AND SUDDENLY THAT NAME WILL NEVER SEEM THE SAME TO ME

Thanks to Robert Mueller and his colleagues in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York, being number one will never be the same again.  Now grand juries are using the term to flag unindicted co-conspirators in the Trump-Russia investigation.   Even if you pride yourself on being a rugged individualist, you don’t want to be Individual-1 (or any similar numbered alias) in a federal sentencing agreement. 

Take Individual-1 in Michael Cohen’s sentencing agreement – please.  Individual-1 got a heads up that last week was going to suck.  He just didn’t know how bad.

[Narrator’s voice over: “It was pretty bad.”]

How bad was it?  Last week, Individual-1’s former personal attorney and his former campaign manager were both sentenced to prison for felonies they committed on Individual-1’s behalf, which sucked, big time.  And this week didn’t go much better, with the sentencing of his former National Security Director, plus a surprise guilty plea from Maria Butina.

Who is Maria Butina, you may be wondering?  How does she fit in with Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, and Mike Flynn?  Butina could turn out to be the Mata Hari of the Trump-Russia scandal. 

(Who is Mata Hari, you may be wondering?  She was a femme fatale who spied for Germany during World War I, and was executed by a French firing squad in 1917.  But I digress.)

Maria Butina is a Russian national who spent the better part of the past decade ingratiating herself in American right-wing circles.  She hung out with wacky ex-sheriff David Clarke, who was once prominent in Trump’s orbit.   She had a boyfriend named Paul Erickson, a Republican operative with ties to both the NRA and the Donald Trump campaign.  The FBI believes Erickson helped funnel illegal Russian donations to the Trump campaign – via the National Rifle Association.  Yes, the NRA has been funded by Russian money. 

Russia itself has some sensible laws relating to firearms – restricting handguns, automatic weapons, and so forth – but Vladimir Putin loves the 2nd Amendment as long as it stays in America.  Giving American crazies and criminals unlimited access to firepower is definitely in the Russian national interest. 

Will Maria Butina’s plea change anything?  Well, maybe.  First, on general principles, it will be interesting to learn just how much money Russia laundered through the NRA.  Wouldn’t it be funny if the world’s most enthusiastic Second Amendment supporters turned out to be Russians? 

Second, it will be interesting to see which Republicans besides Donald Trump benefitted from illegal Russian campaign contributions.  Gosh, could that be one of the reasons why Republicans have been unenthusiastic about investigating Trump’s campaign finances?  Maybe some of them have shady transactions of their own that they’d just as soon keep on the downlow.

But perhaps the most interesting question is why Butina chose to plead guilty in this case.  It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Russians who cooperate with western intelligence services tend to see their life expectancy shorten considerably.  They become prone to falling out of upper story windows, and eating radioactive soup.  Butina must know that.  Which is why observers suspect that her guilty plea was greenlighted by Vladimir Putin. 

Could Butina’s deal with SDNY be a signal from the Home Office in Moscow that patience with Donald Trump is running thin?  Details of her plea may be classified, but it would be very interesting to know who Butina ratted out in her plea deal.

Vladimir Putin is not a sentimental guy.When assets turn into liabilities, he pulls the plug.Eventually – maybe sooner, maybe later – Putin will apply that unforgiving calculus to his boy in the White House.Donald Trump may think that a Republican majority in the Senate gives him a firewall against impeachment, but if he loses the confidence of his patron in Moscow, things will fall apart fast.