Russian spy Maria Butina, convicted in 2018 of spying for Mother Russia while she was embedded in the NRA and sleeping with some asshole Republican consultant – and QAnon psychopath former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne on the side – and I can’t believe some of the sentences I write here, this shit is out of control, is taking some heat from her region’s local communist party in her campaign for the Russian Duma over some payments from Byrne listed on her income statement to whatever the Russian equivalent of the FEC is, Talking Points Memo reported Friday.

As far as attacks go, on balance, it is a pretty lame cheap shot, because whatever fuck around money Butina personally scammed out of Byrne while she was working him was of course part of her occupation as a spy. But because candidates are required to specify any foreign income on their disclosures and what country it came from, Maria Butina went ahead and listed “United States of America” on her form in her campaign for parliament on Putin’s ruling United Russia Party ticket, leaving her open to attack from the communists who – as Talking Points Memo notes – aren’t even fielding a candidate against her in Friday’s election. Interesting how Russian political propaganda, be it from troll farms spewing their hateful garbage on The Hill, or loser domestic communists entering their fourth decade out of power, is still mostly simplistic half-truths and glaring lies by omission. This isn’t to defend Butina so much as point out how consistently the bullshit they come up with implodes on contact with critical analysis. Probably why it works so well on MAGAmericans.

In any event, if Butina wins, she would be the first Trump-era Russia scandal figure to successfully parlay her media fame into a legislative career. We say “successfully” because she’s not the first overall to run for office. That “honor” goes to world-class dipshit George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in 2017 over his knowledge of Russian interference in the 2016 election, then for whatever stupid reason ran for Congress in the March 2020 special election to replace Katie Hill in California’s 25th district. He came in ninth place.