MSNBC's Rachel Maddow digs for any Russia links in GOP operative Paul Erickson's fraud indictment

Federal prosecutors in South Dakota released an indictment Wednesday night charging Paul Erickson, a longtime Republican operative best known as the boyfriend of Russian agent Maria Butina, with 11 counts of wire fraud and money laundering. "This indictment against him tonight describes alleged crimes that, on the surface, don't appear to be Russia-related — they're basically just accusing him of being a crook," Rachel Maddow explained on MSNBC Wednesday night, "although there are some intriguing clues here."

Maddow read from the indictment. "Now, what does this have to do with Paul Erickson's purported Russian secret agent girlfriend, now that she's plead guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors? We don't know," she said, but there are several payments from Erickson's allegedly fraudulent funds that appear to be to Butina or on her behalf, including a $14,000 disbursement around the time Butina and Erickson helped arrange an NRA trip to Moscow. Maddow turned to Seth Tupper, an enterprise reporter for South Dakota's Rapid City Journal who has written about Erickson's business dealings, for some clarity.

Tupper briefly ran through Erickson's long history of allegedly defrauding investors. "He'd been doing this, as it said in the indictment, at least all the way back to 1996, allegedly, and as he went from one thing to another, eventually he met up with Maria Butina," he said. "And that was, I think, from what we know so far, he got involved in just sort of another scheme with her, allegedly. This time he bit off a little more than he could chew, perhaps." But Butina also reportedly agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the Erickson wire fraud and money laundering investigation, he noted, "so there could be a connection there." Watch below. Peter Weber

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