The Scouting Report: A weekly digest

Russian agent with South Dakota connections, farm and ranch report, European corruption

Maria Butina, the Russian temptress who spent time in South Dakota with her former boyfriend, Paul Erickson, made news when she greeted Viktor Bout at the airport after Bout was released in a prisoner swap with the United States.

Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer, was imprisoned in the United States, but he was swapped for professional basketball player Brittney Griner. Griner had been convicted in Russia earlier this year of possessing cannabis vape cartridges and sentenced to nine years of hard labor.

Butina, now a member of Russia’s Parliament, interviewed Bout upon his successful repatriation to the Russian Motherland. She gloated that the United States had traded the arms dealer, known as the Merchant of Death, for the basketball player.

Legislative predictions, how the Partridge Amendment came to be, the value of lawmaker travel