More fun with Maria Butina! The Republican operative she was sleeping with was Paul Erickson. Together they founded Bridges LLC presumably for the purpose of funneling Russian money around. Bridges LLC is headquartered in Sioux Falls South Dakota not far from the office of Senator John Thune. Erickson spent a ton of money running a PAC to defeat Tim Daschle, whose seat Thune now holds.
Guess who was one of the 8 Republicans who spent July 4th in Moscow?
Is that “was” in the Trumpian sense? I mean, isn’t that “was” in the Trumpian sense? Wait. I don’t know what I mean any more.
Should we refer to him as Person 1, now?
I’m pretty sure that’s how his so-called “lover” thought of him so that works!
Nice.
That is utterly fantastic
This isn’t surprising or new news: it’s always been a matter of record that Manafort and Devine worked together on the campaign of former Ukrainian President and Putin puppet Viktor Yanukovych.
But somehow the fact that Sanders’ campaign guru was connected not just to Manafort but also to a Putin proxy never got mentioned much - not during the 2016 campaign nor afterward. That’s about to change, and probably quickly. When things blow up, you never know who’s going to get caught in the blast radius.
So is the implication here that Devine was a plant in the Sanders campaign to feed information back to the GOP? Or is it that his job was to run Sanders’ campaign in a way that would most effectively undermine Clinton’s campaign to divide left-leaning voters (mission accomplished on that point)? Or both?
That would certainly explain some of the head-scratchers from him late in the primary season.
I always attributed those to Jeff Weaver, but now I’m wondering if I got the wrong guy.
Still don’t like Weaver for other things anyways though.
Or possibly a third option, that Devine was assisting Manafort outside of any other dealings with Sanders at all.
Oops, I was thinking of Weaver. Never mind.
There’s currently no clear implication other than Devine worked with Manafort for a Putin ally (which, again, we already knew) and that some e-mails Devine wrote at the time are relevant in some way to Mueller’s case against Manafort. Those e-mails could be anything from dynamite about a master plan to undermine America’s elections to (much more likely) boring details just meant to establish how and when Manafort worked for Yanukovych.
But yeah, “Major Presidential candidate suddenly faces challenges from both flanks, each manned by political operators who just happened to work together for the same Russia puppet” sounds like the plot of a spy novel.
In “defense” of Devine, Sanders paid him well for his services. Unlike Manafort, who famously showed up at Trump’s door saying, “O hai! I am a famous political consultant who normally works for millions of dollars. But for some reason I am willing to work for you for absolutely free!”
Did I hear that he’s 56? Yeah, if you’re that age and suddenly a passably cute 29 year old redhead is coming on to you, it’s not because she can’t keep her hands off your virile bod.
Heh. Was watching a video the other night, and it struck home when a character said something like ‘I still remember when I realized that I had become invisible to beautiful young women.’ Some people never realize that.
What about 46? Asking for a friend.
Some of us figured we were invisible all along. Kinda sad, but takes the sting out of aging, maybe.
Heh, for me my superpower of Invisibility to remotely attractive women seemed to start shortly after my 40th birthday. I was doing OK for myself before that.
But I digress… how about those Russians, amirite?