Fool Me Twice: A 'Russian Spy' and a South Dakotan Operative Fall in Love I Part 3

Campside media. Paul Erickson was a GOP insider who met Maria Butina, a Russian gun rights activist who might also have been a spy. And he started dating her. Then, Maria was called into the US Senate, and she was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of the Russian Federation within the United States. The government alleged that Maria's enrollment in a graduate program was a cover, and that she was really working under Alexander Torshin, a powerful Russian politician, making inroads with American political groups. I think what the government saw was that, you know, this may be part of an influence operation. In December 2018, Maria pleaded guilty and went to prison. Two months later, Paul Erickson was arrested. He arrest really was sort of anti-climactic in a way. At that point, I knew him, he knew me, I knew his lawyer. And so there was no reason to kick in the door with a Ray jacket and all of the sort of stuff you see on TV. And so it was really a matter of calling and saying, Paul, I have a warrant for your arrest. I think he believed it was the government's intention at the time to indict him for the same things that Maria was indicted for. But Erickson had been indicted for wire fraud and money laundering, charges relating to his businesses, compass care, investing with dignity, and the Bakken oil field housing project. In November 2019, he pled guilty and was sentenced to seven years in federal prison. From campsite media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Infamous. I'm Vanessa Ribori-Audis. And this is episode three of a three-part story. Fool me twice. When all of this news broke, the nation was mesmerized by this twisted power couple. Here's Stephen Colbert talking about it. These days, Erickson is a super-connected power player in conservative politics, which is a big step up from his job in the 90s as media advisor for John Wayne Mavitt, the man whose wife Lorena chopped off his penis with a carving knife. At this point, Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election had been in the news for years. So the story of an alleged foreign agent entangled with a colorful, Republican operative was just too delicious for late-night hosts to ignore. For a guy who did his best to keep a low profile, I mean, remember I told you, he rarely gave any interviews. And now he was getting more attention than he ever wanted. This guy had it bad for her. While Butino was in college, she would routinely ask Erickson to help complete her academic assignments by editing papers and answering exam questions. Huh, honey, I don't know a lot about medieval European history. Any questions on the test about selling steak knives for a man with a severed penis? Erickson took a deal. In the last 25 years, no sane person ever goes to trial once they've been charged by the feds. In the minute you find yourself having a misfortune being indicted by the American federal government, now the only thing you're negotiating is the length of your prison sentence. There is a fantasy to think of going to trial and obtaining it a quittle. That to me was 25 years in prison if I objected to a single word in the prosecution's charge. Okay, I'm going to bring in journalist Paul Glatter again. As I said earlier, I'd known Erickson for a long, long time, but we'd fallen out of touch. So while he was in prison, I wrote him a letter. I was more curious than anything. I wanted to know what he had to say about everything that had happened, how this self-styled Machiavelli had ended up as a right-wing made-off. I checked my faculty mailbox at the King's College in Lower Manhattan. I had a letter with a return address of federal prison camp in Duluth, Minnesota. I'm going to read a bit of it. Greetings from Camp Gichigumi. In weeks of my arrival, I was named Director of Education for the camp, overseeing classes, the library, and theater. I am the Andy Defrain of the North Country. Thank you for reaching out. It's been quite an ordeal. A friendly intelligence is welcome in most life situations. In one part of the letter, Erickson referred to his, Letter from a Duluth Jail, drawing an allusion to Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from a Birmingham jail, as if Erickson was suffering a similar injustice. He wrote in grand terms about his upcoming release. He blamed Hillary Clinton for ordering the FBI and the CIA to create the Trump-Russia narrative. Please believe that if I ever tell you something, it's the absolute truth. This is a reflection of my small town upbringing and deep faith. I responded. And we started sending letters back and forth. He defended his relationship with Maria. Since I and any other member of the American vast right-wing conspiracy were and remain raging anti-communists, the notion that we couldn't spot or would condone a Putin emissary is fantastical, deeply offensive, and profoundly ignorant of global politics. We also talked on the phone. He believed Maria was a freedom fighter. She was a reporter. Maria was in the pipeline to be the first female president of Russia in the host of Putin in Europe. She was only in America because her oligarch supporters, fearing retaliation by Putin, were not going to break in Crimea, suggested that it would be an actual time for her to both study abroad for a couple of years. This line of thinking doesn't make a lot of sense given that Maria was in near constant communication and working with Torshin, who was in turn allied with Putin. Predicted for her presence in America was not to be a red sparrow. It was that she was here at the behest of her sponsors or the most senior people in Russia because in 2015, the combination of Crimean economic sanctions in Russia because of Crimea and fracking in North America, specifically North Dakota and Texas, created global oil prices. It almost led to a revolution against Putin because half of the Russian government's money comes from the sale of oil. This is my opinion. I can't fully appreciate the lunacy of the government's prosecution of her. I'm not directly refuting their premise for the prosecution. And the premise of the prosecution, the predicate for her presence in America was not that of intelligence gathering. It was to avoid being rounded up with the usual suspects and show trials in Moscow. Ericsson spoke confidently in the way he does, but his reasoning was shaky to say the least. It seemed like he was trying to come up with any story where he didn't look like the mark. The ultimate insult of her travails in the United States was that not only was she not a spy until she was treated as a harsh system, but she was a once and potentially future ally to America in global relations in a post-poot world. Once the espionage angle was out there, they filled in the blanks without any reporting or research. So the presumption was, this is a master stroke of beautiful, young, red-haired, just spy, gaining access to the highest levels of government. Now there's extensive proof that Maria courted Republican politicians and even tried to land a meeting with President Trump. But Ericsson says that Maria was never trying to gain access to the US government. The problem was, what had happened to Maria after she went back to Russia, doesn't mean it really fit Ericsson's image of her as a dissident. That's coming up after the break. One year ago, a white man came to a supermarket in Buffalo, New York and murdered 10 black people. And the shooting was live streamed on- Not far away, a cheer squad of almost all black girls had to figure out how to go on. But I wanted the one for them more than anything this season. Listen now to the latest series from NPR's Embedded Podcast. Warning, this podcast contains juicy tales of a super dysfunctional family. Brothers betraying brothers, friends becoming enemies, and a mother trying her best to keep everything from falling apart. No, this isn't a reality TV rewatch. I'm Dan Jones, your host, and this is one of my all-time favourite true stories. Join me on a trip to the Middle Ages to meet history's most dangerous dynasty, the Plantaginats. This season, the plots are thicker, the ambitions greater and the betrayals are even more devious in the epic saga of the family that shaped our world. From something else in Sony Music Entertainment, this is history, a dynasty to die for. Question 2, listen and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Inthmus from campsite media. So to recap, it seemed that the American government thought Maria Bettina had engaged in a plot to penetrate conservative circles in the US. She was, indeed, really into guns when she was in Russia. Now, that wasn't a fake. But when she got to America, the allegation was that she was conspiring with a senior, Russian official, Alexander Torshin, to access the National Rifle Association. They may not have accomplished much together, but it seemed like there was an act of trying. And in terms of legalities, of what the US government actually got her on, she was ultimately found guilty of not registering as a foreign agent. Here's Mary Cuddahy to pick up the story. Maria Bettina ultimately served 15 months in prison, and then she was deported back to Russia. When she landed in Moscow, she was greeted with the homecoming of a returning champion. Her father and a representative for the foreign ministry welcomed her with flowers and open arms. As soon as she got back to Russia, Maria landed her own TV show on the State Run RT Network website and the Russian version of YouTube. She even published a book, Prison Diary, that documented her incarceration. The day of her arrest, July of 18, Putin ordered the Kremlin to use her face as the avatar on the Kremlin Twitter account under the hashtag, Free Maria. That would be the equivalent of a US president putting Edward Snowden on a stamp. Technically, it was the Russian Foreign Ministries' Twitter account. And needless to say, it's not really the equivalent of putting Snowden on a stamp. Ericsson had an equally perplexing explanation from Maria's 180. What the world doesn't know is that a month before her returned to Russia, her sainted parents in rural Siberia were visited by two men in blue suits with no ID and told, ''We hope you've appreciated what the motherland has done for your daughter.'' Upon her safe return and recovery, perhaps Maria can redirect her energies away from gun rights into something more productive for the motherland. A not so subtle hint that now she was going to find anything other than guns that could overthrow the dukkim. Whether this is true is another story. We weren't able to talk with Maria to confirm that she'd even been in touch with Ericsson since her release. But Ericsson maintained that she was under threat, even though we didn't find evidence of that. I fear for Maria's safety at home because she enjoys the position of the behest of the Russian government. And then in January 2021, Duluth Federal Prison. A South Dakota man who admitted to defrauding investors of more than a million dollars and received a last minute pardon from President Donald Trump. Ericsson had found his biggest mark, the President of the United States. He was able to convince Trump just the way he convinced so many people over so many years that he was innocent. Few cons had ever reached so high and worked so well. A Trump administration statement on Ericsson's pardon said, Mr. Ericsson's conviction was based off the Russian collusion hoax. After finding no grounds to charge him with any crimes with respect to connections with Russia, he was charged with a minor financial crime. A minor financial crime. Never mind all the people Ericsson had lied to and stolen from. In his statement, Trump said, quote, This pardon helps right the wrongs of what has been revealed to be perhaps the greatest witch hunt in American history. Except in this case, not every wrong would be made right. Now, experts were saying, not only would Ericsson walk free with this full and unconditional pardon, he wouldn't have to pay any of his victims the nearly three million dollars he would otherwise have had to pay in restitution. He stepped out of the walls of the prison back to the civilized world. Five days later, my phone rang with an unrecognized South Dakota 605 area code. It was Ericsson calling me on a burner phone. The rumors were that after around Christmas, the president was ordering a rubber stamp with a signature on it so he could do a 3000 in a row. He explained the backroom drama of angling for a presidential pardon. His lawyer had been working contacts, but a pardon seemed a slim possibility. And the person who might have gotten that across the finish line in the White House may have been none other than Kellyanne Conway. Kellyanne was my intern on the Pavucana campaign in 1992. The president and his legal review team said this is insane. They saw what I was not allowed to present in court and said this is worthy of a presidential part. That's the power of the story. Not access. The fact that I had somebody that was willing to make the case because she knew me did not detract from the underlying merits of the argument itself. Anyway, Ericsson was ecstatic. The agent Matt Miller was less than thrilled about Ericsson's release. It was sort of a surreal moment. I really felt terrible for the victims. I was hoping that somehow there's a way that people will get turned around. But fraud conman as a category seemed more recidivistic to me than others. And Maria, how did she feel about his release? Have you had any contact with her since you got out? No, no, nothing. When my rest happened then it was a strategic we just said, this is farewell for now until we didn't know when, if ever, because it couldn't, every communication, everything would have been monitored or used it against her or against me. While Ericsson was taking his first steps of newfound freedom, Maria basically took up the role of Putin's camera-ready PR machine. First, in a stunt as pointed as Bob at Steak Knives, she paid a very public visit to Putin's biggest political opponent, Alexi Navalny. Maria filmed herself going to the penal colony where Navalny was imprisoned and on hunger strike and basically said, nothing to see here. She reportedly told the camera she was impressed by the penal colony's food and medical services. Then, she ran for office under Putin's United Russia party. By September, she had secured a seat in Russia's parliament, representing Kirav, which is 1600 miles away from her native Barnal. Her critics called it a thank you from the Kremlin. When Russia invaded Ukraine in the spring of 2022, she vocally voiced her support. She was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for doing so. In the last days, she posts mostly on Telegram. I have a free instruction for you how to survive an American prison. Maria has even posted a picture of herself holding a Glock pistol at an NRA meeting in America. The next shot has her holding a large bazooka-type gun made in Russia. The caption reads, feel the difference comrades. More after the break. We all have questions that keep us up at night. The self-help industry tells us they have answers. As a journalist and a skeptic, I'm not so sure. So I've set out to talk to people who have gone to radical lengths to find answers. I'm Katherine Roland. From something else in Sony Music Entertainment, this is Seeking. On season one, we're diving deep into the portal of plant medicine and psychedelics. Listen to Seeking, wherever you get your podcasts. For the last 60 years, one TV program has kept us coming back for more. Three contestants, 61 clues, a lot of brain power, and money on the line. On the new podcast, This is Jeopardy, the story of America's favorite quiz show. We're taking you behind the scenes of THE game that made it cool to be smart. Hosted by me, Buzzy Cohen, find and listen to episodes now, wherever you get your podcasts. This is Infamous from Campside Media. Bob Driscoll, Maria's defense attorney, also remains convinced that his client was not a spy. He reasoned that if she had been an agent of the Russian government, she would have dumped Ericsson for any number of higher profile Republicans. Like this one guy, she went to a sticks concert with named J.D. Gordon, an Navy officer in charge of Russia policy for the Trump campaign. Now, if you're a Russian agent, you drop Paul like a hot potato and J.D. is your promotion. Or for Patrick Byrne, the founder of overstock.com, who Butina allegedly had an affair with while she was involved with Ericsson. Like who's going to be more helpful at asset? Patrick Byrne, who's got a couple hundred million bucks and is running around meeting with presidential candidates and has access to everybody and has a ton of money. Or Paul Ericsson. And so that's why I think she has some true affection for Paul Ericsson. And Ericsson may have had affection for Maria, but according to Bob, he still couldn't resist fleecing her just a little bit. I remember him talking about who's got raised money for Maria and he was going to do all this. And I remember thinking like, oh, great, this is in the bag. Like this guy's going to call these people. We're going to have money. You know, it was always an excuse. It never came through. Bob claims that he was never paid for his work on Butina's case. Paul is one of the more interesting parts of this to make. And I still have a lot of empathy for him, even with all his troubles. I mean, sure as shit looks to me, like that guy didn't have a W-2 between the late 80s and now that he was just living completely on the kindness of strangers, so to speak, not always the most honest way for a long, long time. The more I talked to Ericsson, the more mixed I felt about this whole story. For all of his schemes and cons, I felt that this guy could have been something great if he'd chosen a different path. He was incredibly charming, obviously intelligent, and highly motivated. There was no telling what he could have accomplished if he'd played by a different set of rules. Loretta, his old office mate, summed it up. I mean, I was one of those people and people put that all that energy to good use who could have made an amazing impact on people. Ericsson was raised in the Scandinavian Lutheran tradition. My father was a Swedish-American Baptist minister. Our shared belief system says all people sin, but you can also be forgiven and change if you own up to your wrongdoing. And maybe I wanted that for him to change, to own up. So I gave him one last call and I asked him. I'm trying to get back into the documents and things and record of this, of your saga essentially. You got all these folks who listed on these defrauded from Yale or South Dakota, different circles in court in the one statement. He said, I hope one day that I could make right to those who I've wronged or whatnot. I'm just curious, have you had contact with any of these people? No, but don't forget, your allocations in modern courts are meals. Nobody deflated. A couple deals with, of course, my life didn't work, but nobody was nothing was ever taken from it. That investigation came on the heels of knowing that they had zero chance of linking me to any political or intelligence stuff related to Maria. His manner changed to boastful. He told me he had a TV show on the way, basically that I should feel lucky talking to him. Unlike a lot of other people are reading about, I have not been canceled. I can publish under any imprint in the country and I can get any moving made that I want. At one point, we stopped talking for a while, like a year. Now, Erickson had a good memory. He seemed to send birthday emails and cards to just about everyone in his Rolodex every single year. And he must have taken copious notes on almost everybody he met, because he'd remember even the smallest details of a person's life. When I called him recently, this is how the conversation started. What does she want from him? It's an odd question because it's not the way most of us think. When you want to dress as someone for Halloween, most of us wouldn't assume that you want something from them. Between the high profile romance with Maria, the extensive financial crimes and the conning of the president, Paul Erickson's story is an impressive one. And at the end of everything, he gets to walk around as a free man. As we were wrapping up production, we sent Paul Erickson some basic fact-checking questions. To make sure we were being fair, we asked about him fighting in three, three and a half wars and being wounded. And we asked if he could confirm when and where those took place. We asked about his claim that Kellyanne Conway was his intern, which Kellyanne had denied. And we asked about how he broke a boycott of apartheid South Africa while filming Red Scorpion. Remember that movie that he had produced with movie star Dolph Lundgren. So Erickson didn't respond to most of our questions, but he did respond. He clarified one point, which we corrected, and he wrote a thousand words taking us behind the scenes of the film Red Scorpion. These words show just how good he is at spinning a yarn. So this is what Erickson says. Red Scorpion is based on the true story of an assassination attempt against Jonas Savimbi. He was an Angolan anti-communist resistance leader. Here's an actor reading some of Erickson's email, which we edited four times. Principal photography was to begin in Lesotho. We rented military vehicles for the shoot and had begun pre-positioning them inside Lesotho. But on the eve of production, the then 18-year-old boy king of Lesotho had a dream that all the military equipment was cover for a coup attempt. Our crew was ordered out of Lesotho at gunpoint. We wound up in northern Namibia, on ground controlled by Savimbi. Savimbi was thrilled, and he offered staggering quantities of real captured Soviet weaponry to our cast to make the movie more real. Every weapon or vehicle in Red Scorpion was real, except for the gun carried by star Dolph Lundgren. We had to build him an outsized prop gun because real AK-47s looked too small in his massive bodybuilder hands. During the shoot, our set was raided by communist guerrillas. Three local members of our crew were murdered. Fortunately, we took out more of the enemy. Remember all the weapons on the set were real. It's a pretty wild story, and we'll probably never know how much of it is true. But the end of his message took an even wilder turn. Back to your podcast. Imagine the richness of detail that would have been available to you had you only treated me as a source rather than as an imagined villain. The truth of what I have lived will not only blow up the anti-Trump bias against me, but will be the grist for the first ever complete tale. Set for next year. The film is this production of campsite media and Sony Music Entertainment. It's created, executive produced and hosted by Gabriel Sherman and me, Vanessa Gregoriatus. Shoshish Malvets is our managing producer and editor, and Gary Graham, Grace Fierman, and Lily Houston Smith are our associate producers. This episode was written by Natalie Rovamed, Paul Glatter, and Mary Kudahy, and edited by me, Urjiv Gola, and Shoshish Malvets. Back-Checking by Marilla Gish. Sound designed by David Devereaux, recording by Ewan Lai-Tremuin, and voice acting by David Eichler. This episode is based on public records and court records. Next week on Infamous, the punch in the face that wasn't heard around the world. Until now. Only at that point, probably did I think, well, this might be the best story that I've ever come across. I happen to be in the middle of it. I have an account of one of the most famous people in movie land, physically assaulting a reporter. I happen to be the reporter and in the story, but this is a pretty good story. Thank you. Bye.