# Paul Erickson South Dakota-based Republican operative — Pat Buchanan's national political director in 1992, later active in [[NRA]] circles — who became the American partner of [[Maria Butina]], the Russian agent who worked to build a back channel through the NRA to the Republican Party. He was convicted of an unrelated fraud and then pardoned by Trump, with a White House statement that recast the case as a casualty of the "Russia hoax." ## Timeline | Date | Event | |---|---| | 1992 | National political director for [[Pat Buchanan]]'s presidential campaign | | 2015–2016 | With Butina and Russian official [[Alexander Torshin]], works to build NRA–Russia ties and a line to the Trump campaign — see [[Russia-NRA Connection]] | | Dec 2018 | Butina pleads guilty to conspiring to act as a Russian agent, acknowledging she worked with Erickson and Torshin | | Feb 2019 | Erickson indicted in South Dakota for wire fraud and money laundering in investment schemes | | Nov 2019 | Pleads guilty to one count of each | | July 6, 2020 | Sentenced to **84 months** — double the top of the guideline range — for defrauding about 78 people of about $5.3 million | | Jan 2021 | Trump grants a full pardon, wiping out about **$3 million** in restitution owed to victims; the White House called the conviction "based off the Russian collusion hoax" and a "minor financial crime," and said [[Kellyanne Conway]] supported the pardon | > [!note] The date > The pardon was announced on January 20, 2021, Trump's last day. The Justice Department's pardon list files it under an earlier January date. Both appear in reporting. ## Why it matters here The fraud had nothing to do with Russia. The pardon statement tied it to Russia anyway, turning a conviction for cheating investors into evidence of persecution. That move — clemency justified as correcting the "Russia hoax" — is a pattern the vault tracks in [[Pardons as Currency]]. ## See Also - [[Maria Butina]] · [[Alexander Torshin]] · [[Russia-NRA Connection]] · [[NRA]] - [[Pardons as Currency]]