Tagged: Patrick Byrne
On Red Sparrows
“There is a colossal institute of co-opted Soviet girls,” an ex-KGB man told a room full of U.S. senators. “There were many, many co-opted Soviet girls with different appearance, different talents.”
Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee that day in 1970 was a KGB defector named Yuri Krotkov, testifying under the alias of George Karlin.
Krotkov, a Soviet screenwriter, playwright and radio correspondent who defected in 1963, called these women “swallows” because like the birds, they are “gentle” and “soft.”
Krotkov said he “recommended” — procured, one might say — “swallows” for the KGB. “The swallows are clever girls,” Krotkov continued, “they want all sorts of jobs with foreigners, they dream about them, even if it is risky, because they hope, they would marry them, maybe they would go abroad.”
One of his swallows became a mistress to Sukarno, the president of Indonesia. Another was used to seduce Maurice Dejean the French ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1964.
The goal, Krotkov said, was to use these “swallows” to get these foreigners to do something for the KGB.
Today, these sorts of women are better known as “sparrows,” after the best-selling 2013 book Red Sparrow by former CIA officer Jason Matthews (highly recommended, and the way) and film starring Jennifer Lawrence.
The closest thing we have to a real-life “swallow” or a “sparrow” these days is Maria Butina, the redheaded Russian graduate student who went to prison for acting as a clandestine Russian foreign agent. According to the Justice Department, Butina worked at the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government, Alexander Torshin.
Prosecutors initially accused Butina of offering sex in exchange for a job. That allegation was soon withdrawn, with prosecutors saying they had misread a text.
During her time in the United States, Butina did have affairs well-connected older men, such as Paul Erickson, who helped her gain entree into Republican circles. With help from Erickson, Butina infiltrated the National Rifle Association, met with Donald Trump Jr. at an NRA annual meeting, and came very close to a meeting with President Trump. You can read more about that here.
Another man who had a romantic affair with Butina was Patrick Byrne, then the chief executive of Overtstock.com. You can read what Byrne told me about his relationship with Butina and the FBI here.
A few months ago, I met with Byrne at a hotel in downtown San Diego and he told me a story that, I think, reveals a lot about Maria Butina.
Byrne wrote part of the story last month on his blog, Deep Capture, but his account leaves out what I view as the most revealing part.
In the spring 2018, Byrne was visiting Washington, D.C. when he got a message from Butina. She somehow knew that he was in town and asked to come by his hotel room. Butina had received a master’s degree in international relations from American University and she wanted to show him her diploma. She arrived and after a while pulled out her cellphone and showed him a picture of her transcript.
“…. Then she swiped the screen. I was staring at a subpoena she had received from the Senate Intelligence Committee a few weeks earlier. She told me about being questioned by Senate Intel, about how the forces of the [U.S. government] were closing in on her.”
Missing from that account is something Butina told Byrne in that hotel room. According to Byrne, Butina told him that the Senate Intelligence Committee had spent “about a third of their time” asking about him, Patrick Byrne. “They have a stack of every message, every text, every email we every wrote,” Byrne said Butina told him.
It was the last time Byrne saw Butina. A few weeks later she was arrested on charges of being an unregistered foreign agent. Butina pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. She was released last month and returned home to Russia where she was welcomed as a hero.
There’s a good reason why Byrne left out the part about the Senate Intelligence Committee asking about him: It wasn’t true.
I checked with Butina’s attorney, Robert Driscoll. Butina’s Senate testimony isn’t public but he had a copy and he reviewed it at my request. “No reference to Patrick after a pretty close skim,” he emailed me.
I relayed this to Byrne:
According to Byrne, he told her to go home to Russia. She told him she couldn’t. If she did, she would serve 15 years in prison. As Butina’s heroic welcoming in Moscow shows, this, too, was a lie. He told her to go to the FBI. She said that, as a Russian, she couldn’t.
Some will no doubt say that perhaps Byrne was lying. I don’t think so. When he told me this story, he seemed to believe it. Even so, he encouraged me to go check this account with Driscoll. That’s not something a liar would do.
I think Butina told Byrne a well-crafted lie. Since her testimony was sealed, she knew whatever she told Byrne about would be impossible to verify. Also, it’s no secret that Byrne saw himself at the center of various intrigues. Thus, it was a lie that he would be likely to accept without much fuss.
The question is why. Why would Butina lie to Byrne? Why was she using him and what for? Had someone told her to make this approach Byrne? Did she hope to provoke a reaction? Did she know that Byrne was talking to the FBI?
I wrote Butina several letters in prison to see if she was willing to talk about this. She never responded. As often happens with intelligence-related matters, we are left with more questions than answers.
But it’s a revealing glimpse into the world of woman who was much more than a foreign grad student. A “sparrow” or a “swallow” was a beautiful seductress. Maria Butina was using her brains as well as her body.
The CEO of Overstock Has More to Say about Maria Butina, the FBI … and Don Jr
Editor’s note: After I published my Q&A with Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne about his relationship with Maria Butina and the FBI, I sent him a link. He responded with additional comments to expand upon and clarify some of the things he said, so I am reposting the entire Q&A with Byrne’s additional comments indicated in bold.
Not long ago, I had an email exchange with Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, about his relationship with Maria Butina, the Russian gun-rights activist who was sentenced to prison after she tried to set up an back-channel between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Byrne told me three high-ranking officials (whom he calls “X,Y, and Z”) in the Obama administration directed him to “resume a romantic relationship” with Butina. He says the Russia investigation started when he contacted the FBI (which he refers to as the “Men in Black”) about Butina in July 2015. Byrne says he has a “non-standard relationship” with the FBI.
I have concerns about Byrne’s credibility, as I noted in a previous post, and I’ve tried, with limited success, to verify his claims. What I’ve been able to confirm is that Byrne and Butina did meet in July 2015, they had a brief romance and they kept in touch until Butina’s arrest three years later.
I spoke to Butina’s attorney, Robert Driscoll, on Sunday, by phone from Tallahassee, Florida, where he was visiting his client in prison. Driscoll has long suspected Byrne was a government informant, but it wasn’t a major focus of his efforts. In a letter last month to the Justice Department, Driscoll noted the government had “flatly denied” his speculation that Byrne was a government informant. He now says believes that Byrne was passing information about his client to the government.
The Justice Department declined my request for comment, although, interestingly, my email was routed to Peter Carr, former spokesman for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office. Carr is now with the Office of Professional Responsibility, which will be handling any investigation into Byrne’s claims.
So there things stood until this week, when Byrne’s story took on a life of its own. Overstock issued a press release in which Byrne announced, “I am the notorious ‘missing Chapter 1’ of the Russian investigation.” (The company’s stock fell more than 30 percent on the news.) On Thursday, The New York Times followed up with a story on Byrne’s claims.
I believe people need to hear what Byrne told me — this guy is the CEO of a publicly-traded company, after all — so here goes:
Q. You met Maria Butina at Freedom Fest in July 2015.
A. Correct.
Q. You began dating shortly thereafter.
A. No. We had an intellectual discussion for 90 minutes. She knew all about me already.
She told me there was a circle in Russia of about 150 liberals, from across the Russian power structure, including the oligarchs. They watched my videos on liberalism. They know about my relationship with Milton Friedman. They discuss things I say and write.
I should make clear that Maria is an unusually impressive young woman. Chosen for a school for which 30 brainiac children from across Russian get selected each year. Graduated No. 2 in her class. Super-conversant on the history of liberalism, from the Greeks to Locke and Jefferson. Knows U.S. history and the Constitution better than about 99 percent of millennials. Also, the Greater Moscow Power Lifting Champion (or something like that). I have taught at the university level (teaching fellow at Stanford, visiting prof at Dartmouth), known a lot of smart young people, and she is pretty remarkable. She came across as far more adult and capable than a typical 26-year-old should.
She also told me that General Mikhail Kalashnikov had started a gun rights group in Russia [Право на Оружие — Right to Bear Arms]. But the main function of the group was really to be a club for liberals. “Believe it or not, Dr. Byrne, General Kalashnikov was a liberal, too!” Maria told me.
And he had selected he had selected her to lead it.
“Do you know what this means in our culture, Dr. Byrne, that a man like General Kalishnikov would select a 23-year-old female, to lead such a group?” Maria asked me.
She mentioned that there are 50 oligarchs who run Russia, but seven who really run Russia, and that she, Maria, was well known to four of them. She mentioned that she might end up president of Russia someday. Or that at least there were people grooming her for that.
She took care to explain that they were loyal Russian people, “President Putin is our president, no one is talking about anything inappropriate,” she said.
But they wanted to discuss liberalism, and what a post-Putin age might look like in terms of U.S.-Russian relations.
I’m sensing that this may seem odd to you. It’s no so odd for me. Especially since I started being called this kind of stuff. But even before blockchain. But I already sense that you are one of those guys who rolls his eyes a lot, so I’ll stop there.
They had sent her with a message for me to come to Moscow to speak on Bitcoin, then go to the Altai Mountains to a resort that would be shut down for three days so I could meet with 40-45 people from across the Russian power structure — government, oligarchs — to discuss liberalism, John Stuart Mill, Hayek, and global relations, and what a post-Putin age might look like.
We parted after meeting that day in Vegas, her stipulating that we would text to make future arrangements and that she would be texting me under the guise of us having a romantic relationship.
I reported that night to my clearance authority (where I once kept a low level clearance due to some minor advisory work I do in foreign policy).
I gave a description of the situation and wanted to know:
- May I introduce her to some senior thinkers in the foreign policy establishment (My hope was to Yenta her in to talking to some senior thinkers in the foreign policy establishment whom I know through the Council on Foreign Relations. I thought she would be interesting for someone to spend an afternoon talking to, and perhaps her dreams of a back channel for peace might ring a bell with someone.)
- Is it OK if I travel to Russia on her invitation?
- Or should I cut her out of my life as being a security risk?
I learned later that my report “sent up a flare over Washington” that very night. July 2015: That is when the Russian investigation started, not July 2016. That is the big coverup.
I got contacted by Men In Black (I do not like using the acronym “FBI”). They were unclear, but seemed to suggest that I should learn more then they would decide, but were not sure. It went back and forth for two months.
Meanwhile, Maria was writing me, asking me to Moscow, then Montenegro, then Rome, Paris, etc. Watching my YouTube videos on liberalism. Pretending to be fall in love.
Finally, in September, I sent word to the U.S. government that I was not going to meet Maria again (lest I get in some hassle with the U.S. government) unless I was given the word “Greenlight.” They sent: “Greenlight.”
So I went to meet her for the second time in September 2015 at hotel room in New York City with the idea that we would spend a few days talking, getting to know each other, a possible trip to Russia and the purposes thereof. It was a two-bedroom suite. She arrived first. When I arrived, she made clear immediately (as in, less than three seconds) that she had not been pretending and wanted to make it romantic. I was putty in her hands.
Q. You had done some work for the FBI in the past?
A. I helped the Men in Black twice before.
[Note: Byrne forwarded two links to me. One is a Sports Illustrated story that discusses Byrne’s friendship with ex-NBA player Bison Dele, who disappeared while sailing in the South Pacific in 2002. The other is a link to his talk about naked short selling and corruption on Wall Street, Deepcapturethemovie.com]
I have also had the honor of playing a tiny, tiny role in three peace events in my life. So again, while Maria’s story may seem odd to you, I know that are times where tiny events lead to something good happening. Like peace. I’ve seen it. I know there are a lot of deep thinkers who argue that Maria had to be a Red Sparrow because they have seen the movie. You make your own call.
Q. What happened next with you and Butina?
A. I saw her sporadically (every 4-6 weeks?) from September 2015 through March 2016. Initially my estimation was:
- 66% chance this is an opportunity of some kind. Maybe just getting a chance to preach the gospel of Liberalism and freedom in Russia. Maybe some good contacts. Maybe push the peace ball a couple of yards down the field.
- 33% chance this is a risk
The Men In Black’s lack of responsiveness or concern was odd.
As the September 2015-March 2016 wore on, my estimation changed. Maria was spending less time talking about John Locke and John Stuart Mill, more time talking about the political circles in which she was swanking around.
She let me know [Alexander] Torshin, had told her to focus on Hillary, Rubio, Cruz, and Trump. Whichever of the four won, she was to have a contact in their administration.
[Note: Torshin was the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia who prosecutors say was directing Butina’s activities in the United States]
This kind of talk was especially concerning. So the Men in Black’s lack of apparent interest or concern was frustrating to me.
Around February, she asked me to fly to Russia, give a talk in St. Petersburg on Liberalism and Bitcoin, then spend an hour with Putin (who would be in town). The Men in Black studied, came back, said it was too dangerous, don’t go, break up with Maria. So I did. (I was also stage four of two things at once at the time, and they were on the brink of starting to yank out organs, so I was not going to argue.)
The Men in Black then had me get involved with a corruption case involving a federal official. That ran a couple of months. Something deeply unusual and troubling came out of that experience that led me to wonder if I was involved in law enforcement or political espionage.
On July 1, 2016, they came back and said, “What a mistake we made. Russia, Russia, Russia. We want you to know that the U.S. government never asks something like this but we are here to ask you to rekindle a romantic relationship with Maria. The orders are coming from X, Y, and Z.”
[Byrne declined to name these officials.]
“The USA never, ever does this, but these circumstances are so extraordinary, that you are being asked to do this. We want to remind you that you can refuse.”
And the agents were clearly extremely discomfited and unhappy about the whole thing. But the request came from X, Y, and Z.
The Men in Black are extremely honorable, straightforward men (and women), and there was no leering and rubbing of hands with excitement. They were clearly extremely discomfited. They reminded me several times that I could refuse the request (I suspect they were secretly wishing I would refuse it, in fact). No one would think less of me if I refused it, etc. All that kind of stuff. They were quite uncomfortable about it all. But…. X, Y, and Z were sending the request, and it was their job to communicate it. That is the reason I do not like using the initial “FBI” when explaining this. It seems unfair to them. As far as I could tell, they were hijacked from the top.
I decided that I had gotten sucked into what was starting to seem a lot more like political espionage than law enforcement. I knew this was all going to end up in front of a jury, or in television, or in the history books, and I did not want to disgrace our country or Maria by carrying out those orders. I would have if I had thought them legitimate. I’ve done lots of stranger things for our country, related to tracking down Brian William’s murderous brother in Mexico, for example but this smelled like skunk, so I decided to do two things instead:
- Lie to the feds. I would wine and dine and romance Maria, and give the public perception that we were once again romantically involved. I would blow her away with being this unbelievably romantic gentleman to her. I would report that I was back in the saddle, but all the while 100% NEVER TOUCH HER. I knew I had to be 100% pure on that bright line, so when the day came that it was all unearthed (which I knew would happen), the record would show that actually I had not laid a finger on her. (I understand that she and her lawyer have confirmed to other journalists that I was a total, perfect gentleman to her during that second phase we spent time together).
- Set up X,Y, Z for felony charges down the road
Q. You conveyed all of this to the Justice Department, including the name of the three higher-ups in the Obama administration in April 2019?
A. Yes on April 30 I told them all of this, including that the U.S. government had know all about Maria in July 2015 from me, and had known about each of her subsequent meetings (e.g. Don Jr.) before she had them, and had let them all occur.
Q. On May 20, 2016, Butina and Torshin attended the National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky and shared a table with Donald Trump Jr. at a private dinner. Is that what you’re talking about?
Editor’s note: In earlier version, Byrne suggested that Butina had made him aware of a possible second meeting between Butina and Don Trump Jr. Butina’s attorney, Robert Driscoll denied that such a meeting took place and, after some back and forth discussions, I gave Byrne an opportunity to revise his answer.
The truth is I am not completely sure, but the answer is, “Most likely.” I will distinguish what I surmise from what I know. And when telling you what I know, I will distinguish between what I know with total confidence, and when I am unusually vague. Please remember that I am somewhat foggy on things come the latter part of March, 2016 and into Spring. Rough time medically.
At some point in the first three months of 2016 Maria spoke of some meeting being arranged/to be arranged with Don Jr. via some of the Republican Party bigwigs with whom she had been schmoozing. In her description, it was to occur in a clandestine manner, it was to occur at a convention of conservatives of some kind, and was to occur somewhere in the South (I vaguely but not confidently remember “Tennessee”). It was not clear how stable or firm a plan it was, but it was clear that she had her Republican big shots working it.
Something I do remember with total clarity, however, is that the Men In Black were completely disinterested and indifferent. I was perplexed: I offered to whisk her off to somewhere exotic instead just to block such a meeting. They consulted then returned with this answer: We’re just going to let it play out. That is when they told me a fib to keep me in check, along the lines of Sometimes when spies come to the U.S. we might just follow them and see where they go, who they meet…. But I knew there is no way they would do that, certainly not meeting the son of the likely presidential nominee. Not in this case. That, coupled with the fact (not yet explained) that I, around about the same time, had been involved in a corruption matter, and it also played out in a way that seemed fishy, made me think…. they were leaving something out.
Since this all blew up, it may surprise you to know, I have often tried to follow news about this as little as possible, so as to keep my own memory fresh for the day the right people asked me for the truth. Eventually that became impossible, but I tried. So it was only more recently that learned from a news broadcast about Maria (which I have generally avoided, frankly) that among the people she met while here was Don Jr. I could not have told you where until today, when I learned it from your question, that she met Don Jr. in a private dinner in May, 2016, with Torshin. (However, that is not completely true: when I saw Maria some year or more later, I believe she confirmed to me she had met Don Jr. I am not sure, and I never asked the circumstances.)
Was that private meeting she was discussing with me in the first three months of 2016, the one that I remembered being a clandestine meeting at a convention of conservatives somewhere in the South, maybe Tennessee, the private dinner that happened in May at an NRA convention in Kentucky? I can’t be sure, but I would think so. The details match up pretty well. Especially if Driscoll has confirmed she only meeting with Don Jr.
Also…. Did I make clear, Maria and I stopped speaking in early April? I was asked to break it off, I was super-sick, and I did. It was only around July 1 (+/- 7 days?) that the request came to revive things. So we were not in contact while the dinner played out.
However, if it was May, then it happened well after they had made me feel batshit crazy for thinking there might be anything unusual about this Russian grad student, very bright and admirable, but connected to Russian senators and oligarchs, swanking around with big shots who were getting her in touch with the son of the possible next president. Boy, did they gaslight me on that one. They made me feel like some kind of conspiracy nutjob to think that there might be anything problematic about that. Guess the joke was on me.
Anyway, it was shortly after that — the period I was telling them of talk of arrangements being made for her to meet Don Jr., and they were brushing them off as silly to worry about — that she asked me to Russia to speak and meet Putin, and they came back and told me to break it off and get her out of my life. And as I said, I was right in that window that any recrudescence of disease would have led to organs getting pulled out as a next step. So I folded and disappeared from the scene. Probably first or second week of April 2016. I did not see her again until October 2016, I believe.
Q. What happened after you spoke to the Justice Department?
A. I learned that Maria was transferred 9 days later from a SHU unit [solitary confinement] in a prison in Virginia to the nicest women’s camp in the federal system. So I give great compliments to the DOJ. Nothing happens in 9 days normally. But I think they heard my story, checked out some of the basic claims, and moved her out of isolation by the end of the following week (May 9). The following Wednesday they announced John Durham.
[Note: John H. Durham, the U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, is investigating the origins of the special counsel’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. News broke about his investigation on May 13. The Washington Post reported that the investigation had begun “in recent weeks.”]
I should make clear that I have no idea what connection there is, if any, between my coming forward and any subsequent events, including Durham’s appointment. I make no claims in that regard. I know only that I spoke twice to the DOJ, on April 5 and 30. I am under the impression that there are numerous other whistle-blowers coming forward, with tales that amount to political espionage conducted not just against Republicans, but against Hillary Clinton, by certain high-level actors (X, Y, and Z). Mine may well be (and probably is) a footnote to a footnote to the whole story. I hope so.
Q. It’s a fascinating story, but I need to report it out. Is there someone who can corroborate this?
Sara Carter has had some recent confirmation from the Department of Justice. I don’t know what your connections are like there, but that’s why you get paid the big bucks! I’m not in the convincing business. I am simply in the business or letting the world know what happened. My rabbi told me “You let feds do fed jobs, you do your job. You are a citizen. Your country is ripping itself in two. Your job is to come forward to the public.” So I have.
[Note: Byrne’s “rabbi” is Warren Buffett. Byrne’s father, John, was the CEO GEICO, one of Buffett’s companies, and Patrick has known Buffett for years.]
I watched this unfold for the last year knowing I had a lot of the answers, and in late June decided (and was advised by my rabbi) that I had a moral duty to come forward. So I have. It is proving interesting to see how long it takes the world to get it.
Ok, Seth, I have qualms. From what you have written so far, I fear that when you learn the full truth you will seek to distort it because it conflicts with some things you have written so far. On the other hand, I have it on good authority that you are a legitimate, honest reporter. I have given you a ton. I have a mountain more. Let us see how you represent what I have told you before going any further.
OK, signing off for now. Busy week ahead.
Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne on Maria Butina and the FBI
“July 2015: That is when the Russian investigation started, not July 2016. That is the big coverup.”
Editor’s note: There is an updated version of this post available here.
Not long ago, I had an email exchange with Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, about his relationship with Maria Butina, the Russian gun-rights activist who was sentenced to prison after she tried to set up a backchannel between the Trump camapign and the Kremlin.
Byrne told me three high-ranking officials (whom he calls “X,Y, and Z”) in the Obama administration directed him to “resume a romantic relationship” with Butina. He says the Russia investigation started when he contacted the FBI (which he refers to as the “Men in Black”) about Butina in July 2015. Byrne says he has a “non-standard relationship” with the FBI.
I have concerns about Byrne’s credibility, as I noted in a previous post, and I’ve tried, with limited success, to verify his claims. What I’ve been able to confirm is that Byrne and Butina did meet in July 2015. Butina’s attorney, Robert Driscoll, has confirmed that they did have a romantic relationship. Driscoll also says the government “flatly denied” his speculation that Byrne was a government informant.
The Justice Department declined my request for comment, although, interestingly, my email was routed to Peter Carr, former spokesman for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office. Carr is now with the Office of Professional Responsibility, which will be handling any investigation into Byrne’s claims.
So there things stood until this week, when Byrne’s story took on a life of its own. Overstock issued a press release in which Byrne announced, “I am the notorious ‘missing Chapter 1’ of the Russian investigation.” (The company’s stock fell more than 30 percent on the news.) On Thursday, The New York Times followed up with a story on Byrne’s claims.
I believe people need to hear what Byrne told me, so here goes:
Q. You met Maria Butina at Freedom Fest in July 2015.
A. Correct.
Q. You began dating shortly thereafter.
A. No. We had an intellectual discussion for 90 minutes. She knew all about me already.
She told me there was a circle in Russia of about 150 liberals, from across the Russian power structure, including the oligarchs. They watched my videos on liberalism. They know about my relationship with Milton Friedman. They discuss things I say and write.
They had sent her with a message for me to come to Moscow to speak on Bitcoin, then go to the Altai Mountains to a resort that would be shut down for three days so I could meet with 40-45 people from across the Russian power structure — government, oligarchs — to discuss liberalism, John Stuart Mill, Hayek, etc.
We parted after meeting that day in Vegas, her stipulating that we would text to make future arrangements and that she would be texting me under the guise of us having a romantic relationship.
I reported that night to my clearance authority (where I once kept a low level clearance due to some minor advisory work I do in foreign policy).
I gave a description of the situation and wanted to know:
- May I introduce her to some senior thinkers in the foreign policy establishment (My hope was to Yenta her in to talking to some senior thinkers in the foreign policy establishment whom I know through the Council on Foreign Relations. I thought she would be interesting for someone to spend an afternoon talking to, and perhaps her dreams of a back channel for peace might ring a bell with someone.)
- Is it OK if I travel to Russia on her invitation?
- Or should I cut her out of my life as being a security risk?
I learned later that my report “sent up a flare over Washington” that very night. July 2015: That is when the Russian investigation started, not July 2016. That is the big coverup.
I got contacted by Men In Black (I do not like using the acronym “FBI”). They were unclear, but seemed to suggest that I should learn more then they would decide, but were not sure. It went back and forth for two weeks.
Meanwhile, Maria was writing me, asking me to Moscow, then Montenegro, then Rome, Paris, etc. Watching my YouTube videos on liberalism. Pretending to be in love.
Finally, in September, I sent word to the U.S. government that I was not going to meet Maria again (lest I get in some hassle with the U.S. government) unless I was given the word “Greenlight.” They sent: “Greenlight.”
So I went to meet her for the second time in September 2015 at hotel room in New York City with the idea that we would spend a few days talking, getting to know each other, a possible trip to Russia and the purposes thereof. It was a two-bedroom suite. She arrived first. When I arrived, she made clear immediately (as in, less than three seconds) that she had not been pretending and wanted to make it romantic. I was putty in her hands.
Q. You had done some work for the FBI in the past?
A. I helped the Men in Black twice before.
[Note: Byrne forwarded two links to me. One is a Sports Illustrated story that discusses Byrne’s friendship with ex-NBA player Bison Dele, who disappeared while sailing in the South Pacific in 2002. The other is a link to his talk about naked short selling and corruption on Wall Street, Deepcapturethemovie.com]
Q. What happened next with you and Butina?
A. I saw her sporadically (every 4-6 weeks?) from September 2015 through March 2016. Initially my estimation was:
- 66% chance this is an opportunity of some kind. Maybe just getting a chance to preach the gospel of Liberalism and freedom in Russia. Maybe some good contacts. Maybe push the peace ball a couple of yards down the field.
- 33% chance this is a risk
The Men In Black’s lack of responsiveness or concern was odd.
As the September 2015-March 2016 wore on, my estimation changed. Maria was spending less time talking about John Locke and John Stuart Mill, more time talking about the political circles in which she was swanking around.
She let me know [Alexander] Torshin, had told her to focus on Hillary, Rubio, Cruz, and Trump. Whichever of the four won, she was to have a contact in their administration.
[Note: Torshin was the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia who prosecutors say was directing Butina’s activities in the United States]
This kind of talk was especially concerning. So the Men in Black’s lack of apparent interest or concern was frustrating to me.
Around February, she asked me to fly to Russia, give a talk in St. Petersburg on Liberalism and Bitcoin, then spend an hour with Putin (who would be in town). The Men in Black studied, came back, said it was too dangerous, don’t go, break up with Maria. So I did. (I was also stage four of two things at once at the time, and they were on the brink of starting to yank out organs, so I was not going to argue.)
The Men in Black then had me get involved with a corruption case involving a federal official. That ran a couple of months. Something deeply unusual and troubling came out of that experience that led me to wonder if I was involved in law enforcement or political espionage.
On July 1, 2016, they came back and said, “What a mistake we made. Russia, Russia, Russia. We want you to know that the U.S. government never asks something like this but we are here to ask you to rekindle a romantic relationship with Maria. The orders are coming from X, Y, and Z.”
[Byrne declined to name these officials.]
“The USA never, ever does this, but these circumstances are so extraordinary, that you are being asked to do this. We want to remind you that you can refuse.”
And the agents were clearly extremely discomfitted and unhappy about the whole thing. But the request came from X, Y, and Z.
I decided that I had gotten sucked into what was starting to seem a lot more like political espionage than law enforcement. I knew this was all going to end up in front of a jury, or in television, or in the history books, and I did not want to disgrace our country or Maria by carrying out those orders. I would have if I had thought them legitimate. I’ve done lots of stranger things for our country, but this smelled like skunk, so I decided to do two things instead:
- Lie to the feds. I would wine and dine and romance Maria, and give the public perception that we were once again romantically involved. I would blow her away with being this unbelievably romantic gentleman to her. I would report that I was back in the saddle, but all the while 100% NEVER TOUCH HER. I knew I had to be 100% pure on that bright line, so when the day came that it was all unearthed (which I knew would happen), the record would show that actually I had not laid a finger on her. (I understand that she and her lawyer have confirmed to other journalists that I was a total gentleman to her).
- Set up X,Y, Z for felony charges down the road
Q. You conveyed all of this to the Justice Department, including the name of the three higher-ups in the Obama administration in April 2019?
A. Yes on April 30 I told them all of this, including that the U.S. government had know all about Maria in July 2015 from me, and had known about each of her subsequent meetings (e.g. Don Jr.) before she had them, and had let them all occur.
[Note: On May 20, 2016, Butina and Torshin attended the National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky and shared a table with Donald Trump Jr. at a private dinner.]
I learned that Maria was transferred 9 days later from a SHU unit [solitary confinement] in a prison in Virginia to the nicest women’s camp in the federal system. So I give great compliments to the DOJ. Nothing happens in 9 days normally. But I think they heard my story, checked out some of the basic claims, and moved her out of isolation by the end of the following week (May 9). The following Wednesday they announced John Durham.
[Note: John H. Durham, the U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, is investingating the origins of the special counsel’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. News broke about his investigation on May 13. The Washington Post reported that the investigation had been picked “in recent weeks.”]
Q. It’s a fascinating story, but I need to report it out. Is there someone who can corroborate this?
Sara Carter has had some recent confirmation from the Department of Justice. I don’t know what your connections are like there, but that’s why you get paid the big bucks! I’m not in the convincing business. I am simply in the business or letting the world know what happend.
I watched this unfold for the last year knowing I had a lot of the answers, and in late June decided (and was advised by my rabbi) that I had a moral duty to come forward. So I have. It is proving interesting to see how long it takes the world to get it.
[Note: Byrne’s “rabbi” is Warren Buffett. Byrne’s father, John, was the CEO GEICO, one of Buffett’s companies, and Patrick has known Buffett for years.)
Ok, Seth, I have qualms. From what you have written so far, I fear that when you learn the full truth you will seek to distort it because it conflicts with some things you have written so far. On the other hand, I have it on good authority that you are a legitimate, honest reporter. I have given you a ton. I have a mountain more. Let us see how you represent what I have told you before going any further.
Time to Put a Lie about Felix Sater to Rest (Updated)
Of all the characters in the Trump/Russia saga, few are more fascinating than Felix Sater.
Sater is many things: a Russian emigre, the son of a gangster, an ex-con, and the guy who scouted real estate deals in Moscow for Donald Trump.
He was also a very valuable informant to the U.S. government for many years, as you can see from some photos I recently came across regarding Evgeny Shmykov, an ex-spy who was Sater’s long-time contact in Russia:
The guy that Shmykov stands shoulder-to-shoulder with? That’s Ahmad Shah Massoud, the anti-Taliban leader assassinated right before the 9/11 attacks.
These photos got some attention on Twitter, but as always, whenever Sater’s name comes up, people inevitably connect him to a powerful Russian Mafia boss named Semion Mogilevich, known as “the most dangerous mobster in the world.”
It’s time to put this to rest.
There is no, I repeat, no credible evidence linking Sater to a Russian Mob boss who was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List.
In writing my book, Trump/Russia, I spent quite a bit of time looking for evidence of the Sater-Mogilevich connection. In the end, I concluded that it just wasn’t there. To paraphrase Robert Mueller, if I had found evidence that Sater was connected to Mogilevich, I would so state.
There’s no doubt Sater did have ties to Russian organized crime. Sater’s father, Michael Sheferfofsky, was a Russian gangster who pleaded guilty in 2000 to two counts of extortion for shaking down businesses in Brooklyn.
Update: In her 2020 book, Putin’s People, Catherine Belton wrote that she spoke to two former Mogilevich associates in 2018 who told her that Sater’s father “become an ‘enforcer’ for some of Mogilevich’s interests” in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Another British journalist, Paul Wood, told me in 2019 that he spoke with someone from Mogilevich’s organization who told him that there is a link between Sater himself and Mogilevich.
Even so, proof is still lacking. There’s no mention of Mogilevich in Sherorfksy’s criminal file.
So where does this claim come from?
The Sater-Mogilevich link is found in a Supreme Court petition for a writ of certiorari in Palmer v John Doe. 14-676.
This sounds like credible evidence. It’s convinced many people, including me, as my 2017 blog post shows.
The thing is it’s bullshit. Yes, I know. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
While reporting my book, Trump/Russia, I tried to get to the bottom of this. I asked Richard Lerner, the attorney who wrote the Supreme Court petition, how he learned about the Sater-Mogilevich connection.
He somewhat sheepishly admitted that it comes from a website called Deep Capture.
This is where things get weird.
Deep Capture was written by Mark Mitchell, a former editor at Columbia Journalism Review, to “expose the ‘deep capture’ of American institutions by powerful and corrupt financial interests.”
Bankrolling Deep Capture was Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, a publicly-traded online retailer.
Byrne is famous for, among other things, a 2005 conference call with investors that touched on subjects ranging from:
“Miscreants, an unnamed Sith Lord he hopes the feds will bury under a prison, gay bath houses, whether he is gay, does cocaine, both or neither, and an obligatory, not that there is anything wrong with that, phone taps, phone lines misdirected to Mexico, arrested reporters, payoffs, conspiracies, crooks, egomaniacs, fools, paranoia, which newspapers are shills and for who, payoffs, money laundering, his Irish temper, false identities, threats, intimidation, and private investigators,” wrote Mark Cuban, the basketball team owner, investor, and host of Shark Tank.
That’s just a sampling. You can read the full thing here.
Byrne has also accused reporter Bethany McLean of giving Goldman Sachs traders blowjobs and said on live TV that he knew for a fact of a fax machine in the offices of CNBC where every morning hedge funds send in “instructions” for journalists. Authorities at Salt Lake City’s airport arrested him in 2013 when they found a loaded handgun in his carry-on luggage.
Sater is one of Byrne’s “miscreants” who appears as a recurring character in Deep Capture, where he is described to this day as a “Mafia boss” and “a Russian mobster and a member of the Mogilevich organization (controlled by Semion Mogilevich).”
To give you a taste of Deep Capture, check out this now-deleted post that describes … well, just read it for yourself:
A month or so after that, an offshore businessman who had provided some information to our investigation received in the mail a beautiful, lacquered, Russian matryoshka doll. And inside this doll, there was a slip of paper.
On the paper was the letter “F” — with a cross on it. The businessman knew right away that the letter “F” stood for “Felix” – Felix Sater.
The businessman said he had called Felix Sater to see what the deal was with the doll. And after talking to Felix, the businessman invited Patrick Byrne to a greasy spoon diner in Long Island. It was urgent, aid the businessman — so Patrick made haste.
And when Patrick arrived at the diner (along with two other people, who can testify to this) the offshore businessman, discarding with formalities, said, “This meeting can be very short. I have a message for you from Russia.”
The message, said the businessman, was this: “‘We are about to kill you. We are about to kill you.’ Patrick, they are going to kill you – if you do not stop this crusade [the investigation into destructive market manipulation], they will kill you. Normally they’d have already hurt you as a warning, but you’re so weird, they don’t know how you’d react. So their first step is, they’re just going to kill you.”
According to the businessman, this threat had come straight from the mouth of Felix Sater.
Maybe this did happen. Then again, maybe the moon landing was faked. Maybe the Illuminati controls the world. Maybe 9/11 was an inside job.
I’m pretty sure it didn’t happen.
Editor’s note: I am striking my snarky comments because I was wrong. Patrick Byrne has shown me evidence that this conversation did take place. In a recorded 2007 phone call, a transcript of which is in my possession, Byrne’s associate was told: “And there’s a beautiful box and inside is a matryoshka and I opened up the last matryoshka and inside is an F with a cross on it, which is for Felix.” I was also played the recording of this call. A clear threat was relayed to Mr. Byrne, who did not make this story up. I owe him an apology.
Patrick Byrne emailed me August 4 to say:
“For the record, your email reminded me that Felix wrote me once (while I was very ill) and denied being the source of the Russian death threat against me. He was quite gentlemanly, and I think I said I would post it. However, I think I was in a cardiac unit at the time, come to think of it, and it never got done.”
Byrne didn’t answer my questions about what evidence he has for the Sater-Mogilevich connection, which can still be found on his website.
In 2016, a Canadian judge ordered Byrne and Mitchell to pay $1.2 million (Canadian) over published claims that Altaf Nazerali, a Vancouver businessman, was a gangster, an arms dealer, a drug trafficker, a financier of al-Qaida and member of the Russian and Italian Mafias.
Nazerali is mentioned in the deleted post quoted above about Sater and the matryoshka doll. Nazerali is described as a friend of Sater’s, although I’d wager that they never met.
The judge wrote that Mitchell and Byrne “engaged in a calculated and ruthless campaign to inflict as much damage on Mr. Nazerali’s reputation as they could achieve. It is clear on the evidence that their intention was to conduct a vendetta in which the truth about Mr. Nazerali himself was of no consequence.” Read the decision here.
A month before the ruling was issued, Byrne announced he was taking an indefinite personal leave of absence from Overstock.com to battle stage 4 Hepatitis C. He returned to his duties a few months later.
The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed Mitchell and Byrne’s appeal in August 2018 and affirmed a seven-figure award.
Maybe you think Sater a bad guy. Maybe you think he made amends for his criminal past. Either way, a man whose life is far more fascinating than most of ours will ever be doesn’t need to be embellished with fiction.