Here comes the first Trump-Russia arrest in the Maria Butina plea deal
Over the weekend, Palmer Report brought you the story of how recently confessed Russian spy Maria Butina is already being tapped to testify before a grand jury, which strongly suggested to us that the first arrests as a result of her plea deal could be imminent. Now it turns out there’s more to the story, and federal prosecutors just confirmed that the first arrest or arrests are indeed – ahem – imminent.
It turns out the court wasn’t supposed to publicly reveal that Maria Butina was being tapped for grand jury testimony. For obvious reasons, her safety is potentially at risk, and so the whole thing was supposed to be under seal. After the court accidentally exposed this part of the story, Butina asked the judge to go ahead and unseal the entirety of the proceedings. But federal prosecutors pushed back, asking it to remain sealed, and they gave away something in the process.
Prosecutors told the judge that they want to keep Maria Butina’s case under seal for two reasons, as discovered in court filings by Rachel Maddow tonight. One is that Butina could potentially renege on her plea deal, and prosecutors have to put her on trial, which they acknowledge is unlikely. The other is that there are going to be “imminent” criminal proceedings in play as a result of Butina’s deal. Prosecutors even went so far as to place the word “imminent” in italics, to underscore their point. So what does this tell us?
In short, someone is about to get arrested as a direct result of Maria Butina’s plea deal. The most obvious candidate is her boyfriend (or presumably now former boyfriend), Republican political operative Paul Erickson, who has already received a target letter from prosecutors. If Erickson is imminently arrested and then immediately cuts a plea deal, we could see the downfall of various complicit Republican Party figures soon thereafter.
