Kremlin used Prayer Breakfast to connect Maria Butina with GOP bigshots

[Tanuki]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/opinion/maria-butina-putin-infiltration.amp.html%3f0p19G=7900

"Does it seem strange that, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Monday by the Justice Department, a Russian woman stands accused of “acting as an agent of a foreign government” in part because she hoped “to establish a back channel of communication” with American politicians at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington?

It shouldn’t. As Jeff Sharlet, an associate professor of English at Dartmouth, has pointed out, the National Prayer Breakfast has long offered “a backdoor to American power.” And America’s homegrown Christian nationalists have evinced an admiration for Russia’s authoritarian leader that appears to have grown apace with his brutality.
.....
Lobbyists and foreign governments look forward to the event as a way to meet powerful people without, as Mr. Sharlet has reported, having to go through the State Department and normal vetting processes.

“It’s not just the breakfast — The Family organizes a week of de facto lobbying events,” Mr. Sharlet explained on Twitter. “#MariaButina used them to maximize impact.”

On Oct. 5, 2016, with one National Prayer Breakfast under her belt, Ms. Butina direct messaged a Russian official on Twitter: “We made our bet. I am following our game. I will be connecting the people from the prayer breakfast to this group.”...(more at link)

[duforsure]

1. Although it never came out

I've always suspected that trump knew who she was , and that she was a putin plant for trump at the press briefing she attended , and trump was informed and ready for the response to her question. I think it was staged for trump to use to attack Obama with it , and promote putin.

[Cosmocat]

3. 100%

Just no possible way it was happenstance.

One of hundreds of situations that prior to 2016 would have killed any other campaign.

But, this is how he rolls, a relentless shitstorm of illegal, unethical, corrupt, immoral, divisive bombs that forces the mush headed base to abandon all reason and reality, shell shock the muddle headed "middle" into a babbling both siderism haze and leave our 1/3 bashing our heads off the wall.

[DonaldsRump]

2. I love all the pictures of Maria with the stalwarts of the Rus-publicans

My favorite is her with Rick Santorum. That man has a face that reeks of being obnoxious, but kept under wraps with his sanctimony. He is not the smartest in the world, and I wonder why CNN has him as a paid talking head.


Don't get me started on the others!

[dewsgirl]

4. Have you watched, the Family on Netflix? There is an episode 3

delves into Russia and Butina.

[blm]

5. Kick

For a timely reminder

[crickets]

6. Does anyone actually think the Prayer Breakfast has ever been about prayer?

Got a bridge for ya, cheap!