The Russian Spy Story Hits A New Low.

Michael R. Weisser
Sep 4, 2018 · 2 min read
Maria Butina in jail.

Earlier today our friend Ladd Everitt pumped out a new story connected to the Maria Butina spy novel that was based, among other sources, on a new story about Butina in The New York Times. I have no issue with what Ladd has to say because he’s really not got his aim-point on Butina, he’s after bigger game. And the game he’s after is former NRA President David Keene, who has always been real drek in my book, as my grandmother would say.

Keene’s an example of how rich this country really is, because here’s a guy who somehow seems to live well despite doing nothing except shooting his mouth off and glad-handing in various Far Right circles, which happens to include the NRA. He joined America’s ‘first civil rights organization’ after he was booted out of his job at the American Conservative Union when it turned out that his then-wife, Diana Carr, had walked off with $400 grand, which he either knew or should have known was missing from the till.

Anyway, I’ll let Everitt tell you the whole, shady Keene story because I have a different ax to grind. And what I am grinding is what I believe may be a fundamental violation of Maria Butina’s civil rights because the entire story in The New York Times is based on emails allegedly written by Butina which basically indicate that the only crime she committed was the crime of stupidity. And the last time I checked the federal code, stupidity wasn’t an indictable offense.

But I also thought that if someone is being actively investigated by a law enforcement agency, that the information on which the investigation is based remains confidential until and unless someone actually goes to trial, at which time the defense is given all the evidence that was used to build the case.

When the Butina scandal first hit, media stories which quoted her emails found those sources in the affidavit which accompanied the indictment and was published online. Fine. I have no problem with that. But the emails quoted in this current story didn’t appear in government documents previously released, so how come the New York Times was able to quote them at length?

I have no proof that the prosecutor handling this case leaked that information to The New York Times. But if the NYT reporters are so concerned about how Maria Butina conspired to subvert our wonderful, democratic institutions, maybe they owe us an explanation for how they were able to get their hands on this information without which, there would have been no story to write.

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