Alleged Russian Agent Butina Was In Touch With Trump Campaign Aide

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Alleged Russian agent Mariia Butina was in contact with former Trump campaign aide J.D. Gordon in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election, the Washington Post reported Friday.

Gordon, who served as a former foreign policy adviser to Trump, told the newspaper he disclosed their meetings and emails in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

According to Gordon, he met Butina at a party in Washington, D.C. in September 2016 and exchanged a series of messages after GOP operative Paul Erickson followed up to connect them more formally. Gordon also invited Butina to a Styx concert and to his birthday party, the Post reported.

Butina has pleaded not guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Russia, and is awaiting trial in a D.C. jail. She is accused of carrying out a covert influence campaign, befriending prominent U.S. conservatives and infiltrating organizations like the National Rifle Association.

Gordon confirmed to the Post that their interactions occurred, describing them as innocuous.

“From everything I’ve read since her arrest last month, it seems the Maria Butina saga is basically a sensationalized click bait story meant to smear a steady stream of Republicans and NRA members she reportedly encountered over the past few years,” he said in a statement, adding that Butina reached out to “likely thousand of people.”

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Notable Replies

  1. We know how susceptible prominent conservatives are to anyone who pretends to like them.

    The dears call it “loyalty.”

  2. I’ll bet Gordon might even believe that this is a Ken Star like development. Poor Gordon.

  3. Alleged Russian Agent…Trump…
    FIFY

  4. Republicans - always so culturally fresh, hip, and in the now.

    I wonder what could have drawn Gordon and Butina to Styx …

    Wikipedia:

    Renegade” is a 1979 hit song recorded by the American rock band Styx. … The song is a first-person narrative of an outlaw, captured for a bounty, who recognizes that he is about to be executed for his criminal activities. The execution will be by hanging, as the outlaw laments, “Hangman is coming down from the gallows and I don’t have very long.”

    Oh. Okay.

    Also, just out of curiousity, are there any Republicans who weren’t dating Butina?

  5. or, per Warren Zevon: “Send lawyers, buns and gun, eh?”

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