Chuck Grassley may have just gotten caught up in Maria Butina’s Trump-Russia plea deal

| 11:00 pm EST December 10, 2018
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Now that Russian operative Maria Butina has cut a cooperating plea deal, we’re going to begin learning which Republican politicians and operatives she was criminally conspiring with. One name to keep an eye on as this saga unfolds: Republican Senator Chuck Grassley.

Back in early 2017, Palmer Report brought you the surreal story of how Chuck Grassley, the Chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, just happened to be seated next to a member of the Russian parliament at the National Prayer Breakfast – which took place just as Donald Trump was taking office. Our source on this: Grassley’s own Instagram account, where he posted a selfie he’d taken with the Russian politician. Considering that Grassley was the head of one of the two key Senate committees that would naturally end up investigating the Trump-Russia scandal. We asked what the odds were that this could be a coincidence.

Now that Maria Butina has cut her deal, details are surfacing left and right. MSNBC reported this evening that Butina made a point of bringing a Russian delegation to the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast, under the guidance of the Russian government. So now we know that it was no mere accident that the a Russian member of parliament was there at the breakfast, buddying up to Chuck Grassley; in fact it was arranged by a Russian spy.

Clearly, Chuck Grassley didn’t think he was going to be participating in anything nefarious when he sat down with the Russian politician at that breakfast table, or he wouldn’t have documented it on social media at the time. But as the Grassley-led Senate Judiciary Committee investigation into Trump-Russia went on, we saw Grassley go from originally wanting a legitimate investigation, to later trying to sabotage his own investigation.

We’ve long wondered aloud if the Russians used the National Prayer Breakfast to establish communications with Chuck Grassley, so they could later use it to put – ahem – pressure on him with regard to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Trump-Russia investigation, if it became necessary. Now we’re learning that a Russian spy did indeed set up that breakfast situation with Grassley – and that same Russian spy just cut a cooperating plea deal. Looks like we’re about to get some answers.