60 Minutes intro last night: "It's rare that Russian agents come out from the shadows, but tonight you will hear from 30-year-old Maria Butina." Except she was never operating "in the shadows" or in any way clandestine, hence why "agent" is such a ridiculous, misleading misnomer
Lesley Stahl asked Butina if she used her advocacy organization as "a way to infiltrate" American political institutions. Stahl defines "infiltrate" as "meeting people" and potentially "influencing" those people. Wow, very scary stuff, sounds like classic spycraft
Stahl tells Butina the Government alleges she was "making connections" with US political figures "so that you could influence US policy, and you were doing it slowly but deliberately." Butina replies, "If I were not Russian, that would be called social networking." Pretty much.
John Demers, Assistant Attorney General who prosecuted Butina, describes her as an "influence agent" who was charged under "one of the laws we have to combat foreign influence." So it was just a total coincidence that she happened to be Russian. Sure thing John
"Foreign influence" is such a nebulous concept that if you have a team of aggressive prosecutors reacting to political events who feel they need a "scalp," they're of course going to find some technicality to charge on. Hugely ominous precedent
They say her crime was acting as an "agent of the Russian government" without disclosing this, except she was never employed by the Russian government or had any formal ties to the Russian government. You're supposed to know you're still an "agent" in that context?
Prosecutor Demers is asked if he thinks Butina actually had any influence over the incoming administration. "I doubt it," Demers said. "What makes her dangerous is, at the end of the day we don't know." Spent years on the case and still can't clarify the "danger" she posed
Demers (former counsel for Boeing) comes across as a Cold War zealot and essentially confirms that the political narratives of the past three years are what motivated this prosecution. Good job to everyone in the media (including 60 Minutes) who eagerly parroted his garbage
