The lawyer for alleged Russian spy Maria Butina says accusations that she duped a GOP operative 27 years her senior into a “duplicitous relationship” are bogus — and he can prove it with a video of them singing a Disney duet.
Attorney Robert Driscoll told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” that Butina, 29, and Paul Erickson, 56, are still in love and going “strong” — even after she was arrested last month and accused of acting as a foreign spy in the US by, among other things, seducing Erickson to gain access to his political connections.
As evidence, Driscoll shared a video of the two gazing into each others’ eyes and warbling through “Beauty and the Beast,” which they recorded at music studio in Moscow as a birthday present for Erickson.
“I find it adorable. And I think you also look at this and say, I think this looks pretty legitimate,” he told “GMA” in the interview that aired Tuesday.
“To me, they look pretty happy.”
Driscoll says Erickson even visited his younger lover in jail on Saturday, and the pair have previously gone on a Disney Cruise and visited Disney World together.
“I think in some ways it’s a classic love story,” Driscoll said. “I think [reporters] are filling in a lot of the gaps with a lot of spy novels.”
Prosecutors claim Butina was just using Erickson — a longtime South Dakota conservative activist who worked on Mitt Romney and Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaigns — for his access to the National Rifle Association and other influential political figures, while secretly acting at the behest of a powerful Russian official.
As proof, they note in court papers that the red-headed Russian offered another person sex “in exchange for a position within a special interest organization” and also “expressed disdain for continuing to cohabitate” with Erickson.
But Driscoll says their love is real, forged over their shared interest in gun rights.
“The government essentially, for lack of a better term, called her a whore,” he told “GMA.”
“It’s kind of unfortunate and frankly a little bit sexist, that because she’s a good-looking woman, there’s this presumption that any success she has is more to do with her looks than her three masters degrees.”
