I hope you’re all in shape to dance the kazotsky, you know that Russian dance where they squat and kick? Yeah, that one. And get a fur hat and coat and lay in some vodka, because it looks like all the news these days is about Russia, Russia, Russia, so we might as well get in the mood.
Paul Erickson, who was both Maria Butina’s boyfriend and a player in Pat Buchanan’s bid for the GOP presidential nomination, eventually secured by George H.W. Bush, has been sentenced to 7 years prison for wire fraud and money laundering. Erickson was also John Wayne Bobbit’s lawyer, remember him? He became famous after his wife amputated his penis and threw it in the weeds. Erickson’s checkered career ended after he got caught defrauding people for $5.3 million. It’s said that he suffered from “hubris and over confidence” which led him to put together fantastic business deals that couldn’t possibly succeed and take peoples’ money. Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn’t it? Argus Leader:
Erickson admitted that his “moral judgement failed” in what had been a routine business venture. He said he failed his faith and investors. […]
Judge Karen Schrier said Erickson had schemed former classmates, family members, even his god mother when she was ill.
“You’re a thief, and you have betrayed your friends and family, pretty much everyone you know,” Schreier said.
Erickson, a Yale University graduate who went on to earn a law degree from the University of Virginia, became involved in Republican politics during the Reagan adminitration. He worked briefly for Sen. Jim Abdnor, the Republican who beat George McGovern in the 1980 election. The Vermillion native traveled the world to historic events, including to the Berlin Wall when it was torn down and to Nicaragua, where he met anti-communist fighters there.
Just one more mosiac in the vast mural of GOP corruption, grifting, and contacts with Russia, which all seem to go curiously hand in hand these days, have you noticed? There is a definite pattern — forget definite, a profound pattern — of GOPers who rip people off for a lot of money and get into ever shadier business deals and then they’re in bed with the Russians, in this case literally. The FBI’s data base must be ready to blow up with all the cases following this general profile. The Republican party needs to clean house.
Good riddance.
Don’t you love how all roads lead to Moscow?
How much of the GOP-T party does Putin own?
GOP = Government Of Putin.
All the important parts.
Why don’t they just use some of those left over fireworks to announce such openly stupid operations, clumsy, easily found and verified actions … these clowns get ahead a few bucks with simple shop-lifting level stunts as kids, then think they are not only invincible because of the teenage thrill games and then some no-good Russian agent introduces them to some special friends and boom their secret life of international crimes builds with fist-fulls of cash their early training with small assignments, only they get into larger and deeper holes that usually tempt elimination if caught and the crimes are of treason level charges … free stuff, lots of cash, nice looking girlfriends, the things that can produce people that can deliver what Trump and Putin want done ….
I’m thinking they need eyes-on 24/07 protection for the new Trump/Epstein witness, just another wrinkle in Putin’s puppet plan, I think Trump better be VERY careful of vehicles with a couple of wheels on the sidewalk … Putin never leaves any loose ends around .. . and with all the new books with Trump reveals and his fast dissolving money people, the Albatross around his neck, the incoherent speech, pretty scary times at Mar-o-golf …
It’s my understanding that a federal convict can in the first year after being sentenced obtain a reduction in sentence for substantial material cooperation with federal investigators on new or ongoing cases. It takes some serious heavy lifting by such a convict but if the prize they help convict is big enough it can earn some meaningful reduction in time behind bars. I bring this up because of the mess the NRA is in, and the Buttina/Erickson role in working with top Trump people during the 2016 campaign when the NRA literally doubled the amount of money it spent on GOP contributions both for President and other GOP candidates. A shitload of that money started out as Russian Rubles.
I mentioned this recently but will say it again. The NRA seems to be avoiding the spotlight these days. Their financial house of cards, which has somehow held up since back in the 1990s or perhaps even late 80s has collapsed. They face serious legal problems in NY State where their non-profit is technically based out of but also from DOJ if/when we have a real AG who turns career professionals loose to do their jobs again. I think the NRA has been sweating bullets (pun intended) for a while now & will be uncharacteristically toned down in any electoral rhetoric they might yet engage in before November. Buttina is back in Russia (I wonder if she’s above ground or pushing up daisies & if the former if she’s in lockdown if not a jail cell) but Erickson has some serious incentive to sing like a canary now if Trump loses. Not much point in doing so at the moment, and he might have thought or even been led to believe Barr would intervene on his behalf to knock his sentence down. Either way I’ll bet he’s both shocked and pissed. If he does actually have information he’s held back, I’d imagine he’ll be more than ready six months from now to share it with the feds.
We might well not be hearing the last about this guy.
King Cheeto laundered & got paid a mountain of blood money from Putin’s gang of mobsters. What else is in the vault who knows. Anytime I hear someone ask the silly question ‘what does Putin have over him?’, I flashback to the end of Traing Day, and that was just peanuts compared to the debt & deals donnie has made with the devil.