Maria Butina and I, Part Deux: Romancing Mariahttps://www.deepcapture.com/2019/08/maria-butina-and-i-part-deux-romancing-maria/Posted on 27 August 2019 by Patrick Byrne
At this point I am going to be discrete, other than to say that contact was re-established with Men in Black (I avoid using the “F†acronym for reasons that will become clear).
Why do I say, “re-established� Because twice, over the decades, I have had the honor of helping them. Why would a (flag-waving) libertarian ever help feds? I will explain:
1. I had a great friend named Brian Williams. In 2002 he was murdered. I helped bring the killer to justice, in a manner of speaking. Numerous sensationalist TV reenactments have been made, which should all be skipped. A surprisingly well-written story appeared in Sports Illustrated some years ago (“Lost Soul†by Chris Ballard) about Brian’s life and death that captures Brian’s spirit. It alludes to some minor involvement I had in helping the authorities sort it out. It was my honor to do so.
2. On August 23, a United States Attorney named Brett Tolman appeared on Fox News with Dan Bongino (a retired federal officer, who was guest hosting for Hannity). At minute 1:25 Mr. Tolman says something about me:
“I know Patrick Byrne. I‘ve known him for years. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with him today talking about it. When he indicates that he has previously worked for the FBI and provided information, he is telling the truth. Back in 2005-2006 I was Chief Counsel at the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he brought to us inside information about manipulation that was going on in Wall Street. It turned out that it was accurate, and it was investigated, and it became part of a much larger investigation. So my experience with him is very fascinating, because while he’s eccentric, he has been accurate historically with me and with others.â€Error 404 (Not Found)!!1To understand what is going on now, it is not necessary to read all the backstory about Wall Street and me from years ago (but if you wish, you are on the site to do it). Just know this: whenever I told the story publicly, I always left something out. I always said that I had gone to DC in 2005-2006 trying to get help exposing Wall Street but had found it captured, “turtles all the way down.†That was never the full truth. The truth is, the Senate Judiciary Committee was fantastic. Members and staff of both parties were great to me. Like me, they were curious not just about the underlying matter I was bringing to them (which is that I thought we had a crack in the national capital market’s settlement system, and it might quake at any moment: indeed, on October 23, 2008, Greenspan identified “settlement†as one of the three main culprits in the crisis). Like me, they were also curious about the reaction (or lack thereof) on the part of the government that should have been reacting back in 2005-2006.
That’s because, as the committee overseeing any activity in the USA touched by a criminal or civil penalty, the Senate Judiciary Committee has oversight jurisdiction on everything related to corruption. I swam around on Wall Street 2005-2009 drawing fire from the Establishment so that the FBI could watch who was going after me, and put together the hedge funds, regulators, and journalists who seemed to be in cahoots.
In the autumn of 2009, I was called one morning by a Man in Black, who said words I will treasure to my dying day: “Patrick, the Bureau wishes to thank you for what you have done. It is almost unprecedented. You are going to see handcuffs come out this week. You need to live the rest of your life knowing that everyone you see us arrest suspects your fingerprints are on his problems.â€
A few days later, Raj Rajaratnam of Galleon was arrested. He was the first of about 200 indictments (and more than 100 people who went to prison). Take a look at the photos showing perps being walked out of hedge funds in handcuffs. Each was walked out by the same guy, a solid-looking, square-jawed Korean-American FBI agent. That’s the guy who uttered those words to me above. He’s the Eliot Ness of the FBI.
That all happened with the FBI because in 2005 I found a single group in Washington DC that would listen to me and my tales of what I knew was happening on Wall Street: the Senate Judiciary Committee. And on that committee, before he became a US Attorney, was a young Bret Tolman. Without the beard. And he saw what he described above.
So those are the two times I was honored to provide modest help to the Men in Black.
I intend to be fuzzy about Men in Black, but I would like to be clear about one thing: they are men and women, white, black, Latino, and other — some look like Captain America, some like Serpico, some look like librarians — and I came to respect them in the same way I do the young men or women I see in uniform at airports, trying to make a flight. That sounds funny for a libertarian to say, I suppose, but remember, libertarians like consent of the governed. And once that consent has been found, we like rule of law, because what’s the point of going to all the trouble of finding out what law the governed consent to, if that’s not the law that gets enforced? Lack of rule of law undermines our whole liberal “consent of the governed†thing.
More importantly, 30-35 years ago I wandered around Asia and saw a lot of things. I also studied development economics as a grad student at Stanford. My big takeaways were:
Economic development is about raising the income of women, not men.
Without rule of law, economic development occurs in quicksand.
Liberalism is best.
That it. That’s my 20’s, boiled down.
Popular culture makes fun of federal officers for being strait-laced, stiff, and formal. It’s true they don’t much care about being your friend: they just want the facts. Yet at times that is a relief, such as when your closest friend has disappeared, or when you put together a criminal financial plot that you think may collapse Wall Street. In such times, that is precisely what you want, even if you never knew it before. You learn that you want a formal, stiff, unsmiling character looking at you across a table in gray room with a legal pad. Even though it generally means putting up with getting pushed around and accused of things that had never occurred to you or even would occur to you. It’s the price we pay for rule of law. Try living without it.
Here’s a warning, however, that was passed to me by a lawyer years ago: trying to help feds can be like helping a tiger that has got its paw caught in a trap. So you might just use their quite adequate website, tips.fbi.gov. I never plan on talking to feds again. If I do, I’ll likely be in an orange jumpsuit. But if I do, I want to help them work on the algorithms in that website.
Anyway, my explanation to the people in the Administrative Office of Personnel looking after three million security clearances triggered the following event: the Men in Black and I were back in touch. The details of everything related to how those communications occurred will be omitted (other than to say that, initially, was it partially face-to-face, but by December 2015 it was entirely face-to-face).
All I wanted to know was, if I went to Russia and met with their liberals, would I have to get hassled about it when I returned? And could I introduce her to someone in our foreign policy establishment, like 93-year-old General Vessey? Or need I cut her out of my life? They seemed to suggest that I should learn more, and then they would decide. But they emphasized that they were not sure. Messages went back and forth for two months.
Meanwhile, Maria was writing me, inviting me to meet in Montenegro, then Rome, Paris, etc. Watching my videos on liberalism. Pretending to fall in love, to create a reason to meet again and talk. But meanwhile, I was being told half-heartedly, “Well maybe it’s OK, but we’re not sure…â€
Finally, in September of 2015 I received something that sounded like they wanted me to meet her again. It started occurring to me; “Do they want me to meet her without having to take responsibility? Damn, then are they are going to show up in a year, act shocked, interrogate me endlessly, accuse me of this and that? Screw that, that’s the kind of thing that happened that other time.â€
In an effort to make things clear, I sent a binary message along the lines of: Not wanting to get in a hassle with the U.S. government, I am not going to meet Maria again unless I hear the word, “Greenlight.â€
They responded: “Greenlight.â€
I was mildly surprised, but pleased.* I have played a minor, minor role in three peace events in my life (and though I critique Chomsky sometimes, the credit for one of them must be given to him and his writings on East Timor). I thought it might be possible that Maria Butina, a liberal from Russia, with all her connections, might be a good person to get to know. I have seen stranger events lead something good – including to peace.
So in September 2015 Maria and I met for a second time in a hotel in New York City, with the idea that we would spend a few days getting to know each other, plan a trip to Russia to talk at their Central Bank on bitcoin and how blockchain will change the world, and to meet her liberal friends in Moscow among the oligarchs.
Of course I got two rooms, but to be consistent with her faux-romantic texts I arranged a two-bedroom suite. She was arriving first, and I assumed that when I arrived, we would laugh about the pretense and take separate rooms.
A gentleman does not normally say, but it would be ridiculous to omit, given how germane it is: when I arrived, Maria made immediately clear that she had not been pretending. She had indeed watched all my videos, and thought I was pretty cool. She, the Greater Moscow Powerlifting Champion (amateur) swept me and my liberalism off my feet. I was helpless, helpless I say….
Well, not really. About the “helpless†part, anyway. The rest is true. And I will say this: Maria is a spectacular woman. An unforgettable woman. Great props to Mother Russia. Respect. A gentleman shouldn’t say but…Wow.
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To keep Church Ladies from hammering me on message boards, and because it is relevant: For Maria’s part, she sounded like there were some big-shot Republicans in her life in America she was seeing, she was back and forth to Russia, nothing was too serious, etc. I didn’t really pry.
For my part: I am a lifelong bachelor. I didn’t plan it that way, I’m 56, there were some end-of-life issues since I was 22, and it just turned out that way. I give great tryst. I have no Act III whatsoever, but my Acts I and II are dynamite. So again I find myself saying (because my editor tells me that I sound strange to some): Sorry, but this is just my life. Stuff like this happens to me. All the time, frankly, if I let it. I don’t make the rules.
So at the end of our first three day tryst, I proposed the following: “Look I know you are a young gal, making your way in America. Tell you what: from time to time, when you get tired of hanging out with Republican big-shots, give me a call. Every six weeks or so suits me just fine. Pick a city you want to see while you’re in America, like Miami, or San Francisco, I’ll just send you a ticket and we’ll make a weekend of it.†She smiled in agreement.
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