At least, 12 current Republican members of the House of Representatives as well as a host of Republican Party and NRA officials, are ensnared in a sex/spy scandal brought to light by the arrest and indictment of a Russian national, Maria Butina, on charges of conspiracy against the United States as an unregistered secret agent of a foreign government's intelligence service.
Butina, the indictment reveals, used sex to gain access to high-ranking members of the US Conservative movement
The federal indictment, states that Butina, an unregistered Russian intelligence operative, used sex to gain access to the upper echelons of the Conservative movement, Republican Party and the National Rifle Association in the United States.
In one conversation, intercepted by US federal counter-espionage efforts, Butina, upon being praised for her excellent work by one of her Kremlin-based handlers, responds that she had such 'good teachers'.
Cynically, while congressional Republicans, led by Kevin Nunes and Speaker Paul Ryan, blocked all attempts to bring Butina before congress for questioning, Republican National Committee (RNC) high-ranking officials have been contacting red-sate governors about making changes to their state election laws that would permit the governors to appoint replacement congressmen from their respective states regardless of the time remaining in the term. In anticipation of the fact that several of the congressmen ensnared by Butina, may win in November, but will undoubtedly be indicted, resign and/or otherwise be removed from office shortly afterwards, leaving their seats vacant, and under current laws subject to a special election.
Butina had, according to the indictment, plowed her trade successfully for years which she often discussed with her handlers in Russian making comparisons to another female Russian agent that had worked in the United States, Anna Chapman.
The investigation of Butina documents that she was carrying out a deliberate and concerted plan hatched by Russian intelligence to assist Donald Trump in his bid for the presidency. These allegations put meat on the bone of a conspiracy between Russian intelligence and Trump. Although, the salacious details of the Steele Dossier concerning compromising material on Trump in a Moscow hotel are as yet controvertible, the sex/spy scandal involving Republican congressmen and other high-ranking Conservative movement persons are iron-clad.
Trump's behavior vis-a-vis all things Russian, salacious details aside, still remains centered upon the Russian bailout of his financial empire when access to American bank money had all but dried up. The German bank loans co-signed by Russians and his Commerce Secretary's association with the money laundering bank in Cyprus remain the focus of the Mueller investigation into Trump's money problems.
As the controversy over the management of the Trump Tower in Panama illustrates, the ownership of large downtown commercial buildings is often complex, but the flow of money from such buildings is the province of the building's management company. Therefore, the fight over who manages such buildings, as was brought to light in Panama.
On a day when yet another lie by Trump is documented as the American people learn of the existence of a tape recording of a conversation in which Trump discusses the details of a payment to silence an affair which he had previously and vehemently denied, the Butina case looms large on the horizon of Russian meddling in the election of 2016 to assist Trump.
Most importantly, current evidence suggests that Trump himself welcomed, relied upon and was a willing participant in the Russian takeover of the White House, and has now invited Putin to come and gloat over his most successful espionage achievement, ever.