Suspected Russian agent has ties to South Dakota businessman
PIERRE, S.D. — A conservative political operative who once worked on Pat Buchanan’s 1992 presidential campaign and made an action movie with Jack Abramoff more recently helped arrange several speeches in South Dakota for a gun-rights activist suspected of being a covert Russian agent.
South Dakota businessman Paul Erickson in 2015 helped set up at least three events for accused Russian operative Maria Butina and formed a company with her in the state the following year. Butina, 29, was charged this week with being a covert Russian agent who gathered intelligence on American officials and political organizations and worked to establish back-channel lines of communications for the Kremlin.
In court papers filed Wednesday aimed at persuading a judge to keep Butina in custody, prosecutors accused her of using a personal relationship with an unnamed American political operative as part of her covert activities for Russia. That operative was identified only as 56-year-old “U.S. Person 1” in the court papers. The papers say officials believe Butina and U.S. Person 1 have lived together and been in a personal relationship.
Butina awaits trial on charges of conspiracy and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Russia. She pleaded not guilty Wednesday during a hearing in which U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson ordered her held in jail as the case moves forward, saying she was a flight risk.