What do ya know. On the day when Putin declared that Russia didn’t meddle in the 2016 elections and Trump seemed to agree with him, the DOJ charges a Russian woman with trying to aid the Kremlin in their effort to influence American politics:
#BREAKING: US DOJ announced espionage charges against a Russian woman who tried to broker Trump-Putin meetings during the 2016 campaign: Mariia Butina, charged in Conspiracy to Act as an Agent of the Russian Federation Within the US pic.twitter.com/gSUMkXZhHc
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) July 16, 2018
WASHINGTON EXAMINER – A Russian central bank staffer with close ties to the National Rifle Association has been charged with acting as an agent for Russia, without registering with the U.S. government as required by law, the Justice Department announced Monday.
Maria Butina, 29, the founder of a Russian gun-rights group and former associate to Aleksandr Torshin, a former Russian senator and close friend of President Vladmir Putin, was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of the Russian Federation within the U.S.
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.”
Butina first entered into the U.S. in August 2016 on a student visa, but immediately began serving as a special assistant to an unnamed Russian official.
That Russian official is likely Torshin, who dined with Donald Trump Jr. at the 2016 NRA convention.
Torshin, who is also deputy governor of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department this year.
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 said.
This is the same woman, according to the NY Times, who twice tried to arrange a meeting with Trump and Putin back in 2016:
Ms. Butina, whose first name is more commonly spelled Maria, twice tried to set up a meetings between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin in 2016. The charges announced Monday do not name Mr. Trump but they make clear that Ms. Butina’s overtures were part of a Russian intelligence operation.
Just so you know, she is here in the US and was arrested last Friday.
She isn’t being charged and prosecuted by Mueller, but rather DOJ national security prosecutors.