplate the
suggestion.
johnny two shoes , 7 hours ago
Of course that daily beast article frames it differently-
Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick
Byrne left behind a cloud of confusion when he
resigned in 2019 from the internet retailer he'd founded after panicking investors with
his bizarre claims that he had romanced a Russian agent at the behest of "Men in Black"
working for the United States government.
Now he's back...
but it's noteworthy that the narrative has been breached at the daily beast- that Trump
might be able to prove fraud.
philipat , 6 hours ago
It's a bit late for hackers isn't it? The machines are already off-line and probably
already wiped in most cases ('in compliance with standard operating procedures").
MAYBE, the CIA machines seized in the DOD raids in Frankfurt and Barcelona might confirm
"intervention" but we're running out of time. We'll see. Very soon.
philipat , 6 hours ago
He's also dodgier than a 3 Dollar Bill and has a VERY chequered past with allegations of
CIA involvement. It should be of concern that he is involved/
SurfingUSA , 7 hours ago
You know who could SERIOUSLY use a donation, since Matt Braynard also seems well-funded,
as well as Sidney Powell. Is Right Side Broadcasting, the ONLY outfit that is covering the
PA & AZ Legislative hearings.
We need an accurate, trustworthy voting system, no matter whether both "major" parties
are a fake uniparty and both candidates suck.
ReadyForHillary , 7 hours ago
And all results must be open to full audit by independent parties. Otherwise, no
deal.
Machines, code, ballots, signatures, everything. Individuals should be able to go online
and check that their vote (or lack thereof) is accurate.
B52Minot , 7 hours ago
I am surprised as others about the silence of Barr....and Durham....two folks who should
be all over this sorted and corrupt elections in which the Dem-China folks STOLE the
election....and the evidence is THERE yet the Feds are so SO silent......makes no
sense...and even Trump is wonder where they are when these folks work for HIM. Either Trump
is play acting and the Barr/Durham folks are presenting something HUGE or their sense of
defending our Republic and Constitution from these thieves is beyond distorted...it would
be so SO un-Patriotic and un-American......Either they are silent doing God's work to
defend this Country(and will show it soon) or they truly have lost their faith in this
Great Nation.
Doom Porn Star , 35 minutes ago
I'm quite familiar with DeepCapture.
Byrne has been kvetching about Overstock being being the target of naked short selling
and such for years. Old news. He's supposed to have plenty of money. I guess they didn't
short his stack or he figured out how to hedge his position.
IMO, the guy is limited hangout or diversion/disinfo.
He quarterbacks for the swamp. Then he doesn't?
Known for running a successful honeypot trap for the Deep State.
Walking around with almost as much money as Jeffery Epstein?
It seems that most of the information provided by Sidney Powell on Dominion voting machines
in the press conference on Nov 19 was provided by Patrick Byrne and a team of hackers he had
assembled.
Patrick Byrne is straight out of a novel. Clever, gutsy, rich, ready to take on the powers
that be, but there's a loose screw or two at the same time as something very genuine.
When, some years ago, I was researching short selling and in particular naked short selling
(when you sell masses of shares that do not exist) I came across a website called deep capture.
Patrick's company Overstock had been hit by a massive attack of naked short selling by dodgy
hedge funds and the share price crashed. Patrick was furious and was determined to get to the
bottom of what had happened.
This time he assembled a team of investigative journalists and they went to work. On
deepcapture there was a short analysis of a hedge fund attack on a Spanish company –
Afinsa – which I had been investigating in some depth and the conclusions coincided with
mine. This earned my respect and trust. But the site started to become a bit unhinged and wild
claims started to be made about Russian mafias infiltrating Wall Street, as if Patrick was
trying to ingratiate himself into the intelligence community. And the whole thing just ground
to a halt as far as I can remember. But he provided the most in depth study of naked short
selling, naming the names, that I have ever found.
So to judge from Patrick's MO the claims about the "hackability" of Dominion voting machines
will be correct. The claims about Venezuela and Chavez using them less so. 8 -1 Reply
Researcher , Nov 26, 2020 5:22 PM Reply to
Molinos
Lol
Patrick Byrne is part of the cryptocracy. He was involved in the Maria Butina set up and
the faux Russiagate plot.
The naked shorting lawsuit was to give him credibility as opposition against the Wall
St corruption and to promote blockchain, something which the NSA created with Bitcoin after
it probably stole the idea from the patent office that SERCO control.
More smoke and mirrors to confuse the dumb public, just like everything the cryptocracy
control, including the fake election and faux government.
If you believe Patrick Byrne is for real,
there's some swamp land you can purchase ahead of the IMF seizing it back from you by
force.
Molinos , Nov 26, 2020 5:40 PM Reply to
Researcher
I beg to disagree, but unlike you I do so respectfully and as one who has dedicated years
researching the nefarious activities of hedge funds for a PHD. So I know what I am talking
about when I say deep capture was a very valuable resource and the only other people on the
planet (that I know of) who were researching this subject from a critical point of view at
that time.
Researcher , Nov 26, 2020 8:16 PM Reply to
Molinos
Rolling Stone and Taibbi are printing the same lies about Russiagate that have already
been disproven when it was shown years ago that Hakluyt operatives connected to Trump and the
cryptocracy in a global psy-op co-ordinated through the US, Australia, Russia and London were
behind the Russiagate plot which was obviously not even real in any way and as fake as the
impeachment that resulted from Ukraine. or the fake investigation by Mueller who was also
involved in 9-11. And Comey who sits on the board of multiple cryptocracy front
companies.
Just another unbelievable farce for faux political drama in the media to create the
appearance of faux enmity to get out the vote and make it appear that the Deep State is out
to get Trump, King of the Swamp.
An absolute joke. Believe any fairy tale you like but don't pretend that naked shorting
isn't happening everyday because millions know the markets are rigged, the indices aren't
real, there's trillions in fake financial products floating around, including bonds, stocks
and commodities, and the central bankers own the Fed and the Treasury, The IRS, Cede &
Co, DTCC, retail banks, and all the exchanges. Just like they own and control the major
portion of the 1,000 corporations which are members of the IMF's new special drawing rights
global digital currency.
I was investigating HFT, front running and naked shorting pre 2008.
Molinos , Nov 26, 2020 9:19 PM Reply to
Researcher
Researcher,
I am glad you were researching naked shorting pre-2008 and I would have consulted you if I
had known. When did I say naked shorting is not happening every day? What I am saying is that
Patrick Byrne is a bit of a maverick and I guess I chucked the Rolling Stone in to present a
bit of a drama to OffGuardian readers to lighten up their and my gloomy night. Don't be so
serious and preachy because it detracts from a lot of the good points you make.
Researcher , Nov 26, 2020 11:40 PM Reply to
Molinos
He's a liar and a phony. He already admitted on his blog that he lied and may have set up
Butina. He admitted that Roger Stone offered to back him in a political race.
Look at where Byrne went to College. He's 100% cryptocracy. They all are. We don't get to
hear about people that are not part of their closed circle of corruption. It was obvious his
lawsuit against JPM was to supply him some future credibility on the issue of Wall St
corruption. His company and many others just like them are massive money laundering
fronts.
I find it hard to believe that you fell for that low rent shtick. And then you hyped him
with terms like gutsy and maverick. You came off like his PR assistant.
And how you interpret my comments is your problem. There's so much trolling here and
unremitting bullshit, I don't have time to pander to people's misperceptions with delicately
worded critiques in case they misinterpret my mood. Especially if they are paid shills who
like to troll for fun using half a dozen names a day.
You can interpret my attitude as this and this only; one big eye roll at your fanboying
Patrick Byrne.
I read the Maria Butina story in Deep Capture, and was entertained. I think he held back a
lot, but it shows that he has played a role as some type of Deeper State asset.
You cannot assume that he is the sole source of Powell's evidence, in fact Dr. Krishna is
easily googled and has done extensive work with a team on the subject. There will be numerous
other less "peacock" type programmers and software engineers at Powell's disposal as
well.
Thos intelligence nets are becoming more and more sophisticated. They essentially represent a
hidden political force that influences the elections.
From comments: "This is so convoluted and Byzantine and no one is offering documentation,
just allegations."
Notable quotes:
"... Rarely in the news, however, is the role played by Israeli cybersecurity startups in the creation of the Russiagate narrative itself. Incubated within the Israeli military apparatus and benefiting from an uninterrupted stream of billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars, these "private Mossads" have been present behind the scenes throughout the numerous Russia-related scandals fomented by the mainstream press to sow partisan discord among the American electorate and line the pockets of network executives. ..."
"... The Senate's inquiries uncovered a consistent thread of IDF-linked cybersecurity firms and intelligence assets coordinating and facilitating meetings between the coterie of Russian characters that make up the Russiagate universe and the Trump campaign, including protagonists like Guccifer 2.0, the hacker who released Hilary Clinton's infamous emails to Wikileaks via a cell phone registered in Israel. ..."
"... "These guys came out of the military intelligence army unit, and it's like coming out with a triple Ph.D. from MIT. The amount of knowledge these guys have in terms of cybersecurity, cyber-intelligence [is] just so beyond what you could get [with] a normal education that it's just unique there are hundreds and hundreds of Israeli start-up companies that the founders are guys who came out of this unit." ..."
"... Michael Flynn, who was himself also working in an advisory capacity with the "consortium of cyber-spy companies run by former Israeli intelligence officers" known as the NSO Group, that is comprised of several of the Israeli startups summoned before the committee for voluntary, closed-door testimony. ..."
"... One of the NSO companies questioned by the Senate committee in relation to Russian interference, Psy-Group, is currently under investigation in California, where it was caught red-handed actually trying to rig a local election for a paying customer. ..."
"... Butina's former lover, Paul Erickson joked about being a CIA asset and had built a phony reputation as a man of staunch moral Christian values. Erickson worked for several Republican campaigns dating back to the late '80s, including a stint as national policy director for Pat Buchanan's '92 White House run. He first achieved international notoriety as Mobutu Sese Seko's lawyer, reportedly accepting a $30,000 lobbying contract to obtain a U.S. visa for the African despot, which was ultimately denied. ..."
"... It was Erickson's long-standing ties to the NRA and the organization's former president David Keene, which set the stage for the Maria Butina story as a Russian infiltrator looking for " access to U.S. political organizations ." Erickson had worked with Keene as a registered foreign agent since the 1990s and formed part of the NRA's efforts to forge closer ties to Israel since at least 2011. ..."
"... A con-artist by most accounts, Erickson is described by a Republican legislator as "the single biggest phony I've ever met in South Dakota politics." South Dakota was where Yale-educated Erickson came up in the political arena and where he's left a long trail of burned business associates and friends. In 2019, Erickson pled guilty to wire fraud and money laundering , admitting he had bilked 78 people of $2.3 Million over 22 years and was sentenced this past July to seven years in federal prison. ..."
A Senate investigation reveals that a consortium of Israeli hacking and surveillance firms
coordinated and facilitated meetings between Trump campaign operatives and Russia during the
2016 campaign, but they don't really want to talk about it.
Alleged Russian interference in the 2020 presidential election is headline news, once again,
as a Ukrainian lawmaker is charged by the Trump administration "in a sweeping plot to sow
distrust in the American political process," reports the Associated Press.
Microsoft also made claims that it detected "hacking attempts targeting U.S. political
campaigns, parties and consultants" by agents from Russia, China, and Iran. In a September 10
blog
post , Microsoft's Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President of Customer Security & Trust,
listed three groups from each region that Microsoft "observed" carrying out their cyber
operations.
Rarely in the news, however, is the role played by Israeli cybersecurity startups in the
creation of the Russiagate narrative itself. Incubated within the Israeli military apparatus
and benefiting from an uninterrupted stream of billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars, these
"private Mossads" have been present behind the scenes throughout the numerous Russia-related
scandals fomented by the mainstream press to sow partisan discord among the American electorate
and line the pockets of network executives.
Evidence of their activities has been exposed -- though not pursued -- in the latest volume
of a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee investigation on Russian interference in the 2016
presidential election, which shows how then-candidate Donald Trump personally embarked on a
parallel campaign on behalf of Israel to block a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements
in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Originally
submitted by Egypt, UNSCR 2334 strips Israeli settlements
beyond the 1967 borders of any "
legal validity " in the eyes of the international community and brands them a "flagrant
violation under international law." Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, had
refused all of the advances made by Trump's operatives to use its veto power against the
measure, and Trump himself would
prevail upon Egyptian President al-Sisi -- whom Trump calls his "
favorite dictator " -- to
withdraw the declaration . Together with Israeli pressure, UNSCR 2334 seemed destined to
languish in obscurity as Egypt
acquiesced and delayed the vote to "permit them to conduct an additional meeting of the
Arab League's foreign ministers to work on the resolution's wording."
The Senate's inquiries uncovered a consistent thread of IDF-linked cybersecurity firms
and intelligence assets coordinating and facilitating meetings between the coterie of Russian
characters that make up the Russiagate universe and the Trump campaign, including protagonists
like Guccifer 2.0, the hacker who
released Hilary Clinton's infamous emails to Wikileaks via a cell phone registered in
Israel.
George Birnbaum, a former chief of staff to Benjamin Netanyahu and GOP operative, told the
committee how Trump aide Rick Gates had inquired about using "Israeli technology" to collect
dirt on opponent Hillary Clinton at a March 2016 meeting, explaining to the senators what would
be so attractive about Israeli companies, specifically:
"These guys came out of the military intelligence army unit, and it's like coming out
with a triple Ph.D. from MIT. The amount of knowledge these guys have in terms of
cybersecurity, cyber-intelligence [is] just so beyond what you could get [with] a normal
education that it's just unique there are hundreds and hundreds of Israeli start-up companies
that the founders are guys who came out of this unit."
The unit Birnbaum is referring to is the IDF's Unit 8200, where these "hundreds and
hundreds" of tech startups are born right in the bowels of the Israeli national security state
and propagate throughout the world and the United States, in particular.
Described as " private Mossads "
for hire, many of the Israeli hacking and surveillance firms that moved behind the scenes,
brokering meetings between Trump's people and Russian oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska during the
height of the so-called Russian "collusion," were working through a "key middle man" with close
ties to then-Trump National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, who was himself also working
in an advisory capacity with the "consortium of cyber-spy companies run by former Israeli
intelligence officers" known as the NSO Group, that is comprised of several of the Israeli
startups summoned before the committee for voluntary, closed-door testimony.
While the American public was fed one Russophobic scandal after another, and Robert Mueller
held court in the press for two years straight, no one -- especially Mueller -- was paying
attention to this perverse network of Israeli surveillance companies who operated the virtual
scaffold upon which the Russiagate narrative was being constructed and whose fellow Unit 8200
graduates in other subsectors of the cybersecurity industry are deeply ensconced in highly
questionable activities surrounding the coming 2020 election.
THE NSO GROUP
The NSO
Group gained notoriety when it was identified as the developer of Pegasus, the iPhone
spyware that
was found installed on slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's phone in the days leading
up to his gruesome death. NSO's cell phone tracking technology has been associated with other
ghastly events, such as the scandal involving Pegasus in Mexico, where a team of international
investigators looking into the disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa was targeted by the
spyware, as well as Mexican
journalists and their families.
One of the NSO companies questioned by the Senate committee in relation to Russian
interference, Psy-Group, is currently under investigation in California, where it was
caught red-handed
actually trying to rig a local election for a paying customer. Another, Circles, was
founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer and is "known for covertly intercepting phone
calls, text messages, and tracking locations of unaware citizens," according to a report by
Forensic News .
In 2018, Haaretz published
an expose on the company disclosing the extent to which Circles and the Israeli espionage
industry is helping "world dictators hunt dissidents and gays," among other nefarious
opportunities available in the "global commerce" of surveillance technologies.
An NSO rep peddles software services at annual European Police Congress in Berlin, April 28,
2020. Hannibal Hanschke | Reuters
The middle man the Senate investigation identified is Walter Soriano; singled out for his
association with several Russian oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska and Dmitry Rybolovlev, who
bought
Trump's West Palm Beach mansion in 2008. The Senate report accuses Soriano and Israeli
cybersecurity companies of coordinating "between the Trump Campaign and Russia," but fails to
pursue the matter beyond that.
The UN resolution denouncing Israeli settlements would pass on December 23, 2016, after four
temporary Security Council members, Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal, and Venezuela reportedly
took matters into their own hands and moved the vote forward. UNSCR 2334 became official as
a result of a historic breach of established pro-Israel policy by the United States, which
abstained from the vote. Widely reported as Obama's "
parting shot " to Netanyahu and the incoming administration, the passing of the resolution
went against Obama's own record of using U.S.' veto power to banish similar
proposals .
President-elect Donald Trump would take office in a matter of weeks and the Mueller
investigation kicked off the barrage of Russophobic content peddled over the digital airwaves
night after night. Stories like
Maria Butina's were plastered all over the media to buttress the Russiagate
narrative.
THE LEGEND OF MARIA BUTINA
Butina's former lover, Paul Erickson joked
about being a CIA asset and had built a phony reputation as a man of staunch moral
Christian values. Erickson worked for several Republican campaigns dating back to the late
'80s, including a stint as
national policy director for Pat Buchanan's '92 White House run. He first achieved
international notoriety as Mobutu Sese Seko's lawyer, reportedly accepting a $30,000 lobbying
contract to obtain a U.S. visa for the African despot, which was ultimately denied.
It was Erickson's long-standing ties to the NRA and the organization's former president
David Keene, which set the stage for the Maria Butina story as a Russian infiltrator looking
for "
access to U.S. political organizations ." Erickson had
worked with Keene as a registered foreign agent since the 1990s and formed part of the
NRA's efforts to forge
closer ties to Israel since at least 2011.
Prosecutors would paint Butina as a seductress, ensnaring Erickson in a "duplicitous
relationship," but it was the cunning GOP operative who first spotted Butina during a 2013
trip to Moscow with Keene. Butina and Erickson would meet again in Israel one year later
where they would begin their 'love affair' during which he would become "integral to Butina's
activities," assisting the Russian gun enthusiast "in developing relationships with individuals
and organizations involved in U.S. politics," according to the Senate Intelligence
Committee.
Maria Butina poses for a photo at a shooting range in Moscow, April 22, 2012. Pavel Ptitsin
| AP
A con-artist
by most accounts, Erickson is
described by a Republican legislator as "the single biggest phony I've ever met in South
Dakota politics." South Dakota was where Yale-educated Erickson came up in the political arena
and where he's left a long trail of burned business associates and friends. In 2019, Erickson
pled guilty to
wire fraud and money laundering , admitting he had bilked 78 people of $2.3 Million over 22
years and was sentenced this past July to
seven years in federal prison.
The NRA has been forging ties to the Israeli security state for years now. In 2013, Trump's
former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, joined a delegation of 30 in Jerusalem for a
10-day tour of Israel's police institutions. The honorary NRA member stated on that
occasion, that Israel could "serve as a model for American security." The legend of Maria
Butina, itself, was seeded in Israel that same year when an "obscure" Israeli gun-rights group
posted on
Facebook that she had announced to have signed a cooperation agreement with the NRA
and "neighboring countries" to promote gun rights at a meeting with its members.
Butina would meet with Erickson and Keene two weeks later in Moscow, along with Alexander
Torshin, former deputy governor of Russia's central bank and lifetime NRA member. Torshin, who
has been targeted by U.S. sanctions, traveled with Butina to the United States to "discuss
U.S.-Russian economic relations" in April 2015. The pair met with several senior American
officials, like Federal Reserve vice chairman and former Israel central bank chief, Stanley
Fischer; the Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, Nathan Sheets and others in a
meeting "
moderated " by AIG CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg. The details of the high-level meeting, two
months before Donald Trump made his announcement to run for president, have never been made
public.
Feature photo | Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee
business meeting to consider authorization for subpoenas relating to the Crossfire Hurricane
investigation, the code name for the counterintelligence investigation undertaken by the FBI in
2016 and 2017 into links between Trump and Russian officials, June 11, 2020. Carolyn Kaster |
AP
Raul Diego is a MintPress News Staff Writer, independent photojournalist, researcher,
writer and documentary filmmaker.
I always said it was Israeli influence not Russian. How obvious can it get. But we have
Trump constantly kissing the Israeli ass while being kicked in the teeth and Congress bending
over backwards pedaling lies about Russia for Israeli benefit.
Is there anyone on our side in DC?
Ok, so we have the israelis, synonymous with deep state, responsible for wtc '93, wtc
9/11, the arab spring, the afghan conflict, the iraq conflict, problems with Iran, training
antifa/blm, equipping and training the messican cartels, the farc, and tupac amaru. Being the
worlds controlling supplier of MDMA. As well as giving U.S. technology to the chinese, and
direct involvement with the release of covid 19. And hiring osama bin laden to build a
highway in the sudan, then embezzling $800 million from bin ladens project, and blaming it on
the U.S. It's time for the world to put their collective heads back into where the sun does
shine.
A guard pushed me into a corridor with a small metal staircase and we started
descending. From there, I could hear the dreadful sounds of people pounding on metal,
shouting in anguish – all sorts of inhuman moaning and howling.
"Shut up, all of you!" barked the officer into the semi-darkness of that metal
hell.
We walked down the corridor surrounded by cells beyond count, men and women were
clinging to the metal netting of the doors. They were begging for water, toilet paper –
or at least for someone to tell them what time it was. Male prisoners were raising hell after
they noticed me, which put an amused grin on the face of my guard.
He threw me into a cell next to one with a man. The wall between us had no windows so I
couldn't see my 'neighbor', but he certainly liked to tune in to any sound I made. He got so
stimulated hearing me moving around next door and choking on my tears that he pleasured
himself loudly all night long – and I had to listen.
"... That person then will land on a special list of "agents" and will be obliged to register as a company so that his or her funding is transparent to the state. A Russian journalist working for Voice of America also becomes a foreign agent under the law. ..."
"... Butina was charged under a different though similar statute , which also requires foreign agents to register with the U.S. government. Even U.S. officials sometimes confuse the regulations, and it's not easy for a layman to understand what actions make one a foreign agent under them. ..."
"... Butina, for example, was sentenced to 18 months for trying to establish contacts with Republican operatives and National Rifle Association members ..."
"... Putin was annoyed by the Butina case. "They grabbed the girl, put her behind bars, and they had nothing to show for it," he commented after her sentencing. ..."
"... Now comes the retaliation -- and as usual under Putin, mainly against Russians he sees as a Western fifth column ..."
The new law makes it possible to
apply the foreign agent label to individuals, specifically to those who spread content from
media or other organizations determined to be foreign agents and who receive any kind of
funding from a foreign or foreign-financed source...
That person then will land on a special list of "agents" and will be obliged to
register as a company so that his or her funding is transparent to the state. A Russian
journalist working for Voice of America also becomes a foreign agent under the law.
... ... ...
Failure to register, open a company or mark one's stories or posts as coming from a foreign
agent will be punishable by a yet-undetermined fine.
Andrei Klimov, one of the drafters of the law, recently told
the government-owned daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta:
Unlike our foreign counterparts, we envisage no criminal liability. We don't grab people,
we don't toss them into torture chambers, like some other countries that do it for five or
fifteen years. We are capable of getting results with administrative measures.
It's clear from his comment that the Russian law is a response to the sudden
prominence of foreign-agent registration, a previously obscure requirement best known to
professional lobbyists, in the Donald Trump-Russia investigations of special counsel Robert
Mueller. He had political operatives Paul Manafort and Rick Gates indicted for violating the
Foreign Agent Registration Act of 1938, previously a laxly enforced law.
Butina was charged under a different
though similar statute , which also requires foreign
agents to register with the U.S. government. Even U.S. officials sometimes confuse the regulations, and it's not
easy for a layman to understand what actions make one a foreign agent under them.
Butina, for example, was sentenced to 18 months for trying to establish contacts with
Republican operatives and National Rifle Association members on behalf of a Russian
Central Bank official who may have wanted to set up a back channel between the Kremlin and the
Republican elite in the U.S.
Putin was annoyed by the Butina case. "They grabbed the girl, put her behind bars, and
they had nothing to show for it," he commented after her sentencing.
Now comes the retaliation -- and as usual under Putin, mainly against Russians he sees
as a Western fifth column rather than against the U.S. as such. Also as usual under Putin,
the response is asymmetrical.
As we
drove back from springtime Buenos Aires into the nasty late-October weather of New England,
there was at least one piece of good news - Butina had been released from the clutches of the US judicial system a couple of
months earlier.
You
have to understand that she is completely not guilty of what she was accused. In this article,
The Spy Who Wasn't the famous American author and specialist in intelligence and espionage
James Bamford, explains in detail why.
Butina is far from the heroine, but it is absurd to make her "the traitor" who allegedly
"handed over the curators". She didn't have any secrets and practically did everything quite
publicly, rattled about it in social networks or in multicast e-mails. Her task after the
arrest was to break free and not to seek the "truth". The latter course of actions in in
today's US is simply absurd. Now she can tell her version of the truth, which I trust
immeasurably more than the version of American officialdom.
According to the available information she did everything sincerely and really believed that
she could establish some personal ties and improve relations between Russia and the United
States.
All her actions were dictated by naivety and not some terrible attempt to subvert the USA.
She was flattered by the attention of experienced older men with considerable means, who turned to be an undercover FBI
informer who betrayed to her all the time.
The USA judicial system and media in this story has shown itself with a very vile, sadistic side, and we will remember
it.
In her first interview since her release from federal prison in the United States, Maria
Butina denied ever acting as a spy for Russia and said she pleaded guilty in her case because
she didn't stand a chance for a fair trial because of "anti-Russian hysteria" in the U.S.
Butina, 30, was released from jail in Florida on Friday after serving most of an 18-month
prison sentence. She was deported to Russia, where she gave her first interview to RT, the
Russia-owned media outlet.
"I've never been a spy, and I have never been charged with any espionage charges," she said
in an interview that aired Saturday.
"I did plea to be a foreign agent, because, look I am in solitary confinement in jail facing
15 years, knowing that statistically Americans plea in more than 90 percent of cases. Why do
they do that?"
She added that "if you go to trial, you're going to lose that trial."
"Especially me, a Russian, on trial in Washington, D.C., in the middle of anti-Russian
hysteria? I would have gotten all 15 years. So, my choice was obvious."
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted Butina on July
17, 2018, on charges that she acted as an unregistered foreign agent of Russia and conspired to
do the same.
She pleaded guilty Dec.
13, 2018, to the conspiracy charge, and admitted that she operated under the direction of
Aleksandr Torshin, who previously served as deputy chairman of Russia's central bank, to
establish "unofficial ties" to Republican political operatives in the U.S.
Butina captured media attention well before the indictment, in part because of her
appearance -- she has long red hair and a penchant for guns. Butina and Torshin operated a
group called Right to Bear Arms, which advocated for gun rights in Russia.
Through that group, Butina and Torshin established relationships with
executives at the National Rifle Association. They also made contacts with conservative
political operatives, and attempted to establish ties with the Trump campaign.
U.S. prosecutors initially floated the theory that Butina used sex as part of a scheme to
collect information from targets. But they admitted in a Sept. 8, 2018,
court filing that their interpretation of allegedly salacious text messages was inaccurate.
Butina's lawyer, Robert Driscoll, also accused
prosecutors of withholding exculpatory information regarding Butina, who studied at American
University in Washington, D.C., before her arrest.
In a July 26 letter to the Justice Department, Driscoll pointed to statements made by
Patrick Byrne, the now-former CEO of Overstock.com, who said he was tasked by the FBI to
develop a relationship with Butina and keep tabs on her. Byrne said he
told his contacts at the FBI that he did not believe Butina was engaged in
wrongdoing.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available
without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing
opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].
I am sure that this stupid girl who allowed to make herself a scapegoat due to her
pathological fascination with arms (and a romance with FBI informer -- so she was like a bug
under microscope all the time).
But one of her comments stand out: "'I believe that the Americans are wonderful people, but
they have lost their legal system" i would add the neo-McCarthyism campaign also means that the
US neoliberal elite lost their sanity, trying to please MIC and Wall street oligarchs who via
intelligence agencies, lobbyists and MSM essentially run the place mind.
Notable quotes:
"... I sorta feel like Winston Smith: Am I the only one who sees and understands what's actually happening?! Well, I've shared what I know, so I'm no longer alone. But that's not very satisfying, nor is it satisfactory. ..."
Given the fact that she got a first hand look at the Outlaw US Empire's injustice system and
its tie-in with BigLie Media, the comments by the now back in Russia Maria Butina carry some legitimate weight that're
worth reading: "'I believe that the Americans are wonderful people, but they have lost their
legal system,' Butina said. 'What is more, they are routinely losing their country. They will
lose it unless they do something'.... "'I am very proud of my country, of my origin,' Butina
stressed. 'And I come to realize it more and more.'"
Should I bold the following, maybe make the lettering red, and put it in all caps:
"They are routinely losing their country."
I know this is an international bar, but the general focus has long been on the Outlaw US
Empire. IMO, Maria Butina is 100% correct. The topic of this thread is just further proof of
that fact.
As I tirelessly point out, the federal government has routinely violated its own
fundamental law daily since October 1945. The media goes along with it robotically.
And aside from myself, I know of no other US citizen that's raised the issue--not Chomsky,
not Zinn, not anyone with more credentials and public accessibility than I. I sorta feel
like Winston Smith: Am I the only one who sees and understands what's actually happening?!
Well, I've shared what I know, so I'm no longer alone. But that's not very satisfying, nor is
it satisfactory.
Part and parcel of democracy. Western style democracy at least. Perhaps others can set
theirs up better, though allways, the achilles heel of democracy is information, or media.
Who oversees ensuring voters recieve accurate information.
It took complaints from the public and investigated them. They did not have power to bring
charges, but for a time findings were made public. Once it got onto a money trail it would
keep following and that would lead to other money trails. It was a state agency and had to
stop at state borders but most money trails led to federal politics. It was defanged when
they came too close to federal politics.
Something like this in a countries constitution could work though it could be corrupted
the same as anything else.
Convicted Russian agent Maria Butina was released from a Florida prison on Friday and
embarked on a 13-hour plane ride back to Russia. Butina served an 18-month sentence for
conspiring to act as an unregistered agent for the Kremlin to influence US conservative
gun-rights group, reported
Reuters .
Butina, 31, was released early Friday from prison in Tallahassee, Florida, due to good
behavior and a change in federal law. Her original release was expected in early November,
Butina's attorney, Robert Driscoll, told Reuters.
Upon her release from jail, she was immediately detained by US Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) authorities and taken to Miami International Airport for a 6 pm est. flight
to Moscow.
'Like a bad Hollywood flick with allegations as surreal as Alice in Wonderland' - Russia's
Butina on US arrest.
USA "justice" is not like in Hollywood movies, and YOU could be the next victim on USA
territory - innocent and sent to prison, or strapped to a table and put to death; or robbed
of your life savings by American lawyers.
The Hollywood image, versus the grim reality
Once you have digested the fact that America has the world's largest prison gulag, another
major thing to digest is the USA government, and much of America, is primarily a sales
organization, whose chief tool is hype and propaganda and outright lies. America is a culture
built on sales and advertising; it focuses on portraying an image, not the reality beneath
it.
The Mockingbird Lugenpresse just needs to say "with Russian connections" and that's all
they think your average dumb American needs to convulse into a fit of uncontrollable
Russophobia.
The tragic reality of the world's biggest corrupt legal system -America's rigged courts,
bribed judges, fake and phony trials, extortion by lawyers, and over 2 million prisoners in
the USA gulag. USA "justice" is not like in Hollywood movies, and YOU could be the next
victim on USA territory - innocent and sent to prison, or strapped to a table and put to
death; or robbed of your life savings by American lawyers. YOU can be tortured, have your
freedom and rights taken away, and people in America are afraid to help you, or even tell
what happened to you.
The recent pattern of American violations of international law are ultimately based in the
corruption of the USA domestic legal system. Phony USA courts are very dangerous even for
travellers and visitors to America, who can easily wind up among the USA's more than 2
million prisoners, or lose all their family's possessions to corrupt American lawyers. All
world citizens should know how the corrupt USA legal system, is a danger to every traveller,
visitor, and guest worker from overseas, and to every individual who takes the risky step of
entering upon American territory.
The reality is that the United States of America, which proclaims itself the "land of
freedom", has the most dishonest, dangerous and crooked legal system of any developed nation.
Legal corruption is covering America like a blanket. The corruption of the USA legal system
is well-known, but also well-hidden, by the news services of America's corporate-owned media.
The US media companies are afraid both of reprisal, and of the social revolution that would
come from exposing the truth.
Quite amazingly, Americans and the American government, continually criticize the legal
systems and so-called "political" legal proceedings in other countries such as China, Russia,
and even Belgium among many other places. Yet, for example, the proportion of prisoners is 30
times higher in the USA than in China, even though China is a country regularly criticized
and denounced by the USA government.
No one imprisons people as readily, or casually, as does America. As you learn more about
America's horrifying legal system, you find out how easily and carelessly America arrests
people, and tosses innocent people into prison. It is estimated that America has at least
100,000 completely innocent people in jail, but the statistics of innocence may well run far
higher. The number of people known to be innocent, and yet who were actually sentenced to
death in recent years in America, is already running into the hundreds.
The USA jailing of more than 2 million people is also, quite literally, a revival of
slavery and slave labor, on a scale not seen since the days of the Nazis. USA business
corporations are using these prisoners as a giant slave labor pool. Prisoners are forced to
produce goods and products while earning mere pennies per hour, which they sometimes have to
pay back to the prison for their own upkeep. The expanding system of USA prison slave labor
is not only a major source of business profit, but also a wedge to drive down the wages of
workers outside the prison walls.
Understanding that America has such a huge percentage of even its own people in prison, is to
start to understand the subconscious fear behind much of American life. Before you set foot
in America, you should have a clear picture of the terror of America's legal system - the
judges and lawyers and money and bribery, that have made this system of fear so pervasive.
There is not yet enough public media information about America's domestic legal horrors,
horrors which have been rapidly increasing. And the American public, even the victims of its
legal system, have a hard time realizing why it is so hard to fight legal corruption
there.
American prisons are often horrible, with lots of torment of prisoners, like you would
expect in some petty dictatorship. Conditions are brutal in USA jails; rape and beatings are
common, and there is little help for abused inmates. In addition to the many official USA
executions, numerous people are also illegally killed in jail cells, "mysteriously" said to
have hanged themselves or "found stabbed to death".
In the regular functioning of the USA courts, America's domestic lawyers and judges,
threaten people with illegal jailing, and rape, torture and murder in jail, just like the
threats used by Americans against Iraqi subjects of the American occupation.
Theoretically, torture and abuse is totally outlawed by America's Constitution, but some
of the nice words in America's Constitution hold little power anymore, despite how often
people quote them. The Americans who still believe the Constitution protects them, are mostly
those people who haven't yet dealt with the judges and lawyers of America's corrupt legal
system.
The only people who really can get expect some fairness in American courts are
multi-millionaires and big corporations. Nobody else really matters to American judges and
lawyers.
Jury trials are actually very rare in America, unlike what you see in the movies. Most
cases are settled through some deal or extortion or intimidation, before there is an actual
trial. If there is a jury trial, they tend to stack the jury with un-educated idiots who will
tend to believe whatever lies they are told by the judge and the government.
Americans love to talk about "taking it all the way to the Supreme Court!", but this is a
nearly empty hope. The U.S. Supreme Court simply refuses to consider most cases that are
presented to it.
The Hollywood image, versus the grim reality
Once you have digested the fact that America has the world's largest prison gulag, another
major thing to digest is the USA government, and much of America, is primarily a sales
organization, whose chief tool is hype and propaganda and outright lies. America is a culture
built on sales and advertising; it focuses on portraying an image, not the reality beneath
it.
This is why America was so casual about inventing and selling the lies about "weapons of
mass destruction" to help start the Iraq invasion.
The selling never stops, in Washington or Hollywood. America sells political lies like
Hollywood sells movies.
In the Hollywood version, there are brave lawyers who will fight for your rights, to win
justice for you in the American courts. In reality, you can't find an American lawyer brave
enough to fight judicial corruption, even if you are innocent and the judge's friends have
threatened to murder you, or to send you to jail for the rest of your life.
In reality, there is almost nothing you can do against misconduct, and even open felony
crime, committed against you by American judges and lawyers. All of the official complaint
procedures you find on the internet, or at the courthouse or in the law books, turn out to be
a joke, a farce and a fraud.
You can also forget about America's human rights and civil liberties groups, even though
it looks, at first, like there are many such groups on the internet. Many such groups are
just money-raising groups which don't help victims, or are tied to the two main political
parties or some narrow agenda. They are all scared of the legal system, too, and there is no
one with any significant funding or money, who is out there helping the victims of legal
corruption. They can't find lawyers to help them, either.
Butina's case was one of the latest examples of
anti-Russian hysteria . American media identified her as a Russian spy in 2018 and
accused her of trading sex for political favors.
"Russian gun activist Maria Butina . . . recalled that the FBI kept asking the same things
about her activities over and over again because 'they just couldn't believe that people can
do good things for no special reason, simply because they believe in friendship between the
countries and strive for people's right for self-protection.' The lengthy interrogation was
just for show, to make it look like the investigators 'were doing something serious,' while
they had nothing.
"Before her sentencing in April, Butina spent eight months in custody, much of the time in
a 'super freezing' cell in solitary confinement. There was hardly any heating inside, Butina
recalls, and most cells had no view from the windows other than a brick wall.
"The Russian ultimately chose to plead guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent
and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, with some of the term counted as time served. She
did it because she did not believe that she would get a fair trial – especially in a
jury trial - after being slandered and demonized by the US media.
"'I would have been tried by the same people who watch the news and get 15 years,' she
said. Butina claimed that she would have 'fought till the end' if she was given a chance to
stand trial 'before an international independent court with an objective view on my
case.'"
"'As time passed, Byrne became more and more convinced that Maria was what she said she
was -- an inquisitive student in favor of better U.S.-Russian relations -- and not an agent
of the Russian government or someone involved in espionage or illegal activities,' the letter
states. 'He states he conveyed these thoughts and the corroborating facts and observations
about Maria to the government.'"
it's quite amazing that nothing similar happened only two decades later in WWII
Oh it did, we just changed the target race to the Japanese, as like Dan states, the German
race had been sufficiently castigated in the previous war, never to recover.
Our Supreme Allied Commander was said to have been of Jewish German descent
(((Eisenhauer))).
And yes, we know with which blood line he sided with.
Just one item about the Statue of Liberty. Its association with Emma Lazarus' later ode to
immigration has eclipsed the original meaning of the great monument. French sculptor
Bartholdi named his creation "Goddess Liberty enlightening the world." He conceived the idea
for the statue on July Fourth 1865 to commemorate the suppression of the slaveholder
insurrection two months earlier; Lazarus' poem was not added until1903. Bartholdi proposed to
give the statue to the people of America as an enduring monument to their successful struggle
to preserve the world's sole experiment in republican self-government.
Americans of 1865 understood it was their responsibility to maintain the free institutions
of their republic as an example to the world, not to function as an asylum for its poor and
downtrodden. It was the world's peoples' task to fight free government in their own
homelands, not to relocate to ours. While Europe's despots cheered the collapse of America's
first republic in 1861, there was an immense outpouring of support among the common folk for
the Union and the hope for democracy in their own nations that it inspired. Mindful of the
1848 republican revolutions that convulsed the Old Word, British and European rulers dared
not endorse the Confederate oligarchy, lest they trigger a new round of class warfare in
their own restive kingdoms.
Mass immigration of non-English speaking people was allowed for the first time in the
corrupt laissez-faire Gilded Age that followed the Civil War because the victorious northern
capitalists needed vast supplies of cheap labor to do the hard manual and industrial work
that Americans did not wish to do, having fought a costly war to abolish the most grotesque
form of exploitation of labor, and which four million ex-slaves could no longer be compelled
to do without wages.
It seems that Karl Muck wasn't the only musician arrested and interned as an emery alien
during WW I. Another conductor, Ernst Kunwald of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra was also
arrested.
In fact so many other musicians were arrested that Karl Muck was able to conduct a full
symphony orchestra when he made his last performance at the Interment camp at Fort Oglethorpe
, Georgia
It is highly likely that those musicians were denounced by their artistic rivals in order
to gain advancement
Curious that so far no one has mentioned just how magnificent a conductor actually Muck was.
His version of Parsifal, available on CD from I think Naxos is a supreme revelation of the
difference between a good conductor like, say, Karajan, and a sublimely great one like Muc...
It seems that Burrage initially approached this project with only a superficial
understanding of her subject matter. The subtitle of her work is Classical Music and
Xenophobia in World War I America . The dust jacket blurb tips her hand even more (or, more
likely, that of her publishers):
One of the cherished narratives of American history is that of the Statue of Liberty
welcoming immigrants to it shores. Accounts of the exclusion and exploitation of Chinese
immigrants in the late nineteenth century and Japanese internment during World War II tell a
darker story of American immigration. Less well known, however, is the treatment of
German-Americans and German nationals in the United States during World War I. Initially
accepted and even welcomed into American society, at the outbreak of the war this group would
face rampant intolerance and anti-German hysteria.
From such vain moral posturing, one can conclude that this book will amount to yet another
blunt instrument with which the Left can pummel supporters of President Trump for wishing to
build a wall on the Mexican border and limit non-white immigration. If we can shame people for
past xenophobia, according to this strategy, perhaps we can conquer xenophobia today and allow
the huddled masses of future Democrats to keep streaming into America. (Stephen Jay Gould
attempted a similar kind of history-shaming – only with psychometrics – in his
thoroughly debunkedThe Mismeasure of Man. )
Burrage hits a snag, however, when she reveals Muck's true character. He was the most
celebrated conductor in America at the time. Under his leadership, the BSO became the nation's
leading orchestra, which aided greatly in keeping Boston at the forefront of American high
society and culture. Affable, charismatic, and cultured, Muck was extremely popular in Boston,
and, shortly after arriving at the behest of financier and BSO founder Henry Lee Higginson in
1906, became a de facto member of Boston's aristocracy.
This aristocracy was so famous, it had a name: the Boston Brahmins . Boston was also home
to a very large German population and was ground zero for Germanophilia in New England. German
businesses, German newspapers, German food, and German culture were highly visible in Beantown
in the early twentieth century. Of course, everybody loved German classical music, which Muck
was all too happy to provide.
Higginson was Muck's biggest booster, despite not being German himself. They were close
friends who had much in common, culturally and ideologically. Both were highly aristocratic and
conservative. Higginson had spent many years in Germany and Austria in his youth studying
piano, and was fluent in German. In a peculiar coincidence, both men had similar scars on their
right cheeks. Muck received his from a fencing duel in his youth, and Higginson from a
Confederate saber during the Civil War.
But who was Karl Muck? He was a highly educated man of world-class talent who was proud of
his German roots, possessed nationalistic sympathies for his nation of birth, and held the
realistic opinions on race which were common in his day. This was, after all, the heyday of
writers such as Madison Grant, Lothrop Stoddard, and Henry Adams. Race realism, as well as
cultural chauvinism and a healthy support for eugenics, were de rigueur in educated
circles back then. And this included a relatively mild form of anti-Semitism among the
still-strong WASP elites:
[Muck's] racial views also affected his actions and judgment. When composer Ernest Bloch
presented his Three Jewish Poems for inclusion on the Boston Symphony program, Muck
was reluctant to debut the work if Bloch did not change the title. Bloch supposedly
responded, "Dr. M[uck] you speak exactly like my Jewish friends, who advised me to change the
title for obvious reasons." Bloch defended the title of his piece, to which Muck replied, "If
there were more Jews like you, there would be less anti-Semitism."
Higginson was worse in this regard – or better, depending on your perspective. He
supported immigration restriction in order to keep undesirables out of America and was a race
patriot almost as much as he was an American patriot. He was a leading member of the Immigrant
Restriction League, and was well ensconced in the national power circles of the day, being
cousins with fellow immigration hawk Senator Henry Cabot Lodge . Higginson used his
contacts in government to bust musician's unions. He also wrangled with Jewish attorney and
future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis , who sought to curtail
Higginson's various business interests in the name of trust-busting. And this, according to
Burrage, informed Higginson's negative opinions of Jews.
Not surprisingly, Burrage considers Higginson's racial views "flawed," and then describes
Higginson and the Immigrant Restriction League like so:
The league also used pseudo-scientific dogma to divide European white men into
biological categories, classifying eastern Europeans into the most inferior type to justify
their arguments. Its view of nationalism was built on an "ideology of kinship to enthrone
their own tribe and oppress others." It justified discrimination, arguing that America
could "improve its race" by selecting immigrants based on "appropriate national origins." The
league was influenced by eugenicist Madison Grant, who wrote The Passing of the
Great Race (1916), which promoted a theory of "Nordic" racial supremacy and advocated the
separation or removal of all "worthless" and "unfit" types. It was inspired by scientist
Robert DeCourcy Ward, who publicized his view that "science decrees restrictions on the new
immigration for the conservation of the 'American race."' Higginson's father-in-law, Harvard
professor Louis Agassiz, was a prolific writer and teacher on the topic of
scientific racism, believing that races were distinct and unequal and could be
classified based on climatic zones. Boston's upper classes feared that foreigners would
replace their own native stock, and they worried about "biological defeat." Immigration
restriction was a "phase of national defense" against "the strange invaders who seemed so
grave a threat to their class, their region, their country, and their race."
After stepping back from this and having a cigarette, I believe most of us on the Dissident
Right will conclude that we were all born a century and a half too late.
Getting over that, there is so much to unpack here, one hardly knows where to begin. Yes,
there's the stunned respect we all must have for this Higginson fellow, who was related to both
Henry Cabot Lodge and Louis Agassiz (whom Gould heartily denounced in Mismeasure
), and who was able to speak in defense of white, ethnocentric interests so candidly. The
Boston Brahmins had every reason to worry about biological defeat; we're entering the jaws of
that defeat today. Also, this passage should be met with some sadness regarding the hidebound
chauvinism whites used to have toward other whites. This attitude will have to be discarded
entirely for whites to have enough solidarity to thrive in the next century.
Most apropos to The Karl Muck Scandal , however, is how Burrage attempts to paint
Karl Muck as the victim of xenophobia. Of course, he was. He was a perfectly innocent
man when federal authorities arrested and incarcerated him in March 1918. But Muck and
Higginson were Dissident Rightists back when the not-so-Dissident Right ruled the roost in
America. So Burrage is in effect going to bat for someone on the Right in order to strike a
blow for the Left. How's that for irony?
The story undergoes a few more twists before completely unraveling. If there is a villain in
this book, it is New York socialite Mrs. William (Lucie) Jay, who really didn't like Germans.
Jay, whose deceased husband was descended from early American statesman John Jay, tirelessly
lobbied for Muck's dismissal from the BSO all throughout the war. Muck hired too many German
musicians, or he played too much German music, according to her. The woman organized committees
to ban all German music. She tried to prevent the BSO from playing in New York. She spread
false rumors about Muck in order to discredit him. She hurled insults at him as often as
possible. She called for boycotts. She accused him of supporting the German military effort.
She also (ahem) muck -raked his life, searching for sexual impropriety. As anti-German
feeling in America grew more and more intense, Jay's attacks on Muck grew more and more
strident.
Here she is at her hysterical best:
Rather a thousand times that the orchestral traditions fade from our lives than one hour
be added to the war's duration by clinging to this last tentacle of the German octopus!
Then there was the "Star-Spangled Banner" non-scandal which got the attention of the entire
country. In October 1917, the BSO had received numerous requests to play the "Star-Spangled
Banner" before a concert in Providence, Rhode Island. Since it was late and the programs had
already been printed, Higginson decided to ignore the requests. The song hadn't yet become the
national anthem (which wouldn't happen until 1931) and didn't quite fit in with the pieces the
BSO was slated to play that evening, anyway. Of course, Higginson didn't bother to tell Muck
about this, and allowed the oblivious maestro to conduct a concert free of star-spangled
banners.
In an astonishingly brazen instance of "fake news," John Rathom, the editor of the
Providence Journal, then accused Muck of deliberately refusing to play the patriotic
anthem because of his German sympathies. Not only did this story later appear in newspapers all
across the country, but Rathom kept the momentum going with even more accusations:
The zealous newspaperman spread reports among his readership that Muck was pro-German and
a friend of Kaiser Wilhelm. Rathom distorted the facts, claiming to uncover foreign espionage
plots that were later revealed to be fraudulent. Once such plot suggested that Muck intended
to destroy American munitions factories. On November 21, 1917, the New York Times
reported that Rathom "thrilled and enthused" seven hundred members of the Pilgrim Publicity
Association at the Boston City Club with a story of "German spies in Boston" outlining his
great campaign against them.
This damaged Muck's reputation overnight, and Lucie Jay later used it relentlessly to incite
violent hatred against him. (Burrage speculates that Jay and Rathom colluded in Muck's
character assassination, but no one knows for sure.) Thousands of influential Americans were
now onboard Lucie Jay's muck-up-Muck train. People were calling for the conductor's
assassination, internment, or deportation. Crowds as far away as Baltimore were chanting "Kill
Muck! Kill Muck!" It got so bad that the authorities had to step in to determine if Muck was
indeed a dangerous enemy alien. In all cases, they found no evidence of wrongdoing – but
not for lack of trying. Some investigators feared that Muck was putting coded messages in his
musical scores. Others theorized that he kept a disassembled radio transmitter in his Maine
summer house with which he signaled German U-boats. (The apparatus belonged to the landlord,
and was unbeknownst to Muck.)
Regardless, we should remember that this was a period when the American war machine was
churning out absolutely vicious anti-German
propaganda – and the people were beginning to believe it and take part in the
suppression of all things German. Violence against German-Americans became quite common during
this time. So these false accusations from Jay and Rathom threatened to have deadly
consequences.
A First World War-era anti-German propaganda poster A German-American after
being whipped, tarred, and feathered in August 1918
Despite her hypermodern moral posturing, Burrage does provide useful scholarship. Most
notable in The Karl Muck Scandal is her well-researched contention that Lucie Jay was
not all that she was cracked up to be. Jay may indeed have been an American patriot. She may
also have been as anti-German as advertised. But her real motivations behind ruining Karl
Muck's life were far pettier. She was on the Board of Directors of the New York Philharmonic
(NYP), and was jealous of the BSO's star conductor. Other than the brief period from 1909 to
1911, when Gustav Mahler waved their baton, the Knickerbockers really did play second fiddle to
the Celtics back then – and that bothered a lot of wealthy and powerful people in Gotham.
Taking out the NYP's top rival in the most literal sense became Lucie Jay's idée
fixe throughout the wa,r and ultimately made her the Tonya Harding of classical music.
Burrage reveals another reason for Jay's hatred for Muck, and this one's even pettier. Yeah,
it was all about money:
Jay had even deeper motives for her persistent attacks on the Boston Symphony that cut to
the heart of her own economic security. In September of 1906, her brother Hermann had passed
away. Estranged from his wife, much of his estate was bequeathed to Mrs. Jay and her brother
Charles. Mrs. Jay acquired a large share in the North German Lloyd Steamship Line and
presumably railroad stocks from the Vanderbilt interests as well. It made logical sense to
support her family's interests and further their progress within the United States, which was
threatened, as we shall see, by political forces directly related to the BSO.
And what were these political forces? None other than Henry Lee Higginson and his powerful
anti-immigration allies in government. Since the 1880s, millions of immigrants, many of whom
were Eastern European Jews, had been streaming into America from Europe on steamships, making
Mrs. William Jay and her family richer and richer by the mile. Immigration was Mrs. Jay's bagel
and cream cheese, as it were, and Higginson with all his race realism and polite anti-Semitism
was threatening to spoil the bar mitzvah. That's basically it. So, let's now appreciate another
level of irony in which Burrage is forced to cast a pro-immigration harpy like Jay as the
villain in a drama that's ostensibly pro-immigration.
Unbelievable as it sounds, there's even more irony to this story. Lucie Jay, as it turns
out, was herself German! Her maiden name was Oelrich – a fact she obscured beneath her
husband's time-honored and quite Anglo last name. It seems to me that the obsession behind
Jay's Muck-hate was a form of ethnocentrism in reverse, the kind of contempt born only from
familiarity. I can't prove this, but it seems to be the prime motivator here. America was
pulled into a war with Germany, and Jay felt especially betrayed by her own people whenever
they expressed sympathy for the enemy. And in Muck's case, this was at least half-true. Before
America's entry into the war, he had actively supported his homeland and was on excellent terms
with the German ambassador in Washington. He also never applied for American citizenship and
never denounced Germany. For a person like Lucie Jay, who wanted to erase or hide everything
about her that was German, what Karl Muck did (and did not do) must have seemed like
treason.
The story could have ended here. Worn down by years of slander, libel, hostility, and death
threats, Karl Muck and his wife Anita decided to leave for Germany. He resigned from the BSO in
March 1918 and was preparing to depart when he was hit with the bombshell news that the
Massachusetts District Attorney would not let him leave. Apparently, the DA was intrigued by
Lucie Jay's previous unproven accusations of sexual impropriety, and felt that Muck may have a
skeleton rattling around in his closet after all. And after a thorough investigation by the
Bureau of Investigation (BOI), they found it. Muck had been having an affair with a 22-year-old
mezzo-soprano named Rosamond Young.
This wasn't a mere summer fling; he was madly in love with her, so much so that he wrote her
love letters and promised to divorce his wife for her. Yes, he was a married man in his late
50s. Yes, under normal circumstances, this would be quite the scandal. But it hardly amounts to
law-breaking. Yet the BOI and powerful anti-German elements in the federal government –
especially hardline Attorney General and rabid Hun-hater A. Mitchell Palmer – were
determined to make it so. And under what contrived pretenses did they finally nab Muck?
Well, Muck (kind of) violated the Comstock Act of 1873 , which forbade sending
anything obscene or immoral by US Mail. Apparently, sappy quotes such as this qualified as
"obscene":
But can't you see, my darling, how much harder it is for me to renounce the love that grew
between us so sublimely? Must we, for the sake of foolish sentiments that are imposed on us
by others, foreswear the love that is divine and inexpressible by common language? No, a
thousand times, no! You are mine and I am your slave and so I must remain.
He also (sort of) violated the Mann White Slavery Act of 1910 , which prohibited
transporting women or girls across state lines "for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery,
or for any other immoral purpose." Muck had apparently "abducted" Young every time he traveled
with her out of state with the BSO to perform.
Such flimsy reasons to arrest a man may seem ridiculous today, but they were deadly serious
back then. Yes, the US government needed to keep a lid on the immoral behavior of its citizens
(if only it would do so today!), and yes, white slavery was quite the menace back then.
However, Karl Muck's arrest clearly amounted to abuse.
And the abuse did not end there. American authorities then blackmailed Muck into
being interned as an enemy alien at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia in return for their keeping
quiet about his affair with Young. It was either that or going public and trying him as a
sexual deviant in a Boston court – a humiliation that would ruin him, Young, and Anita
regardless of the trial's outcome. Honorable gentleman that he was, Muck "was only too proud to
shoulder" the burden of internment, and opted for the extended vacation in Georgia. He stayed
there for a year and a half.
Then, while Muck was serving time behind barbed wire and machine guns in the sweltering
Georgia heat, the US government reneged on its promise and allowed the Boston press to
publicize his affair and his love letters to Young anyway. This caused nearly all of
what remained of Muck's fan base to abandon him. The Boston Brahmins did so as well, likely
because distancing themselves from Muck would keep the heat off their own sexual indiscretions,
of which, according to Burrage, there were many. Unfortunately, Higginson was counted among
this number – although in his case he seemed to be acting more out of wartime American
patriotism than sexual hypocrisy.
If this weren't enough, the US authorities then stole all of Muck's assets. When they
finally deported him nine months after the war, he went back to Germany flat broke.
Given the vitriolic hatred of Germans in WWI, it's quite amazing that nothing similar
happened only two decades later in WWII. Best demonstrated by the family name of the #1
General of the Allied forces in Europe.
The remnants of America's still virulent World War I germanophobia had taken its toll. By
World War II it had essentially totally eviscerated German-American culture and political
strength. A job well-done by the Anglo-American establishment!
This short documentary mentions German-American persecution during World War I, and the
massive numbers of draft dodgers. It also notes problems with the British royals German
roots, including the fact the Kaiser was a first cousin and buddy of the King of England.
Most Americans don't realize that Anglo-Saxons were Germans who immigrated to England!
John Kiriakou fills in some of the details of the real story of Maria Butina, the alleged
Russian spy who is said to have conspired with the 2016 Trump campaign. The problem with the
official narrative, explains Kiriakou, is that Butina is not a spy at all and there's no
evidence for illegal activity, except for a Foreign Agents Registration form that she should
have filled out but did not. For this relatively minor, first time offense, Butina is serving
more than a year in prison and has had her name and reputation completely and falsely
destroyed. She has also been used in order to build a case of alleged collusion between
President Trump and Vladimir Putin, which Kiriakou says is just as flimsy as the case against
Butina.
Discussed on the show:
"JOHN KIRIAKOU: In Search of a Russiagate Scalp: The Entrapment of Maria Butina" (
Consortium News )
"Foreign Agents Registration Act | Department of Justice" ( justice.gov )
"The Russian Spy Who Wasn't | The New Republic" ( The New
Republic )
While Butina is definitely a gun crazy idiotess (and 18 mouth while a little bit harsh is more or less fair punishment for
being such a idiot unless we remember that Epstein got less then that for supposedly much more complicated foreign influence
scheme ) , this guy now looks like a sinister
double dealing crook, who on one hand supported and encouraged Butina "adventures" with NRA while sleeping with her, but on
the other rat the girl to FBI...
Notable quotes:
"... The Russian girl, Maria Butina, must have had the worst lawyer on the planet. To get 18 months in prison for trying to infiltrate the NRA to get the NRA to influence the American government on behalf of Russia. That's the NRA, not the NSA. That's even a crime? That case was lame, even by Muller standards ..."
Byrne's August 12 press release drew attention to his three-year relationship with Russian
spy Maria Butina, though it wasn't specifically mentioned. He made the statement to reveal his
issues with how the federal government handled its case against Butina, The New York Times
reported.
The spy's work came to light after her July 2018 arrest. Butina was sentenced to 18 months
in prison in April for conspiring to infiltrate the National Rifle Association on behalf of
Russia.
The Russian girl, Maria Butina, must have had the worst lawyer on the planet. To get
18 months in prison for trying to infiltrate the NRA to get the NRA to influence the American
government on behalf of Russia. That's the NRA, not the NSA. That's even a crime? That case
was lame, even by Muller standards
The
first piece focuses on CEO Patrick Byrne and the role he played in trying to entrap and
portray Marina Butina as a Russian agent.
What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is
something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr.
You can find this information in the
Bruce Ohr 302s that Judicial Watch also secured.
Marina Butina was unfairly and unjustly
portrayed and prosecuted as a Russian intelligence agent. It was a damn lie. I do not ever want
to hear another American complaining about an American State Department or CIA employee who is
entrapped and unfairly prosecuted in Russia.
We have done the same damn thing that we have
accused the Soviets of doing. The same thing. It is shameful
So essentially he helped FBI to entrap Maria Butina... Nice behavior of a romantic partner ;-) .
Notable quotes:
"... Butina's lawyer, Robert Driscoll, also confirmed the relationship between Byrne and Butina. Driscoll stated that he also had relayed the information to the FBI and prosecutors earlier during his trial, and asked repeatedly about any Brady material
-- exculpatory information – that the bureau may have collected from Byrne on Butina, to no avail. The bureau denied it had any information regarding Byrne and Butina's relationship, said Driscoll. ..."
"... "Orally, during debrief sessions with Maria, I directly told the government that I believed Patrick Byrne, Chief Executive of Overstock.com, who had a sporadic relationship with Maria over a period of years prior to her arrest, was a government informant. My speculation was flatly denied. My associate Alfred Carry made similar assertions in a separate debrief that he covered and was also rebuffed." ..."
"... " Mr. Byrne has now contacted me and has confirmed that he, indeed, had a 'non-standard arrangement' with the FBI for many years, and that beginning in 2015 through Maria's arrest, he communicated and assisted government agents with their investigation of Maria. During this time, he stated he acted at the direction of the government and federal agents by, at their instruction, kindling a manipulative romantic relationship with her. He also told me that some of the details he provided the government regarding Maria in response was exculpatory - that is, he reported to the government that Maria's behavior and interaction with him was inconsistent with her being a foreign agent and more likely an idealist and age-appropriate peace activist." ..."
"... "It was something I knew I had to do," he told this reporter. "Those running the operation were not honest and in the end I realized I was being used in some sort of soft coup." ..."
"... DOJ officials said they could not comment on Byrne's allegations. ..."
"... "Subsequent to Maria's arrest, incarceration, plea, and sentencing, Byrne has felt remorse for the role he played in Maria's situation. In view of recent reports of other alleged government misconduct, he has also expressed a fear that political motives may have influenced the government's handling of Maria's case," Driscoll told Durham in his letter. ..."
If what you already know about the FBI's investigation into
President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia has you wondering what can come next,
"make sure you are sitting down because it's about to get worse,"
said Patrick Byrne,
the philanthropist and CEO of the mega online retail chain Overstock.com.
Byrne revealed never published details about
his intimate relationship with the Russian
gun right's activist and
libertarian,
Maria Butina,
who is
now serving out her sentence after pleading guilty in 2018 to
working as a foreign agent in the U.S. without registering.
In an interview several weeks ago,
Byrne recounted first meeting Butina at Freedom Fest
2015.
He described the relationship that developed between the two and revealed that he
had initiated contact in July, 2015 with the FBI after his first meeting with Butina. He also
disclosed that he met twice with Justice Department attorneys in April, 2019 giving a total of
seven hours of interviews on the separate occasions. A source directly familiar with the
interviews, confirmed those meetings took place.
Butina's lawyer, Robert Driscoll, also confirmed the relationship between Byrne and Butina.
Driscoll stated that he also had relayed the information to the FBI and prosecutors earlier during
his trial, and asked repeatedly about any Brady material -exculpatory information – that the bureau
may have collected from Byrne on Butina, to no avail. The bureau denied it had any information
regarding Byrne and Butina's relationship, said Driscoll.
On Thursday, Driscoll sent a letter to United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut
John
Durham,
who was appointed by Attorney General
William
Barr t
o investigate the FBI's handling of the Russia investigation; Inspector General
Michael
Horowitz,
who is conducting an investigation into the bureau's origins of the Trump probe and
Corey Amundson, with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility.
"In writing, the government denied the existence of any such Brady material,"
Driscoll stated in his letter.
"Orally, during debrief sessions with Maria, I directly told the government that I believed
Patrick Byrne, Chief Executive of Overstock.com, who had a sporadic relationship with Maria over
a period of years prior to her arrest, was a government informant. My speculation was flatly
denied. My associate Alfred Carry made similar assertions in a separate debrief that he covered
and was also rebuffed."
"
Mr. Byrne has now contacted me and has confirmed that he, indeed, had a
'non-standard arrangement' with the FBI for many years, and that beginning in 2015 through
Maria's arrest, he communicated and assisted government agents with their investigation of
Maria.
During this time, he stated he acted at the direction of the government and
federal agents by, at their instruction, kindling a manipulative romantic relationship with her.
He also told me that some of the details he provided the government regarding Maria in response
was exculpatory - that is,
he reported to the government that Maria's behavior and
interaction with him was inconsistent with her being a foreign agent and more likely an idealist
and age-appropriate peace activist."
"As an adjunct university professor and CEO of a public company,
Mr. Byrne is a
credible source of information, who from my view has little to gain but much to lose by
disclosing a sporadic relationship with Maria
. His claims are worthy of investigation.
Indeed,
he has much to say about the government's handling of Maria's case that go
far beyond the Brady issue I raise in this letter.
Regardless of these other
issues, which I suggest you pursue directly with him, I was told the following by Mr. Byrne,"
Driscoll's letter states.
Byrne's decision to come forward didn't come lightly. However, he said it was necessary after
watching what had transpired between the FBI, the intelligence community and the probe into
President Trump's campaign over the past several years.
"It was something I knew I had to do,"
he told this reporter.
"Those running the operation were not honest and in the end I realized I was being
used in some sort of soft coup."
Familiar with the possible backlash he will face, he made the decision to go public after
speaking to his mentor and longtime friend billionaire Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.
Buffett, whom Byrne describes as his 'Rabbi,' sent
SaraACarter.com
a
statement Tuesday night confirming his meeting with Byrne at his home in Omaha, Nebraska several
weeks ago.
"I've known Patrick and his family for more than 40 years," Buffett said in an email
to this reporter.
"His father, Jack Byrne,
saved
GEICO in 1976
and I met his three boys when they were teenagers. Both Mark, the middle son,
and Patrick, the youngest, worked for Berkshire Hathaway. Patrick helped the company without pay
in solving a difficult business problem. Patrick is very intelligent and patriotic. He comes by
Omaha periodically to see me. At the most recent visit – a few weeks ago – though I know nothing
about the subject he was describing, I told him to follow his conscience."
Byrne's Reveal
There are only several other reporters with knowledge of what you are about to read and
another who is aware of the situation with Byrne.
Byrne recounted his story of his
involvement with the FBI and DOJ on video during the private meeting he arranged with this
reporter, and several others.
The meeting between Byrne and the journalists took place in New York City. It was a little more
than three hours long, for the most part completely on the record and videotaped.
He told
his story in seven parts.
He said his motivation is to get the truth to the American people about his role with
the FBI and what transpired.
There were allegations that Byrne revealed regarding other
aspects of his involvement with the FBI that could not be verified.
This reporter relayed the full extent of Byrne's allegations to the FBI last week. On Wednesday
the FBI declined to comment on Byrne's allegations.
Byrne, who is not the typical CEO, is a is familiar with big public battles. A
Libertarian with a doctorate in philosophy, Byrne took on Wall Street in 2005.
Byrne
launched a massive campaign against hedge fund market manipulation and the possibility they were
going to crash Wall Street. Some financial giants, along with members of the media, were chomping
at the bit to destroy him, he recalled. It wasn't until the market crashed in 2008 and he won his
battle in court that those enemies backed off. But at the time, enemies of Byrne on Wall Street
flooded the news with stories making him out to be crazy, "even a picture with a
UFO
coming out of my head,
" said Byrne.
Byrne said he didn't come forward sooner about his contacts with the FBI, which he describes as
a 'non standard' relationship with the government, because he wanted to be "judicious and let the
system play out," he said, referring to the government's ongoing investigation into the FBI's
handling of the Russia Trump probe.
"But I can't trust that's what's going to happen,"
he said.
"
I've been holding my breath for more than 12 months watching everything unfold.
I've never met Trump, never gave the guy money, as soon as he said the stuff about John McCain I
stopped listening at the time. This isn't about Trump, it's about what's right for the American
people. The public should know the truth."
Earlier this year Byrne approached the DOJ and met with lawyers on April 5th and 30th. The first
meeting was without counsel in Washington D.C. A source directly familiar with the interviews
confirmed Byrne's account of the meetings.
DOJ officials said they could not comment on Byrne's allegations.
Driscoll noted that the information provided by Byrne should be investigated by Durham.
"Subsequent to Maria's arrest, incarceration, plea, and sentencing, Byrne has felt
remorse for the role he played in Maria's situation. In view of recent reports of other alleged
government misconduct, he has also expressed a fear that political motives may have influenced
the government's handling of Maria's case,"
Driscoll told Durham in his letter.
Byrne's "recollection of certain conversations with government agents would appear to validate
his concern," Driscoll said.
Byrne Reveals Details About Butina To FBI
In those interviews with Justice Department attorneys, Byrne revealed details about his intimate
relationship with the Russian gun right's activist
Butina
.
Byrne was a keynote speaker on July, 8, 2015 at Freedom Fest, a yearly Libertarian gathering that
hosts top speakers in Las Vegas. Shortly after his address, Butina approached him. She was
flattering and repeatedly told him she was a fan of his, saying she was a graduate student that had
studied the famous libertarian Militon Friedman.
He spoke to her shortly and "brushed her off."
The young redheaded Russian graduate student then approached him again over the course
of the conference and explained that she worked for the Vice Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia
and sent by them to make contact with Byrne.
She also said "did you know you're a famous man in Russia, we watch videos about you and your
relationship with Milton Freeman."
She said she was appointed to lead Russia's gun right's group by Lieutenant-General Mikhail
Kalashnikov, who was a Russian general, most notably known for his AK-47 machine gun design. The
designation by Kalashnikov is considered a huge honor and Byrne then had an "extensive conversation
about Russian history and I understood her designation about Kalishnikov was significant."
She wanted to invite Byrne to Russia to speak at the Central Bank before dignitaries. The
speaking engagement would be at a major resort for three days. Butina told Byrne the event would
offer him the opportunity to meet senior Russian officials and oligarchs. He didn't accept the
offer because of his security clearance. He then reported Butina and her offer to the FBI.
Communication In Disguise Of A Romantic Relationship
She told Byrne "we will communicate in disguise of a romantic relationship, I wish to make
arrangements with you for this to happen."
Butina had to have a reason to be texting Byrne and believed that "she was being monitored and
proposed that we disguise our discussions as a romantic relationship," Byrne said.
He admitted he was intrigued by Butina's intelligence and believed that she if anything could've
been a great contact and possible opportunity for peace.
"I have been involved with three peace efforts in my life, and stranger things
have happened than that someone positive came from such an encounter. However, I was also keenly
aware that she might be a Red Sparrow instead."
Interestingly, then-candidate Donald Trump (who had only recently announced his candidacy for
president), was also a keynote speaker at the 2015 event. During a public question and answer,
Butina asked Trump several questions, as has been extensively
reported
by numerous outlets.
Byrne had already left Las Vegas by the day Trump spoke and has never
communicated with Trump.
Byrne said he had received a low level security clearance early in his career and "after
something like this happens, there's a number you call and I called that number and said there is
something interesting, or note worthy going on."
When he contacted the FBI and then subsequently for the next few months "instead what I
got was vague instructions that it would be ok to get to know her better."
He said there was very little response from the FBI after his initial contact, until Butina
asked him to come meet her in New York City. He told the FBI he didn't want any vague instructions
on whether to meet Butina or not because "I didn't want my security clearance to get pulled."
At that point the FBI gave him an explicit "green light" to meet with her. He rented a hotel
room with two bedrooms because he was under the impression that the romantic texts were simply her
way to cover for communicating with him. However, she arrived at the hotel beforehand, occupied the
room before Byrne's arrival, and when he arrived, she made clear that her flirtatious texts were
not simply a disguise.
Byrne said that the FBI agents made clear they were skeptical that Butina might be of
interest, dismissing her as simply a normal 26 year old Russian graduate student.
Over
time, Byrne and Butina developed an intimate relationship but at the same time he alleges he was
continuously reporting on Butina to the FBI in an effort to convince them that it might be
worthwhile to introduce her to some of his contacts at the Council on Foreign Relations. He also
noted he reported to the FBI his interactions more frequently with Butina starting in December,
2015, both out of a desire not to lose the possibility of something good coming from this
encounter, but also, because Butina was starting to speak more frequently of meeting with big shots
in Republican circles.
Butina's lawyer, Robert Driscoll, told this reporter that Byrne's disclosure regarding his
contact with bureau agents is significant, revealing and should be investigated by the DOJ.
"Patrick Byrne is publicly saying that he was dealing with the government in regards
to Maria and I would suspect that the FBI has reports or information regarding these meetings,"
said Driscoll, who noted that he repeatedly asked the FBI for all documentation collected on
Butina, including interviews with witnesses, notes and any other form of documentation. The FBI,
however, repeatedly told Driscoll that there was no exculpatory information to give.
"It would be a Brady violation,"
said Driscoll.
"I would have to see if we have to go to court or not. I will have to go the the Office of
Professional Responsibility.
We've asked for the Brady material repeatedly and from the
sound of it, it looks like there should be Brady material.
We need an explanation to
why they didn't turn any information over to us with regard to Byrne."
In 2018, Butina pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign
government without registering. U.S. prosecutors had to walk back accusations they had made during
the trial that she was a Russian spy using sex as a tool to gain influence and access. Prosecutors
did have evidence that she was passing information to her confidant, high-level Russian official,
Alexander Torshin, who headed a Russian bank linked to the Kremlin. Butina is currently serving out
her sentence in Florida's FCI Tallahassee minimum security prison, which ends on Oct. 25. The
guilty plea was not an admission that Butina was a Russian spy but a failure to register herself as
a Russian citizen working on behalf of her country, Driscoll said.
Byrne's relationship with Butina was confirmed by a source directly involved in Butina's
investigation.
The source confirmed that "she had a relationship with Byrne, they did meet
at Freedom Fest in 2015 and had met at various points afterwards in different places. She had
nothing negative to say, he always treated her well."
Oddly, Byrne's name was not disclosed by prosecutors in the case or by the FBI. And despite the
government's earlier efforts to paint Butina as a Russian spy attempting to infiltrate Republican
circles she was never investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe, which charged 25
Russian agents with interfering in the U.S. election. Further, the FBI, unlike convicted
Russian
bombshell spy Anna Chapman
, did nothing to stop Butina from meeting with high level Republican
and conservative figures. The bureau also didn't warn those conservative figures she had made
contact with, even though they had her under surveillance and allegedly Byrne had been reporting
on her during that time. As
noted
in a column
by The Hill's John Solomon Chapman's actions were handled differently than Butina.
When one of Chapman's associates, who went by the name of Cynthia Murphy, made contact with Alan
Patricof, a major Democratic donor close to
Hillary
Clinton
,
the
FBI acted swiftly
to arrest the entire cell.
Driscoll said there was suspicion that the FBI did not disclose all the information it had on
Butina and he stated that he believed "Patrick is not the only one" who was giving information to
the FBI.
"We've thought of several possibilities and some we are more confidant than
others. I'm firmly convinced,"
said Driscoll, who shared numerous letters and
emails with this reporter that he exchanged with the FBI.
Byrne, the FBI and Butina
Although, Byrne was then concerned about Butina's possible motives, he eventually became
convinced that she was an intellectual being used by both the Russians and American intelligence
apparatus.
She was stuck between two highly contentious and secretive governments, he
claimed. He relayed those concerns to the FBI, he said.
"From January through March, in 2016 and I was telling (the FBI) I was 50/50, that
this was a real opportunity and 50 that it was Red Sparrow,"
said Byrne, referencing
the American film about Russian spy's who are trained to use sex as a tool to retrieve
information from sources. He said he believed more in the possibility that Butina could be
someone with the right connections to be an opportunity for U.S. officials to better understand
Russia.
"I actually think that back then I was two-thirds, one-third. It was two-thirds opportunity
and maybe one-third, threat. As those months went on, those odds shifted, he said. "She had
insisted to me that she was not a spy," said Byrne.
"Yet the more she swanked around in
political circles, the more concerned I became that she would get herself in trouble."
"I was surprised that there was no appetite in letting me connect her to people I know at
CFR who are qualified to take such a meeting, but in fact the 'men in black' were telling me
that was absolutely ridiculous," said Byrne, who noted that their refusal to even consider
pursuing the prospect was something he found "odd."
"Eventually, her conversations became less about philosophy and it became clear that she was
doing things that made me quite uncomfortable," stated Byrne.
"She was basically
schmoozing around with the political class and eventually she said to me at one point I want to
meet anyone in the Hillary campaign, the Cruz, the Rubio campaigns."
Butina had also told Byrne, that Torshin, the Russian politician who she had been assisting
while she was in the U.S., had sent her to the United States to meet other libertarians and build
relations with political figures. She repeated to him numerous times that she was not a spy, even
when he directly asked her.
Byrne said he warned Butina: "Maria the United States is not like Russia" and knowing
powerful people 'like oligarchs and politicians' won't help if the FBI believes a line has been
crossed.
Byrne believed Butina was naive but not blameless. He said during the interview
if "you're reporting to any Russian official and you're doing this stuff and not disclosing
yourself, there are these men in black here and they don't really give a shit who you know here
-that's not going to save you."
Driscoll noted in his letter to Durham and Horowitz the extent of Byrne's relationship with the
FBI.
"
At some point prior to the 2016 election, when Byrne's contact with Maria diminished
or ceased, the government asked and encouraged him to renew contact with her and he did
so, continuing to inform the government of her activities.
Byrne states he was informed
by government agents that his pursuit and involvement with Maria (and concomitant surveillance
of her) was requested and directed from the highest levels of the FBI and intelligence
community."
"As time passed, Byrne became more and more convinced that Maria was what she
said she was -- an inquisitive student in favor of better U.S.-Russian relations -- and not an agent
of the Russian government or someone involved in espionage or illegal activities. He states
he conveyed these thoughts and the corroborating facts and observations about Maria to
the government."
The USA is quite the police state... anyone who's anybody has
some kind of security clearance and must take orders from the FBI
political police, My God!
"Byrne said he had received a low level security clearance early
in his career and "after something like this happens, there's a
number you call and I called that number and said there is
something interesting, or note worthy going on"."
"Byrne said he warned Butina: "Maria the United States is not
like Russia" and knowing powerful people 'like oligarchs and
politicians' won't help if the FBI believes a line has been
crossed."
"Byrne states he was informed by government agents that his
pursuit and involvement with Maria (and concomitant surveillance
of her) was requested and directed from the highest levels of the
FBI and intelligence community"."
Israel has many dual citizens in the USA even working for the
US govt in many 3 letter agencies including the FBI, CIA, NSA
as well as departments within the white house, Pentagon and
Congress. Make them all register too.
The FBI always has always been an incompetent crime fighting
organization. The FBI specializes in murder, blackmail and
entrapment. The FBI should have never been created and should be
disbanded ASAP. The FBI is just another example of the Federal
government usurping power from the states. Some FBI highlights
include
murdering 76 Branch Davidians in Waco,
murdering Randy Weaver's wife at Ruby Ridge.
Sending Dr, Martin Luther King recordings of his sexual
adventures and threatening to publish them unless he committed
suicide
Systematic fraud at the FBI crime lab.
Warned by Russia about the Boston marathon bombers but dis
nothing to stop them.
Under prosecutors become both civilly and criminally liable for
their misdeeds, including withholding exculpatory evidence, the
justice system will remain corrupt and the state will continue to
use courts to abuse and destroy innocent people. Weissmann et al
are criminals.
Papadopoulos is on his way to Greece now to get the $10K in
"marked bills" the FBI gave him (but he didn't bring back to the
US or otherwise spend - instead he contacted.....The Feds...but
not after being searched thoroughly at the Airport upon arrival
for FBI Agents looking for the Cash!!!).
ENTRAPMENT, boys and girls. $1 says he never makes it home and
the safe in which it's hidden is never found. Be safe, George.
Old Soviet proves that Americans are dumber than an box of rocks and the block headed Russians know that all to well. Thank
God for immigrants or we would still be bleeding to death without plasma.
Here ya go Comrade Old Soviet on who dismissed the law suit. "
A federal judge in Washington has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Hillary Clinton's lax security surrounding her emails led
to the deaths of two of the Americans killed in the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
In a ruling Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson tossed out the wrongful death claims as well as allegations
that Clinton essentially slandered the parents of the deceased by contradicting accounts the parents gave of events related to
their children's deaths."
See, there are other magistrates and they rule on different cases, not so weird.
Just as Joe McCarthy was filled with conspiracy theories and paranoia Sarge continues Joe's scare tactics.
It is not that unusual for the DOJ to keep the same judge in high profile cases. The DOJ does like to keep similar cases grouped
and to have judges that are familiar with cases. Remember that the republican DOJ apparently supported the current judge when
they could have dismissed her.
Cory, I'm not triggered so it's all ok. The girl was a "spy". The whole thing about spies is you aren't supposed to know they
are spies. They do it in secret. Kind of like the spies Obama placed in the RNC to spy on Trump but those spies were working for
our government to spy on political opposition. Everyone wants to act all offended that the ruskies spied on us but want to ignore
it when our government is weaponized and used to spy on our own citizens.
We call those people hypocrites. Hypocrites are people who pretend to have virtues, moral or principles that they do not actually
have. Kind of like people that get all upset because a foreign country spies on us yet we accept our own country spying on us
or someone to says they are fighting for racial equality but in fact work to divide people on race by promoting difference between
races.. I guess those are the folks that really trigger me, kind of like most of your lemmings.
Roger, do you think I am wrong and "if" you honestly do look these things up and then tell me I am lying. . .
1) In the National News: The FBI was 'Granted FISA Warrant' to spy on the Trump Camp.
2) The New York Times reported Obama during his final days expanded the power of the NSA to share globally intercepted personal
communications with the government's 16 other intelligence agencies BEFORE applying privacy protections.
3) The New York Times reported "Wiretapped Data Used In Inquiry of Trump Aides"
4) The Washington Post reported that the month prior to Trump taking office the Obama administration listened to Flynn's phone
calls.
5) The FBI told us they had a spy within the Trump Campaign to "protect Trump" but they never told Trump?
6) Clapper said the FBI spying on Trump was a "good thing".
Now before you go make this about dems vs repubs I think this is a government vs the people. We have given our spy agencies
too much power. Remember when they told you they were only gathering meta-data from your calls? Buddy, they are getting it all
and keeping it until they feel they need it. Yes, even the comments here are being digitally recorded by our government every
day, every hour, minute and second, where they came from and who they are going to and who is reading them. They have it all.
. . and you trust them. . .
OS hyperventilates about alleged USA officials misconduct, yet says absolutely nothing negative or critical about the alleged
Russian misconduct.
Assuming arguendo USA officials have acted unlawfully in the past (although OS has not identied which US laws he thinks USA
officials have violated), does OS assert that such hypothetical misbehavior gives license to Russian operatives to commit violations
of US law without consequences? In my experience, bad conduct by a third party, USA government official or anyone else, has never
provided a legal defense for any defendant to engage in bad conduct.
What would be the legal rational to use the misbehavior of others to insulate Russian defendants from prosecution for their
crimes OS?
First of all, OS says the Russian meddling isn't a Dem/Rep thing when clearly it is, isn't partisan we should be hearing more
republicans speaking out about the Russian spying and meddling.
Since the Russian meddling story first broke and republicans
constantly doing their Hillary song and dance to defend Trump and Russian actions, OS and others still think all the issues he
listed is going to somehow exonerate Trump from charges of treason, etc.
Forget about Hillary, if she is mentioned in Trump's impeachment it'll only be a footnote.
This is probably the best article available on the Web that describes the case objectively.
Notable quotes:
"... It's true that Butina attended conferences, met prominent political figures, and hashed out plans to exert influence in service of pursuing a policy agenda. But in a different context, all these activities might instead be viewed as 'networking' – a practice so commonplace in Washington that you're considered an oddball if you don't engage in it. ..."
"... Absent the Russian aspect, Butina's type is wholly recognizable: an overly-ambitious young person galavanting around the Capitol with dreams of establishing some quasi-ideological enterprise, hoping it could eventually yield comfortable sinecures at think tanks, lobbying firms, advocacy organizations, or some combination thereof – possibly with a brief detour in government service if things pan out. Her particular niche, trying to link up gun rights activism in the United States and Russia (where the issue is practically non-existent), was especially ripe for someone who styles herself a political 'entrepreneur,' or whatever. ..."
"... She did appear to have some connections to Russian state officials, or rather, one specific official: the former deputy director at the Russian central bank. But then again, innumerable people in Washington have all sorts of contacts with various foreign officials. ..."
"... In her 2015 ' proposal ' unearthed by law enforcement, Butina correctly observed that the Republican party is 'traditionally associated with negative and aggressive foreign policy, particularly with regards to Russia,' and indicated her belief that opening informal channels of communication between the US conservative movement and sympathetic Russian figures could mitigate the harms of a potential incoming GOP administration. ..."
"... After all, the previous GOP nominee at that point, Mitt Romney, was well-known for declaring Russia to be America's 'number one geopolitical foe,' and anti-Russia hawkishness was still considered the default position in the party. In another world, the kind of amateur, self-starting diplomacy she envisioned would be lauded as a respectable, if haphazard, means of achieving small-scale détente. ..."
"... Like most Russia stories of recent vintage, the Butina one followed a familiar trajectory. An initial torrent of screaming, salacious headlines, which at first glance seem to portend an earth-shattering 'bombshell,' but upon closer inspection need to be downplayed, heavily qualified, or even retracted. 'Maria Butina, Suspected Secret Agent, Used Sex in Covert Plan, Prosecutors Say,' proclaimed the initial New York Times ..."
"... And to top it all off, her admission of guilt was acquired under the duress of solitary confinement , which Butina has now been subjected to for several months. Solitary confinement is widely denounced as torture, but few seem troubled by that anymore, now that the depravity of the tactic has assisted in extracting a guilty plea from this suspicious foreign woman. It's all exceptionally egregious, not least for Butina herself, who has been tarred irreparably by yet another unscrupulous media and prosecutorial campaign – the kind of thing that has seemed all too common throughout this wider Russian 'interference' frenzy. ..."
It seems entirely plausible that her biggest crime was networking
To much fanfare and
glee last week, federal prosecutors announced a plea deal had been secured for Maria Butina,
the mystery woman who populated DC conservative circles for a short period around the 2016
election. The popular interpretation of her travails, circulated with gusto in the press since
her arrest in July, was that Butina – an attractive young woman, and, most damningly, a
Russian national – had used her sexual prowess to trick gullible middle-aged Republican
men into granting her access. She did this, or so the story went, at the behest of her menacing
benefactors as part of the sprawling Kremlin campaign to 'interfere' in American politics.
It's true that Butina attended conferences, met prominent political figures, and hashed
out plans to exert influence in service of pursuing a policy agenda. But in a different
context, all these activities might instead be viewed as 'networking' – a practice so
commonplace in Washington that you're considered an oddball if you don't engage in
it.
Absent the Russian aspect, Butina's type is wholly recognizable: an overly-ambitious
young person galavanting around the Capitol with dreams of establishing some quasi-ideological
enterprise, hoping it could eventually yield comfortable sinecures at think tanks, lobbying
firms, advocacy organizations, or some combination thereof – possibly with a brief detour
in government service if things pan out. Her particular niche, trying to link up gun rights
activism in the United States and Russia (where the issue is practically non-existent), was
especially ripe for someone who styles herself a political 'entrepreneur,' or
whatever.
She did appear to have some connections to Russian state officials, or rather, one
specific official: the former deputy director at the Russian central bank. But then again,
innumerable people in Washington have all sorts of contacts with various foreign
officials. They often use these connections (or the appearance thereof) to establish
leverage with whoever it is they're trying to regale on a given evening. And strictures
governing when it's required to formally register their activities are so hazy and infrequently
enforced that it wouldn't be surprising if Butina, a slightly oblivious graduate student, was
legitimately unaware that what she was doing could have been construed as violating federal
law. Never mind whether it may have been perceived after the fact to be part of some mammoth
conspiracy to infiltrate the US political system. Notably, her great plan to forge connections
within the GOP, uncovered by diligent prosecutors suddenly interested in such matters, was
hatched all the way back in March 2015 – well before Trump announced his presidential
campaign, and long before having 'Russian contacts' was seen as inherently sinister.
In her 2015 ' proposal ' unearthed by
law enforcement, Butina correctly observed that the Republican party is 'traditionally
associated with negative and aggressive foreign policy, particularly with regards to Russia,'
and indicated her belief that opening informal channels of communication between the US
conservative movement and sympathetic Russian figures could mitigate the harms of a potential
incoming GOP administration.
After all, the previous GOP nominee at that point, Mitt Romney, was well-known for
declaring Russia to be America's 'number one geopolitical foe,' and anti-Russia hawkishness was
still considered the default position in the party. In another world, the kind of amateur,
self-starting diplomacy she envisioned would be lauded as a respectable, if haphazard, means of
achieving small-scale détente. Instead today it's cast in the most ominous possible
light, as evidence of some grand 'influence operation,' with no mind paid to the actual purpose
of the supposed 'influence' – reducing tensions between two nuclear-armed powers, who in
the past have brought each other to the brink of existential annihilation.
None of this is to say that Butina was operating from a place of altruistic purity, or even
that the manner in which she pursued her goals was particularly sanguine. It's simply to say
that her opportunistic careerism is fully within the mainstream in Washington, and in fact
encouraged at the various 'leadership' seminars, internship how-to sessions, and similar
functions that are so trivially common it's easy to imagine her having attended several. All
that's really notable about Butina is that she happened to be Russian, and being Russian in the
current political atmosphere is automatically viewed as interchangeable with surreptitious,
conspiratorial spycraft, especially when woven into the larger narrative about 'interference'
that has dominated American politics for more than two years.
Though the initial explosion of media frenzy around her case over the summer had Butina
depicted as a '
spy ,' in fact nothing that Butina is alleged to have done at all resembles 'spycraft' in
the sense that term is popularly understood. There was nothing remotely clandestine about her
activities, considering she documented them all comprehensively on social media (often to the
point of cringe-inducing excess). She took part in public events, apparently without appearing
in disguise, and even made her presence known by posing a question to Donald Trump himself at
a conference in Las Vegas. If she was trying to fly below the radar in a bid to establish
stealth influence channels, she went about it in a curiously above-board fashion. And as the
monotonous Instagram chronicling demonstrates, she followed all the established protocols
insofar as contemporary 'brand-building' exercises go. Seeking out selfie photos with notable
Republican politicians, including
Scott Walker and Rick Santorum , would not
have been a wise way to conceal her identity in pursuit of espionage. But thanks to resurgent
Trump-era
prosecutorial zeal, this now makes her some sort of subterfuge practitioner operating under the
sinister auspices of the Russian federation. If you know enough political hangers-on, you know
the type who make it their life mission to take photos with as many prominent politicians as
possible. It's banal and annoying, but again: not abnormal.
Prosecutors ultimately charged her not as a spy as an unregistered 'agent,' which was a bit
of a downer for those banking on her to be the pivotal figure in a wider criminal scheme.
Michael Isikoff, co-author of the book Russian Roulette , bemoaned in a
recent interview that 'the government doesn't have the evidence to back up what a lot of us
expected' regarding Butina's presumed centrality in some larger plot. In their book, Isikoff
and co-author David Corn speculate that Butina could have been the facilitator of a giant money
laundering operation to funnel Russian money through the National Rifle Association and help
elect Trump. But sadly for them, it didn't pan out. Prosecutors 'would not have let her plead
to a relatively minor charge' if the operation he and Corn prophesied was real, Isikoff
conceded.
Like most Russia stories of recent vintage, the Butina one followed a familiar
trajectory. An initial torrent of screaming, salacious headlines, which at first glance seem to
portend an earth-shattering 'bombshell,' but upon closer inspection need to be downplayed,
heavily qualified, or even retracted. 'Maria Butina, Suspected Secret Agent, Used Sex in Covert
Plan, Prosecutors Say,' proclaimed
the initial New York Times news-blast after her arrest. 'Prosecutors Say' would be the
key clause there, because prosecutors later admitted they had no
basis for alleging that Butina 'used sex' in any such manner.
And that, ultimately, is the most sordid and gross aspect of all this: the way she was
depicted as a scurrilous, transactional seductress. Though prosecutors later withdrew the
charge, it still litters the internet, and probably will for the rest of time –
permanently sullying her reputation. The depiction drew on sleazy stereotypes of young Russian
women, or in other words, her ethnic heritage, and there's absolutely no doubt that in any
other context the smear-job would have been (rightly) denounced as the pathetic sexist tripe it
so clearly was. Think of it: this ambitious young woman, seeking to further her influence and
connections in Washington through a variety of tactics that would be otherwise known as
'networking' – was depicted as a succubus, on the basis of nothing but journalists' and
prosecutors' creepy fantasies.
Scanning social media in the wake of the guilty plea, you would think the worst assumptions
about her prostitute-like activities had been confirmed, and she had indeed admitted 'using
sex' to seduce older men into giving her political favors. But in fact, the
plea agreement contains no such admission. There is still absolutely no evidence that she
'used' her boyfriend Paul Erickson in any scandalous transactional sense, unless we're
operating on the crude assumption that a good-looking young woman could have no authentic
attraction to this person who, on her own agency, she had taken as a romantic partner. Lots of
people feel entitled to opine on the nature of her relationship, but once again they're just
stereotyping in ways they would certainly condemn in different contexts. Regardless, even if
part of her 'attraction' to Erickson was for his professional connections so what? That's
hardly unusual, and as a consenting adult she's allowed to make whatever decisions she wishes
in this area. Instead, the morality police rendered swift judgment on her, without knowing a
thing about her interior mental state. It's the kind of gross, demeaning finger-wagging that
would be (rightly) denounced in almost any other circumstance. But because she is a nefarious
Russian, media scolds felt free to rain down opprobrium that is, in a very classical sense,
sexist. No rousing feminist defenses of her have seemed to be forthcoming.
And to top it all off, her admission of guilt was acquired under the duress of
solitary confinement , which Butina has now been subjected to for several months. Solitary
confinement is
widely denounced as torture, but few seem troubled by that anymore, now that the depravity
of the tactic has assisted in extracting a guilty plea from this suspicious foreign woman. It's
all exceptionally egregious, not least for Butina herself, who has been tarred irreparably by
yet another unscrupulous media and prosecutorial campaign – the kind of thing that has
seemed all too common throughout this wider Russian 'interference' frenzy.
The United States Department of Justice would apparently have you
believe that the Kremlin sought to subvert the five-million-member strong National Rifle
Association (NRA) by having two Russian citizens take out life memberships in the organization
with the intention of corrupting it and turning it into a mouthpiece for President Vladimir
Putin. Both of the Russians – Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin – have, by the
way, long well documented histories as advocates for gun ownership and were founders of Right
to Bear Arms, which is not an intelligence front organization of some kind and is rather a
genuine lobbying group with an active membership and agenda. Contrary to what has been reported
in the mainstream media, Russians can own guns but the licensing and registration procedures
are long and complicated, which Right to Bear Arms, modeling itself on the NRA, is seeking to
change.
Maria Butina, a graduate student at American University, is now in solitary confinement in a
federal prison, having been charged with collusion with Torshin and failure to register as an
agent of the Russian Federation. It is unusual to arrest and confine someone who has failed to
register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, but she has not been granted bail
because, as a Russian citizen, she is considered to be a "flight risk," likely to try to flee
the US and return home. It is to be presumed that she is being pressured to identify others
involved in her alleged scheme to overthrow American democracy through NRA membership.
The Law Frederic Bastiat Best Price: $3.00 Buy New $2.10 (as of 02:15 EDT - Details )
Indeed, in any event, it would be difficult to imagine why anyone would consider the NRA to
be a legitimate intelligence target. It only flexes its admitted powerful legislative muscles
over issues relating to gun ownership, not regarding policy on Russia. In short, Butina and by
extension Torshin appear to have done nothing wrong. Both are energetic advocates for their
country and guns rights, which they appear to believe in, and Butina's aggressive networking
has broken no law except not registering, which in itself assumes that she is a Russian
government agent, something that has not been demonstrated. To put the shoe on the other foot,
will every American who now travels to Russia and engages in political conversations with local
people be suspected of acting as an agent of the US government? Once you open the door, it
swings both ways.
One might dismiss the entire Affair Butina as little more than a reflection of the
anti-Russia hysteria that has been sweeping the United States since Hillary Clinton lost the
2016 election, but that would be unfair to those remaining honest FBI agents who may have
investigated Butina and Torshin and come up with what they believed to be a plausible case for
an indictment. There were possibly suspicious money transfers as well as email intercepts that
might be interpreted as incriminating.
But two important elements are clearly missing. The first is motive. Did the Kremlin
seriously believe that it could get anything substantial out of having a gun totin' attractive
young Russian woman as a life member in the NRA? What did the presumed puppet masters in Moscow
expect to obtain apart from the sorts of group photos including Butina that one gets while
posing with politicians at the annual NRA convention? Sure, the photo might even evolve into a
cup of coffee together, but what is the end game?
Human Action: The Scho... Ludwig von Mises Best Price: $4.81 Buy New $8.75 (as of 10:40 EDT
- Details ) Second is the lack of any of the hallmarks of an intelligence operation, which
is referred to in the business as tradecraft. Spies meet secretly or at least outside the
public eye with prospective agents whereas Maria operated completely in the open and she made
no effort to conceal her love for her country and her desire that Washington and Moscow
normalize relations. Spies also communicate securely, which means that they use encrypted
systems or various cut-outs, i.e. mis-directions, when maintaining contact with those who are
running them. Again, Maria did none of that, which is why the FBI has her emails. Also spies
work under what is referred to as an "operating directive" in CIA-speak where they have very
specific information that they seek to obtain from their contacts. There is no indication that
Maria Butina in any way sought classified information or intelligence that would relate either
to the security of the United States or to America's political system. And finally, Maria made
no attempt to recruit anyone and turn them into an actual controlled Russian agent, which is
what spies eventually seek to do.
It has come down to this: if you are a Russian and you are caught talking to anyone in any
way influential, there is potentially hell to pay because the FBI will be watching you. You are
automatically assumed to be part of a conspiracy. Once "evidence" is collected, you will be
indicted and sent to prison, mostly to send a message to Moscow. It is the ultimate irony that
how the old Soviet Union's judiciary used to function is now becoming standing operating
procedure in the United States.
In a quivering voice, Maria Butina begged for leniency Friday as she awaited sentencing on
charges of being a secret agent for Russia. She cast herself as an innocent caught up in a
massive geopolitical power game.
But a federal judge sentenced her to 18 months in prison followed by deportation. U.S.
District Judge Tanya Chutkan sided with prosecutors, who said the 30-year-old Russian
deliberately obscured her true purposes while developing backdoor contacts inside the
American conservative movement to advance the interests of Russia.
The sentence can be appealed and Butina will get credit for her time in jail since her
high-profile arrest in July 2018. The case garnered intense media coverage amid speculation
over the extent of Russian interference in American politics.
Butina admitted last year to covertly gathering intelligence on the National Rifle
Association and other groups at the direction of a former Russian lawmaker. Her guilty plea
to a single charge of conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent came as part of a
deal with prosecutors.
At Friday's sentencing hearing, Butina appealed to Chutkan to release her with nine months
of time served.
"My reputation is ruined, both here in the United States and abroad," she said, asking for
"a chance to go home and restart my life."
Chutkan, however, fully followed the government's recommendation and sentenced Butina
to an additional nine months, before being deported. The judge said the sentence was meant
"to reflect the seriousness of (Butina's actions) and to promote deterrence."
Butina's lawyers decried the judgment as overly harsh; they had characterized Butina as
a naive but ambitious international affairs student who didn't realize her actions required
her to register as an agent of a foreign government.
"I feel terrible for Maria's family...I wish we could have done more to get her out
sooner," said attorney Robert Driscoll. "I do not believe an additional nine months in jail
serves any purpose."
A Russian Foreign Ministry statement claimed that Butina was being punished, "just for
being a Russian citizen. She became a victim of tough rivalry between various US political
forces and an unbridled anti-Russian campaign in the spirit of McCarthyism."
Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of the
Russian parliament, said the case was "political and fabricated from air poisoned with
Russophobia."
"It is necessary to continue the fight, to file an appeal and to do everything in our
power for Maria Butina to return to Russia as soon as possible," Slutsky was quoted as saying
by state news agency Tass.
According to her plea agreement, Butina worked with former Russian lawmaker Alexander
Torshin to use their contacts in the NRA to pursue back channels to American conservatives
during the 2016 presidential campaign. She did not report her activities to the U.S.
government as required by law .
"... Is this how Judge Chutkan got steered the Awan and Fusion GPS cases too? ..."
"... Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-FL, has a brother, Steven, who works as a U.S. Attorney in the Prosecutors' Office in the District of Columbia. She is former campaign chairman for the DNC and the Hillary Clinton Campaign for President. Wasserman Schultz is also the one who gave her passwords to Imran Awan. ..."
"... Is that how the Butina, Awan, and Fusion GPS cases got "assigned" to Judge Chutkan? ..."
"... Mariia worked for Susan Rice at American University (AU). Their offices were next to each other. Ambassador Rice was President Barack Obama's National Security Advisor from 2013 to 2017. Rice's job at American University was to review NSA and FBI surveillance data, then organize it, for the benefit of the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign. ..."
"... Butina is jailed in the William Truesdale Adult Detention Center in Alexandria, Virginia. ..."
"... At her Judicial Nomination hearing, Chutkan was asked about her lack of experience in criminal law. She had none. Nor did Chutkan have trial experience. ..."
"... According to the federal court's system of records, Judge Chutkan has never tried a criminal case. Or any case? ..."
"... Fusion GPS: Judge Chutkan's second cover-up. ..."
How can paperwork be timestamped when the court is closed? <img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/598a66006b8f5b013edc46c1/t/5c5d6731f9619a074c095377/1549625145085/Butina+case+filed+on+a+Saturday+.png"
alt="Butina case filed on a Saturday .png" />
Court-shopping is rigging the system to get one's legal case steered to the judge most likely to rule in one's favor.
It is only illegal if caught.
And if the opposing party objects to it.
Is this how Judge Chutkan got steered the Awan and Fusion GPS cases too?
Is that cause for a reversal?
How does the Justice Department keep on getting away with it?
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-FL, has a brother, Steven, who works as a U.S. Attorney in the Prosecutors' Office in the District
of Columbia. She is former campaign chairman for the DNC and the Hillary Clinton Campaign for President. Wasserman Schultz
is also the one who gave her passwords to Imran Awan.
Is that how the Butina, Awan, and Fusion GPS cases got "assigned" to Judge Chutkan?
What does this say about the rest of the D.C. District Court?
What are they doing to rein in Judge Chutkan's judicial misconduct?
Supporting it?
The First Cover-up <img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/598a66006b8f5b013edc46c1/t/5c596674ec212d81d6ba512e/1549362810444/Butina+black+silouette+GQ.jpg"
alt="Butina black silouette GQ.jpg" />
Mariia Butina (above), the Russian spy?
Judge Chutkan can extend Mariia Butina's solitary confinement and gag order with a five-year sentence Tuesday.
With good behavior, Mariia is eligible for a sentence reduction of up to 54 days a year. Miss Butina plead guilty to being a Russian
spy at a court hearing on Dec. 13th. The 56-page transcript of this hearing which including her guilt plea is linked here:
Unless the gag order is extended, Mariia the has the opportunity to tell her story. Will the Judge deny that opportunity for five
years? The court is waiting for new evidence less than a week before Butina's sentencing. It is the names and pictures of Mariia's
former classmates at American University (AU).
How many other student spies are in those pictures and names?
Judge Chutkan has to allow the defense an opportunity to view all available evidence. To deny it would nullify the plea agreement.
The Judge has no obligation, however, to disclose the new evidence to the public. The Judge can claim "national security", blowing
the cover for CIA operatives, as the reason for "sealing" it.
Will that new evidence uncover the identities of other Butina student co-conspirators? Will Butina's attorney, Robert Driscoll,
have time to prepare a proper defense before Tuesday? He has yet to ask for an extention of time in order to review the pending new
evidence. The court is still waiting for it.
The public may never know it. <img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/598a66006b8f5b013edc46c1/t/5c58f73653450a06427aaa79/1549334336013/Butina+two+guns+photo+black+over+shoulder.png"
alt="Butina two guns photo black over shoulder.png" />
Mariia Butina (above)
Miss Butina was arrested on July 15th, a Sunday.
Two days after the arrest, Presidents Donald J. Trump and Vladimir Putin of Russia, were to meet in Helsinki, Finland. Was the
arrest timed to disrupt the agenda of this meeting? The FBI served its second warrant at Mariia's apartment on July 15th. They left
with a hard drive with two terabytes of data, according to Prosecutor Erik M. Kenerson. Two terabytes is equal to:
34,000 hours of music or
80 days or videos or
620,000 photos or
1,000 hours of movies
In April, according to Bob Driscoll, Butina's defense attorney:
15 FBI agents searched Mariia's apartment for evidence
The FBI left with a hard drive containing over 7,000 pages of documents and unspecified personal items
Later in the day, Butina testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee
<img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/598a66006b8f5b013edc46c1/t/5c596f04f4e1fc454224142a/1549365004326/Butina+best+black+in+four.png"
alt="Butina best black in four.png" />
Mariia Butina
Mariia worked for Susan Rice at American University (AU). Their offices were next to each other. Ambassador Rice was President
Barack Obama's National Security Advisor from 2013 to 2017. Rice's job at American University was to review NSA and FBI surveillance
data, then organize it, for the benefit of the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign.
A Russian Orthodox Priest and Valery Butina, Mariia's father, are approved visitors. <img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/598a66006b8f5b013edc46c1/t/5c597e43c830252ca2c30a7c/1549368907334/Butina+Fathe+Valery+South+Dakota.png"
alt="Butina Fathe Valery South Dakota.png" />
Father and daughter, Valery and Mariia Butina (above)
Butina complained about her cell being cold. It took five months for the prison to turn up the heat. And Mariia's parents and
sister live in Siberia.
Neither the Judge nor the Prosecutor can find guidelines on which to base Butina's sentence. No one has ever plead guilty to the
crime Mariia is pleading guilty to. In fact, never the Judge nor the Prosecutor have a copy of last year's federal sentencing guidelines.
Details are in the plea agreement, Page 44, imaged here: <img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/598a66006b8f5b013edc46c1/t/5c59856d24a694b928af4f2d/1549370741218/Butina+Judge+says+no+sentencing+guidelines+exist.png"
alt="Butina Judge says no sentencing guidelines exist.png" />
The Judge asked her the correct spelling of her first name. It is Mariia with two "i's". <img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/598a66006b8f5b013edc46c1/t/5c58f7cc7817f72a8e7eacee/1549334482363/Butina+spelling+of+Mariia+with+two+I%27s+page+12.png"
alt="Butina spelling of Mariia with two I's page 12.png" /> <img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/598a66006b8f5b013edc46c1/t/5c5972108165f5a37e3fa095/1549365785501/Butina+orange+hunting+cap.png"
alt="Butina orange hunting cap.png" />
Mariia Butina (above)
Chutkan has been a U.S. Federal District Judge in the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. since June 5th, 2014. To get her
appointed, President Barack Obama created or "packed" the D.C. Court with a "new position". At her Judicial Nomination
hearing, Chutkan was asked about her lack of experience in criminal law. She had none. Nor did Chutkan have trial experience.
Butina's lawyer, Robert Driscoll, has no criminal law experience either. Neither does anyone in his law firm.
https://www.mcglinchey.com/robert-driscoll/ <img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/598a66006b8f5b013edc46c1/t/5c5977a671c10b30f3889b1f/1549367217044/Driscoll+Roberrt+photo+on+Fox.png"
alt="Driscoll Roberrt photo on Fox.png" />
Robert Driscoll (above)
Yet, Judge Chutkan has ruled that Driscoll has provided "competent" legal defense for Mariia. After all, Mariia said so herself
at her pre-sentencing hearing on Dec. 13th. Chutkan issued a "gag order" on Butina's case because of Driscoll's repeated appearances
for a national cable network, Fox. Driscoll caused it. Butina was punished for it. Chutkan even assigned an "Advisory Attorney",
Mr. A.J. Williams, to monitor whether or not Butina has been violating the gag order since Dec. 13th.
Williams is a Federal Public Defender assigned to the District of Columbia since 1990. According to Valery Butina, Mariia's father,
Driscoll's fees reached $463,000 in July. "But the lawyer did not abandon the case . . . and has been actually working for free since
then", said Mariia's father.
Butina's father said that Driscoll "helped the family" set up a fund to pay legal fees. None of it goes to the Butina family.
Who monitors an attorney's escrow account anyway? How was Driscoll assigned the case? The same scheduler who assigned Judge Chutkan
the Fusion GPS and Imran Awan cases too?
Fusion GPS: Judge Chutkan's second cover-up. Judge Tanya Chutkan was also assigned the case involving Fusion GPS. Fusion
was paid to write the Russian dossier. Two of them.
Paid by the Russians through a Cleveland law firm.
Admitted to in sworn testimony before Congress. The details are linked here:
Chutkan ruled that the checks be "sealed", never to be made public.
Chutkan's Third Cover-up
Judge Chutkan was also assigned the case of Imran Awan, another D.C. scandal. He was the "Pakistani mystery man". For 14 years, he headed the Spy Ring in Congress for 40 members of Congress. Who knew?
In 14 years, how much intellectual property, patents, weapons, and pay-for-play deals were rinsed through Pakistan and sold to
N. Korea, Iran, China, and Russia?
Awan plead guilty to bank fraud. His six-month sentence was reduced to three months of "supervised" probation by Judge Chutkan.
"He suffered enough", said the Judge. Awan lives in Pakistan nine months out of the year. Awan received immunity from prosecution
without having to testify against anyone.
Exactly how did Awan suffer? He was paid $160,000 working three months out of the year to manage Congresses' computer systems.
Judges with lifetime appointments never have to explain anything. <img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/598a66006b8f5b013edc46c1/t/5c5983274192024193ecfeb3/1549370162865/Chutkan+grumpy+self.png"
alt="Chutkan grumpy self.png" />
According to Pacer, the official record of the federal courts, nothing on Butina's release and plea agreement was filed yesterday.
<img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/598a66006b8f5b013edc46c1/t/5c5d87bbec212d5e97169fbd/1549633474179/Butina+docket+8+a.m.+Feb.+8th.png"
alt="Butina docket 8 a.m. Feb. 8th.png" /> <img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/598a66006b8f5b013edc46c1/t/5c5d730771c10bfe031cc1f5/1549628173885/Butina+case+update+Feb+8th.png"
alt="Butina case update Feb 8th.png" />
Bob Driscoll, Butina's attorney, said yesterday that she should be home in Russia in six weeks.
The plea hearing remains on schedule for Tuesday.
The gag order has been lifted.
Mariia remains in prison at the William Truesdale Detention Center in Alexandria, Virginia, according to the Russian Orthodox
Church. She is no longer in an isolation cell.
"It is the ultimate irony that how the old Soviet Union's judiciary used to function is
now becoming standing operating procedure in the United States."
When you consider how many of today's Democrat luminaries were self described as dedicated
Communists in the 60's, 70's, and 80's it is not surprising at all.
If, the information in this article is true, I feel bad for this young lady getting hemmed
up in international shenanigans.
If a person loves her country (her home), wants the opportunity for fellow citizens to be
free with a right to bare arms, and seeks out the assistance of the USA both as a model for
having the 2nd Amendment, and an organization that leads in advocating for personal firearms
ownership, the NRA, how is she committing any crime? She should not be locked up for pursuing
God given, inalienable rights for her fellow countrymen. She should be encouraged and
sponsored by Pro2A groups and manufacturers. Again, if the information as presented is
true.
Thank you DOJ. There's no need for guns in Russia. These people intoxicated by the alcohol
and hard drugs will kill one another by the thousands. I feel for Masha Butina, but as far
away she is from Russia, as better for this poor country. Luckily she is in US and even
better in prison. Thank you Russophobes, warmongers and sheep that neocons will send to the
slaughterhouse, you can not do any better.
Our courts are totally corrupt. There's a prosecutor/FBI/judge cabal which convicts 98+%
of its victims at trials. The excessive long sentences are used to convince the large
majority unable to afford a slightly possible defense to bargain a plea. The Exceptional
morons selected for juries think, why would the FBI lie. They lie to be promoted. What do you
think happens to an agent whose testimony aids the defense?
Kangaroo courts would be more honest in their convictions.
If a case is merely "plausible", that's not enough to indict.
Based on that thread-bare criterion, the FBI could probably come up with "plausible" cause
to indict half the US population for something or other. Never mind Russians, all of whom
might "plausibly" be suspected as secret agents for the Kremlin because they know other
Russians.
The true criminals are attempting to cover their tracks through diversion. The magnitude
of the scheme they are executing now is commensurate with the magnitude of their own crimes
against the United States.
I agree, it was much more scary in the 80's hiding under our desks at school and learning
each week how many times one country could blow up the world, multiple times over. Now, so
many people around the world call ********, not because MAD doesn't exist, but everyone
realized no matter the quality of your bunker and fortitude of cement, those things only mean
you die slower than those outside near the big flash. Hypersonic weapons seem like a step
backwards in the whole 'my missile is bigger than your missile' game of Coldwar 2.0.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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