At every turn, we learn that the insane conglomeration of corruption, radicalism and just ridiculous grifting that now makes up the conservative movement is even more insane than we might have imagined.
I am sure that, at some point, we will find something even more ridiculous than an NRA-tied Russian spy trying to broker herself a $1 million dollar payday for selling Russian jet fuel on the invitation of former National Rifle Association president David Keene and his wife and with the assistance of her still-very-conspicuously-missing boyfriend and American Conservative Union ex-board member Paul Erickson, a Russian "coffee bean trader" and an entire chess board worth of eager rubes and would-be crooks. But it'll take some doing.
[Butina] had no experience in the oil business, yet jumped into a scheme that hinged entirely on her securing a supply of huge amounts of jet fuel — nearly double what all of Russia’s refineries export in a month. [...]
“I knew they didn’t have any clue, because there’s no port in the world that could hold the amount of oil they were saying they could sell,” said Yoni Wiss, the Israeli-American who briefly met with Ms. Butina and Mr. Erickson in June 2017.
No, seriously. This was apparently a thing. The Russian spy was trying to broker a comically ridiculous Russian jet fuel deal brought to her by her National Rifle Association connections–in exchange for a cut of that sweet, sweet Russian jet fuel money–because every f'king person involved with conservatism is both really dumb and hilariously grifty and apparently spends their entire waking lives dreaming up new ways to collaborate with shady Russian kleptocrats. Sweet Jeebus, how did we get here? What off-ramp did we miss to bring us to this lunacy?
But less than two months later, Ms. Keene was in touch again, this time offering up a contact with a jet fuel broker in Arlington, Va., named Roger Pol — whom Mr. Erickson would later describe as “crotchety.”
Why the hell were David and Donna Keene so bent on becoming Russian jet fuel brokers? Who the hell wakes up in the morning and says "Well, advocating for the rights of aspirational murderers has been fun but what would really make things complete is putting together backroom Russian jet fuel deals with a veeeeery dodgy unknown businessman out of freaking nowhere, but thank goodness this will be especially easy because we just happen to know that wonderfully outgoing Russian woman from our aspirational-murder meetings." This is just bonkers.
Oh, and their would-be jet fuel buyer died this year from "heart problems", and it's not immediately clear why he wanted an ungettably large amount of Russian jet fuel or how he had stumbled into the "jet fuel" business after having apparently no prior involvement in it, and the whole thing was so sketchy that the Russian spy and her NRA team's would-be marks partners ended up reporting the whole thing to the FBI because even though nobody knew at that point Butina was a Russian spy they did suspect Butina and her associates were running some sort of extraordinarily ridiculous scam.
Because that's a thing that happens in the very top levels of the conservative movement, whether it be figures from the National Rifle Association or the American Conservative Union or take-your-pick. Ridiculous Russian jet fuel schemes. As a side gig, to make ends meet between your gun meetings.
If this is where we are, and it appears to be, you can make a very strong case that the United States is now a failed state. A kleptocracy. A drunken Russian jet fuel party with no end in sight. And this, the unbelievably ridiculous grifting that seems to be the only core motivating principle for the ascendent political movement of the day, is the only needed evidence of it.