think paul whelan has anything to do with maria butina has pleading guilty in the u.s.? i think it has everything to do with it. they think it s an unjustified arrest and plea agreement because in fact she wasn t technically a spy, she was not working for the fsb or svr, its external service. she was just here promoting russia. and in putin s eyes, this is some sort of retaliation from the fbi and the justice department. so what we re seeing is putin no doubt is hitting back at the united states and may hold this
in espionage whatsoever. she communicated by social media. not a spy. an agent possibly with loose connections to espionage svr or fsb, but not a trained spy. jack look at it this way look at the return on investment. she s an entry level bargain waysment agent. climbs to the senior rank of the republican party. has the nra convinced that the right to bear arms is a thing where she s from in russia. she was cavorting with the top leadership of the party in the campaign, apparently. she was phenomenally successful. i was one of the best agents the soviet union ever sent over here. i didn t get anywhere near these high level people. she did a great job.
svr would not have been able to get to donald trump and ask him a question, but civilian sub contractors are, because they are not assets that can be quickly and easily identified as members of russian intelligence and that s where i think it s successful. jack, i have less than one minute. if she were the pro that you were, a full immersion pro spy, would you imagine what she could have accomplished in this country? oh, yeah, very, very, very dangerous. but i just want to say, i agree wholeheartedly with the assessment there s other contributors, folks that are not employees of espionage agencies that russia sends out these days. this did not happen in my time. malcolm nance. jack barsky. let s have this talk again.
trump. like you said, real trained officers, case officers of the svr would not have been able to get it donald trump and ask him a question. but civilian subcontractors can because they are not actually assets that could be quickly and easily identified as members of russian intelligence. and that s where i think it s successful. jack, i have less than a minute. if she d been the pro that you were, if she d been a full immersion pro spy, can you imagine what she could have accomplished in this country? oh, yeah. very, very dangerous. i just want to say i agree wholeheartedly with the assessment that there s a whole lot more sort of contributors, unofficial folks that are not employees of espionage agencies that russia sends out these days. this did not happen in my time. malcolm nance, jack barsky, let s have this conversation again.
they ve existed for a long time in the west but i don t think so in the soviet union. that is an intelligence run government contractor. she s sort of the same thing the way the internet research agency was a suborganization contractor to the gru for information warfare. she i believe was a subcontractor intelligence collector who may have been handled by one or two different levels away from an actual svr or fsb officer. but she was tasked by someone to come out and do this within a circle of operations that appear to surround the entirety of the trump team. she s just one mission between her and alexander torshin to influence the nra, the republican party and to get to donald trump. like you said, real trained officerers, case officers of the svr would not have been able to get to donald trump and ask him a question. but civilian subcontractors can