Maria Butina has already spilled her guts about Trump-Russia
Now that the Feds have arrested Russian political operative Maria Butina and charged her with acting as an unregistered agent of Russia, one of the big questions has been whether she’ll cut a plea deal and spill her guts about the Trump-Russia scandal to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Now we’re learning that she’s already spilled her guts, and this whole thing runs deeper than we initially knew.
Although the timing was pretty clearly aimed at screwing with whatever Donald Trump was plotting with Vladimir Putin during their summit, the arrest of Maria Butina didn’t come out of nowhere. This evening it was revealed on the Rachel Maddow show that Butina secretly testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee months ago. That’s the one committee that’s doing a legitimate bipartisan job of investigating Trump-Russia. If Butina had failed to be forthcoming, they’d have held her in contempt and arrested her themselves. That committee has also been working in lockstep with Mueller.
So not only did Maria Butina spill her guts to the Senate Intel Committee, that committee ostensibly passed it along to Robert Mueller. This is in addition to the evidence obtained during the FBI’s raid of Butina’s home in April, which is just now being revealed. So Mueller already has the intel he needs from her. Considering how many Republican politicians have met with Butina over the past few years, this is huge. It’s also a reminder of two things about the Trump-Russia investigation at large.
First, it tells us that the Senate Intel Committee has been interviewing Trump-Russia players that we don’t even know about. Who else has secretly appeared before that committee? Second, it tells us that Robert Mueller is so far ahead of the game, it’s difficult to even keep track of the trajectory. He’s already had information from Maria Butina for months. He and the Feds presumably chose to arrest her now just to screw with Trump and Putin at their most vulnerable.
