Sex key tool of ‘Kremlin agent’
God and guns may have been central to the flame-haired alleged Russian agent’s strategy to infiltrate the American conservative movement but the FBI contends that her principal tool was the oldest weapon in espionage – sex.
Maria Butina, 29, had a ‘‘personal relationship’’ with a Republican lobbyist nearly twice her age in a plot that could have been ripped from the pages of Red Sparrow, written by former CIA operative Jason Matthews – now turned into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence.
Lawrence’s character, Dominika Egorova, was trained in the art of sex at the ‘‘Sparrow School’’ run by the former KGB before being sent to seduce a CIA officer.
Butina, who spent five years building ties with Christian conservatives and gun rights activists, was arrested last week while attempting to leave Washington for South Dakota with her lover, Paul Erickson, 56, a lobbyist.
It is not known whether Butina received any formal training in the use of sex but prosecutors allege she appeared ‘‘to treat that relationship as simply a necessary aspect of her activities’’. She ‘‘expressed disdain for continuing to cohabitate with’’ Erickson and on one occasion offered a different person ‘‘sex in exchange for a position within a special interest organisation’’.
A friend of Butina told CNN that the couple would host parties in Washington, including one at the Russian restaurant Mari Vanna, with Erickson picking up the tab. ‘‘They had a very large age difference but she was very tender with him, hugging him all the time,’’ said the friend.
If the FBI is to be believed, Butina’s skills got her a long way. In 2015 she asked then presidential candidate Donald Trump a question about Us-russia relations, and in 2016 met his son Donald Trump Jr and discussed gun rights. She also hobnobbed with other Republican presidential contenders and escorted National Rifle Association (NRA) bigwigs to Moscow.
Butina’s plan, according to prosecutors, was to use a student visa to attend American University in Washington, while posing as a gun enthusiast.
She had laid the groundwork for her cover story when she set up a pro-gun rights organisation in Russia, putting her in contact with Erickson and other senior NRA officials in 2013.
Erickson was something of a Forrest Gump of Republican politics, popping up all over the place for decades. In Israel in 1982 he was pictured in Israeli military garb during the launch of the invasion of Lebanon.
He told friends he also helped send supplies to Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. In 1992 he was involved in a brawl with Bill Clinton supporters in a car park in New Hampshire. A year later he was a spokesman for John Bobbitt, whose penis had been severed by his wife. Prosecution documents allege that Erickson, who has not been charged, provided Butina with Republican contact details and boasted: ‘‘No one – certainly not the ‘official’ Russian Federation public relations representative in New York – could build a better list.’’
Jason Matthews, the Red Sparrow author, said Butina appeared to have ‘‘found the feckless Republican operative, who clearly was thinking with his little head’’, and was effective in manipulating him.
But unlike the deep-cover ‘‘illegals’’ portrayed in the television series The Americans, ‘‘she was not sent with a deep personal legend to remain under the radar’’, said Matthews.
He has an intriguing theory as to why her cover was so carelessly constructed. Perhaps the embarrassment of her contacts with so many leading Republicans being revealed was more valuable to Russia than her remaining in the shadows. Maybe she was supposed to be caught.
‘‘Could her exposure and arrest be part of a Kremlin ‘active measures’ operation to have her arrested and create further chaos in the American political system by proving Kremlin interference in our system,’’ he wondered. ‘‘The ultimate Trojan horse?’’
– The Times