Maria Butina, Russian national with ties to NRA, indicted 24 hours after being charged – By Kelly Cohen (washingtonexaminer.com) / July 17 2018
A Russian national with close ties to the National Rifle Association has been indicted by a federal grand jury in D.C., roughly 24 hours after the Justice Department initially announced the charges.
Maria Butina, 29, was indicted Tuesday on charges of conspiracy against the U.S. and acting as an unregistered foreign agent of the Russian government.
Butina was arrested on Sunday and made an initial court appearance Monday afternoon. She is due to appear before Judge Deborah A. Robinson in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
According to the indictment, she entered the U.S. in August 2016 on a F-1 Student, where she declared under oath to the U.S. government that she was a special assistant to the Russian official named in Monday’s charging documents and was enrolling in American University in Washington.
However, despite her claim on her visa, she continued to act “under the direction and control” of the Russian official — assumed to be Aleksandr Torshin, a former Russian senator and close friend of President Vladimir Putin, “for the sole purpose of advancing the interests of the Russian federation.”
The federal grand jury knows the Russian official’s identity, the indictment reveals.
Court documents made public Monday say Butina tried to “exploit personal connections with U.S. persons having influence in American politics in an effort to advance the interests of the Russian Federation” and to “infiltrate organizations active in U.S. politics in an effort to advance the interests of the Russian Federation.”
Torshin, dined with Donald Trump Jr. at the 2016 National Rifle Association convention and is known a supporter of the group. Torshin, who is also deputy governor of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department this year.
McClatchy reported months prior, in January, that the FBI is investigating whether Torshin illegally funneled money to the NRA to help elect Donald Trump.
Court documents show that Butina and the Russian official, Torshin, took steps to develop relationships with American politicians in order to establish what she called “back channel” lines of communication.
“These lines could be used by the Russian Federation to penetrate the U.S. national decision-making apparatus to advance the agenda of the Russian Federation,” the affidavit, written by FBI Special Agent Kevin Helson, said.
“I believe that Butina and the Russian official took these steps in order to infiltrate those groups and advance the interests of the Russian Federation,” Helson wrote.
Neither the American politicians nor the groups are named, though a “gun rights organization” is likely the NRA.
“U.S. Person 1” and “U.S. Person 2″ are also named in the indictment as well as the affidavit.
U.S. Person 1, believed to be Republican operative Paul Erickson, worked with Butina to “arrange introductions to U.S. persons having influence in American politics,” including the NRA — though the group is not named directly in the indictment.
Butina also communicated with U.S. Person 2 via email in 2016 and 2017, specifically looking to “organize an event for the purpose of influencing the views of U.S. officials ”related to Russia,” the indictment says.
In a written statement on Monday, Robert Driscoll, an attorney for Butina, said his client is “not an agent” of Russia, and noted she has cooperated with the Senate Intelligence Committee in its investigation into Russian meddling and has produced “thousands of documents.”
“The substance of the charge in the complaint is overblown,” Driscoll said, adding, “There is simply no indication of Butina seeking to influence or undermine any specific policy or law in the United States.”
The charges against Butina come just days after special counsel Robert Mueller unveiled an indictment against 12 Russian intelligence officers for allegations of hacking Democrats in 2016, and just hours after President Trump walked back comments he made alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
However, the charges against Butina are not by Mueller.
