Some are just cons…others dangerous to democracy

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

By Professor Elizabeth Cook-Lynn

Native Sun News Today Columnist

When I read that U.S. Senator from South Dakota, John Thune, has admitted to holding.one of the biggest election funds of the entire U.S. Senate (many millions, records show), I became a little more interested than I had been in the strange case of a South Dakota business visitor from Russia, Maria Butina.

This is a case that has gotten little attention until recently, and John Thune’s so-called political war chest of millions of dollars has been under the radar for years. How the two are connected is still mere speculation and the public still has not been told much about a trip to Russia made by Senator Thune in the company of several other Republican governors from the U. S. Senate months ago.

It’s now 2019, but the case of Maria Butina has been under scrutiny for years. She was finally convicted and sent to prison as a spy against the U. S. Maria Butina, the sweet-faced woman from Russia (that many of you invited to your civic and church gatherings), has been deported to her homeland after many months in a US Federal Prison. She has been given a heroine’s welcome in her home country.

She was the lover and assistant to Paul Erickson, a Vermillion, South Dakota resident and graduate of USD who at this time is a political operative. Years ago, he organized a PAC (Political Action Committee) for the now-Republican senator, John Thune who defeated long-time Democratic Senator Tom Daschle.

Butina was convicted of failing to register as a foreign agent and she was in the US for years before she was “outed” as a spy. She seemed innocent enough, giving talks to school children, churches, influencing the National Rifle Association members about gun control, and being romanced by civic minded men with to whom she aggressively introduced herself as a business and cultural visitor to the U.S.

She has said that she was here as a “business” woman, and she started a corporation (Bridges LLC) for charitable activities. It has been since revealed that her directive from the Kremlin (though she has admitted to very little about her activities nor who paid her for her travels) was to infiltrate vulnerable American communities and work for the defeat of Hillary Clinton in the ultimate election of Donald Trump in 2016. She was one of the many foreign agents who are now accused of crimes against the U.S. in the fraudulent 2016 presidential election.

This widespread activity is now called “collusion” and “fraud.” Many Russian operatives have been charged and deported.