Wife of Former N.R.A. President Tapped Accused Russian Agent in Pursuit of Jet Fuel Payday
Source: The New York Times
By Matthew Rosenberg, Michael LaForgia and Andrew E. Kramer
Sept. 2, 2018
WASHINGTON — For the young Russian gun rights activist studying in the United States, it would have been an unimaginably rich payday: $1 million to help broker the sale of Russian jet fuel to an American middleman. All she had to do was secure the fuel.
So the activist, Maria Butina, whom American prosecutors now accuse of being a covert Russian agent, reached out to contacts in her homeland — and turned on the charm. In a July 2017 email, she told one man that his passport photo was “a handsome one.”
The following month, she told another Russian contact that she had labeled him in her phone as “the lovely Shakhov.” Every time he called, she was notified that “‘the lovely Shakov is calling you,’” Ms. Butina wrote. “Good feelings.”
A year later, Ms. Butina, 29, is in a jail cell outside Washington, awaiting trial. Federal prosecutors have depicted her as a character out of “Red Sparrow,” the spy thriller about a Russian femme fatale. Ms. Butina, supported by Russian intelligence, managed to infiltrate conservative groups and advance Moscow’s interests in the United States, prosecutors say.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/02/us/politics/maria-butina-russian-spy.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
NYT: Butina, Former NRA President, Lobbyist Wife Pursued Massive Jet Fuel Deal, Failed
By Matt Shuham
September 2, 2018 1:15 pm
Mariia Butina, the Russian graduate student and gun enthusiast indicted in July for acting as an unregistered foreign agent, pursued a plan to deliver a massive amount of jet fuel to the United States from Russia in cooperation with a former NRA president and his wife, a prominent lobbyist, the New York Times reported Sunday.
Butina’s boyfriend, the Republican strategist Paul Erickson, was also deeply involved in the attempted fuel shipment, which never bore any fruit.
“It might be a novel someday,” Erickson wrote at one point to the lobbyist, Donna Keene, per the Times. Keene’s husband is the former NRA president and influential conservative David Keene.
Butina’s lawyer told the Times the deal was “just further evidence that she wasn’t here on any mission on behalf of the Russian Federation. She was essentially operating on her own account.”
The Times, reporting on the attempted jet fuel deal based on interviews with people involved and “hundreds of pages of previously unreported emails,” noted that Butina, Erickson and the Keenes — in addition to “a pair of Pakistani-American businessmen, an Israeli-American salesman for a Virginia-based lawn care and sprinkler equipment company and a purported international fuel broker with no record of successful deals” — appeared to be in way over their collective heads.
Butina had no experience in the jet fuel business, nor did Erickson, who wrote many of Butina’s emails for her, per the Times.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/nyt-butina-boyfriend-former-nra-president-lobbyist-wife-pursued-massive-jet-fuel-deal-failed
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In the emails, and in interviews with people involved in the fuel negotiations, Ms. Butina seems as naïve as she is cunning. She had no experience in the oil business, yet jumped into a scheme that hinged entirely on her securing a supply of huge amounts of jet fuel — nearly double what all of Russia’s refineries export in a month.
The driving force behind the jet fuel negotiations appears to have been Mr. Erickson, 56, a former board member of the American Conservative Union who was accused of defrauding investors in California, South Dakota and Virginia. The other major players were the Keenes, who first raised the idea of brokering a sale of Russian jet fuel and then put Ms. Butina and Mr. Erickson in touch with prospective buyers.
a part of "Spies Like Us" that ended up on the cutting room floor? Some Rethugs are as dumb as they are greedy. 
