With so many complicated tentacles to the Russia scandal, just another shrimp on the barby:
"Butina worked in concert with her boyfriend, GOP fundraiser Paul Erickson, and a Russian handler, Alexander Torshin, who also cultivated his own relationships with important conservatives in the United States.
Butina laid out her plans in a document called "Description of the Diplomacy Project," according to court documents; she wrote that she believed Russia could not reinvigorate ties with the United States through official institutions.
Instead, she argued, Moscow should expand its "unofficial channels of communication," of which she could be one.
The course she chose was via gun rights, building off Butina's history of shooting and gun ownership inside of Russia. So Butina, Erickson and Torshin sought to strengthen their relationships with the politically powerful NRA."
Butina and Torshin moved in gun rights circles in the United States and, according to court documents, she and other Russians also arranged to host NRA members in Moscow in late 2015. During the trip, the gun rights organization members met with high-level Russian government officials according to court documents in the Butina case."
Butina's boyfried Erickson sent this e-mail to Trump campaign booster and then Senator Jeff Sessions in 2016, offering to use his NRA connections to establish a back channel between the Trumps and the Russian government:
"I'm now writing to you and Sen. Sessions in your roles as Trump foreign policy experts / advisors. [...] Happenstance and the (sometimes) international reach of the NRA placed me in a position a couple of years ago to slowly begin cultivating a back-channel to President Putin's Kremlin.
Russia is quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the U.S. that isn't forthcoming under the current administration. And for reasons that we can discuss in person or on the phone, the Kremlin believes that the only possibility of a true re-set in this relationship would be with a new Republican White House."
Lol, thanks for putting that right on the nose, Pauly boy.
Butina pictured with head of the NRA and DTJ:
Man, there sure have been a lot of guilty pleas lately involving high-level Republican players and improper relationships to foreign powers.