The religious right has long been enamored of Russia. Vladimir Putin places a close second to Donald Trump in esteem for the likes of Franklin Graham and Brian Brown, almost entirely because of Putin’s campaign against LGBTQ people.
So when a 29-year-old Russian woman shows up at the National Prayer Breakfast, proclaiming her affinity for the group, she was quickly embraced by organizers as one of their own. Trouble is, according to an indictment handed down this week, Maria Butina was actually a Russian spy.
Butina was able to make such inroads into conservative religious groups as well as the National Rifle Association because she knew how to play to her audience. She talked about her love of weaponry as the founder of group in Russia called Right to Bear Arms. The overlap between the NRA and the religious right made for an easy transition.
So did the sex.
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Butina’s boyfriend was Paul Erickson, a political operative who has been bouncing around the fringes for while. He worked on Pat Buchanan’s virulently anti-gay campaign in 1992, and then somehow segued into representing John Wayne Bobbitt, who became famous because his wife cut off his penis, on Bobbitt’s Love Hurts tour. (It was subsequently reattached.)
Besides his right-wing politics, Erickson also tried to parlay religion into a business proposition, in this case a Christian-based chain of Alzheimer’s care facilities. It flopped.
Butina and Erickson apparently met at a conference in Moscow in 2013. Butina ended up living with Erickson as his girlfriend, though he is 27 years older. According to the indictment, this was part of the job Butina didn’t much care for, treating it as “simply a necessary aspect of her activities.” (Erickson has not been charged with any crimes.)
Those activities didn’t stop with Erickson. The indictment says that on at least one other occasion, Butina offered sex “in exchange for a position in a special interest organization.”
None of Butina’s sexual escapades stopped her from cozying up to the family-values brigade. She appeared on the radio show of Eric Metaxas, a prominent Christian conservative and Trump supporter, in 2015 to talk about guns and religious liberty. “We forget that the fight for liberty goes on all around the world in different guises,” Metaxas enthused.
Butina also attended the National Prayer Breakfast, with her Russian sponsor Alexander Torshin, a crony of Vladimir Putin’s. (Torshin has close ties to the Orthodox Church in Russia, which is a force behind Russia’s anti-LGBTQ policies.) She offered to have Putin speak at the Breakfast at a future date and in the meantime rubbed elbows with many conservative Republicans, like Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal. (For the record, the National Prayer Breakfast is not an innocuous non-denominational event, but is instead organized by a powerful conservative Christian clique.)
You could say in retrospect that it was all very suspicious. But it would be more accurate to say that it was always very suspicious. Here was a young woman, backed by an oligarch pal of the Russian president, the former head of the KGB, suddenly expressing her adoration of guns and Christ. What were the odds that this wasn’t a Russian effort to gain influence in American politics?
Yet religious right leaders and conservative activists were more than happy to swallow the bait. It’s not like Butina even had to work at convincing them. They were primed to be fellow travelers, even if they didn’t know it. If you need a definition of the phrase “useful idiot,” look no further than anyone Butina had contact with.
Butina’s indictment may end up being a big, big headache for the NRA. The group spent heavily on Trump’s campaign in 2016, and the FBI is reportedly investigating to what extent laundered Russian money was part of that spending.
As for the religious right–conservative Christian leaders have shown that they can excuse virtually anything President Trump does. It’s unlikely that they will apply a higher standard to their own conduct.
DCguy
Easy answer….
Right wing Christians are not moral, they are anti-American and don’t care about any aspect of their religion other than the bigotry and hate that it excuses. They see their religion as simply a weapon to attack others with, and with a heavy dose of Fox News telling them America and it’s institutions are bad and Russia is good for a decade they have been well primed as traitors.
Mister Dawson
And yet what are the Democrats doing about this? Being smug and making fun of them isn’t the answer. Reminds me of a scene from the movie ‘Cabaret’ where a person who is Jewish was initially in support of the Nazi’s and says that the Nazi serve of purpose of going after the radical and after they (Nazi’s) are done they (the German Government) will go after the Nazi’s. The Democrats need to be careful about how they are viewed as so high and mighty thinking that they will fix everything in the next election.
The Republican’s are already stacking the courts against us.
The Democrats need the church as much as we pretend we don’t. Remember that if channeled correctly the church can help us out. It is getting the correct message out there. You don’t use the ones (church leaders, i.e. anything Mormon for example) that do us harm but rather use the ones that are our allies. NOT ALL CHURCHES ARE ANTI-GAY. Find the church leaders that speak about the poor, who want universal health coverage, who like Jesus feed the leper (homeless and immigrant in this case). Play to the audience who the Democrats what to ignore because we are to smug to think they can help us or that we have all the answers. And remember to paint Trump as a traitor to God, Country and Patriotism. Supporting Russia is NOT being a patriot. Speak in favor of the 2nd Amendment and the Bill of Rights but clearly state that there are limits to the 2nd Amendments but we are not here to take away your guns, only from those who shouldn’t have them (who that is is another question entirely). Start taking back their own arguments they use against us. And stop trying to convince people, like Fox News and many in the Republican party who are currently supporting Trump about our message. They will never be our ally so stop wasting time with these groups. If anything go after things that are emotional and the Church offers this to many, many people.
Hermes
You are absolutely correct, now if people would just listen.
irbaboon
christians have always been our enemies and they always will be, to pretend otherwise is to invite disaster
Kangol
This story focuses on Russian spy and honeypot Mariia Butina’s links to Christian organizations, but if you read the legal documents surrounding her indictment, it’s clear that the bigger shock is how deeply entwined she and her boss(es), Alexander Torshin and the Kremlin, have been with the Republican Party and with the National Rifle Association/NRA. Her and Russian tentacles appear to run all throughout the GOP and NRA.
What’s also becoming clear is that the NRA very well may have laundered Russian money–illegal!–through the GOP, and aided not just Trumpkin’s election in 2016, but GOP elections for several election cycles, which of course is ILLEGAL. On top of this, since Russia is a hostile foreign power and engaged in a widely acknowledged and proven cyber-attack on the US in 2016 (and before and since), these GOP politicians very likely have had support from an enemy nation. In Trumpkin’s case, it’s clear he’s compromised.
Will the GOP Congresspeople who may have gotten Russian money speak out, return it, do anything or will they jump on the Treason Train as well? They took an oath to uphold the US Constitution and USA, not the Kremlin!
Paco
It’s an interesting love affair between Trump’s base and Putin since Putin is against gun rights for his own people.
Also Trump made it easier for groups like the NRA to hide where the money for their campaign contributions are coming from.
Reagan must be spinning in his grave.
tham
The GOP and the NRA are in the pocket of the Russians…yeah, that’s sound right.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
I am so very ascared my eyeballs will melt when the pee tape emerged…….
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
<I]emerges!!. ^
surreal33
Very simple fine, upstanding, white conservatives are the most perverted, group of miscreants on earth.
jckfmsincty
God, guns and Russian hookers. That sounds like a Republican story.
Dymension
Oh, please. It’s not very difficult to dupe some Christian conservatives, especially of the Evangelical kind…
marq
Yes, and it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that Trump supporting Evangelicals continue to believe anything that Trump tells them and simply choose to ignore facts that they don’t like to hear. After all, making of a whole load of bullshit and then choosing to believe it even when falsified by the facts is what Christians have been doing for 2000 years.