Tag: Maria Butina

Alleged Russian agent Maria Butina poised to plead guilty in case involving suspected Kremlin attempts to influence NRA

Maria Butina, 30, is accused of working to push the Kremlin’s agenda in the United States. Credit: Civic Chamber of the Russian Federationm, EPA-EFE, Shutterstock

Maria Butina, a Russian gun rights activist, is poised to plead guilty in a case involving accusations that she was working as an agent for the Kremlin in the United States, according to a new court filing.

Federal prosecutors and attorneys for Butina jointly requested in court documents Monday that U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan set a time for Butina to withdraw her previous plea of not guilty.

“The parties have resolved this matter,” Butina’s attorneys and D.C.-based prosecutors wrote in their joint filing.

View the complete December 10 article by Rosalind S. Helderman and Spencer S. Hsu on The Washington Post website here.

Wife of Former N.R.A. President Tapped Accused Russian Agent in Pursuit of Jet Fuel Payday

The following article by Matthew Rosenberg, Michael LaForgia and Andrew E. Kramer was posted on the New York Times website September 2, 2018:

Maria Butina’s efforts to deal in Russian jet fuel were detailed in hundreds of pages of previously unreported emails. Credit: Press Service of Civic Chamber of The Russian Federation/EPA, via Shutterstock

WASHINGTON — For the young Russian gun rights activist studying in the United States, it would have been an unimaginably rich payday: $1 million to help broker the sale of Russian jet fuel to an American middleman. All she had to do was secure the fuel.

So the activist, Maria Butina, whom American prosecutors now accuse of being a covert Russian agent, reached out to contacts in her homeland — and turned on the charm. In a July 2017 email, she told one man that his passport photo was “a handsome one.”

The following month, she told another Russian contact that she had labeled him in her phone as “the lovely Shakhov.” Every time he called, she was notified that “‘the lovely Shakov is calling you,’” Ms. Butina wrote. “Good feelings.”

View the complete article here.

Dems Want to Know If Bolton Told White House About Contact With Alleged Spy

The following article by Stephanie Akin was posted on the Roll Call website August 20, 2018:

National security adviser appeared with Butina at gun rights roundtable when he worked for NRA

National Security Adviser John Bolton reportedly appeared with alleged Russian spy Maria Butina when he was a top official with the National Rifle Association. Credit: Mark Wilson, Getty Images file photo

Top Democrats on the House Oversight Committee want to know if National Security Adviser John Bolton told the White House about his reported contact with alleged Russian spy Maria Butina before he was appointed by President Trump.

Bolton appeared with Butina in a video roundtable discussion about gun rights, reportedly sponsored by the Russian organization Right to Bear Arms, in his previous position as a top National Rifle Association official, Democrats Elijah Cummings and Stephen Lynch wrote in a letter to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly delivered Monday.

Butina was charged in July by federal prosecutors with infiltrating the National Rifle Association and spying on the United States.

View the complete article here.

Alleged Russian Agent Maria Butina Had Ties to Trump Campaign National Security Staffer: Report

The following article by Cody Fenwick was posted on the AlterNet website August 3, 2018:

The new report reveals closer connections with the campaign than had previously been disclosed.

Credit: Pavel Starikov

Maria Butina, a Russian national who has been arrested on charges of working secretly as an agent of the Kremlin, interacted with one-time Trump campaign staffer J.D. Gordon in the final months of the 2016 campaign, according to a new report from the Washington Post. 

Gordon reportedly served as the director of national security on Trump’s campaign until he left in 2016 to work on the transition team.

According to emails obtained by the Post, Gordon and Butina corresponded socially over email in the waning days of the campaign. Gordon reportedly invited her to attend a concert and his birthday party in October. While the interactions seem innocuous enough on their face, prosecutors allege that Butina used ostensibly social interactions as part of her intelligence work.

View the complete article here.

Trump associate socialized with alleged Russian agent Maria Butina in final weeks of 2016 campaign

The following article by Rosalind S. Helderman was posted on the Washington Post website AUgust 3, 2018:

Maria Butina, 29, founded a Russian group called the Right to Bear Arms. On July 16 she was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of Russia. (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

Maria Butina, the Russian gun-rights activist who was charged last month with working as an unregistered agent of the Kremlin, socialized in the weeks before the 2016 election with a former Trump campaign aide who anticipated joining the presidential transition team, emails show, putting her in closer contact with President Trump’s orbit than was previously known.

Butina sought out interactions with J.D. Gordon, who served for six months as the Trump campaign’s director of national security before leaving in August 2016 and being offered a role in the nascent Trump transition effort, according to documents and testimony provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee and described to The Washington Post.

The two exchanged several emails in September and October 2016, culminating in an invitation from Gordon to attend a concert by the rock band Styx in Washington. Gordon also invited Butina to attend his birthday party in late October of that year.

View the complete article here.

Before her arrest as an alleged Russian agent, Maria Butina’s proud defense of her homeland drew notice at American University

The following article by Rosalind S. Helderman Moriah Balingit, Shane Harris and Tom Hamburger was posted on the Washington Post website July 25, 2018:

Maria Butina, 29, founded a Russian group called the Right to Bear Arms. On July 16 she was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of Russia. (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

On a campus full of ambitious students aiming to land influential U.S. government and policy jobs, Maria Butina cut an unusual profile.

It wasn’t just the outspoken conservative politics of the auburn-haired Russian woman that drew the attention of other graduate students at American University. There was also her almost zealous embrace of her homeland.

Butina’s cellphone case was emblazoned with a famous photograph of Russian President Vladi­mir Putin riding shirtless on a horse. She would buy friends rounds of vodka at Russia House, the Dupont Circle restaurant popular with the Russian diplomatic set, sometimes challenging male friends to down horseradish-infused shots. She bragged to classmates that she had worked for the Russian government.

View the complete article here.

Russian billionaire with U.S. investments backed alleged agent Maria Butina, according to a person familiar with her Senate testimony

The following article by Rosalind S. Helderman was posted on the Washington Post website July 22, 2018:

Maria Butina, 29, founded a Russian group called the Right to Bear Arms. On July 16 she was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of Russia. (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

Maria Butina, the Russian woman charged in federal court lastweek with acting as an unregistered agent of her government, received financial support from Konstantin Nikolaev, a Russian billionaire with investments in U.S. energy and technology companies, according to a person familiar with testimony she gave Senate investigators.

Butina told the Senate Intelligence Committee in April that Nikolaev provided funding for a gun rights group she represented, according to the person. A spokesman for Nikolaev confirmed that he was in contact with her as she was launching the gun rights group in Russia between 2012 and 2014. He declined to confirm whether Nikolaev gave her financial support.

Nikolaev’s fortune has been built largely through port and railroad investments in Russia. He also sits on the board of American Ethane, a Houston ethane company that was showcased by President Trump at an event in China last year, and is an investor in a Silicon Valley start-up.

View the complete article here.

Accused Russian spy was guest at U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford’s Thanksgiving BBQ last year

The following article by Schuyler Kropf was posted on the Post and Courier website July 20, 2018:

US Rep. Mark Sanford, R-SC. Credit: Grace Beahm Alford, Staff File

The alleged female Russian spy who tried to make in-roads with the National Rifle Association and now faces federal conspiracy charges, spent Thanksgiving last year at U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford’s farm.

Sanford, R-S.C., confirmed to The Post and Courier he met Maria Butina during a post-Thankgiving annual barbecue that drew up to 300 people.

She visited the farm, known as Coosaw Plantation in Beaufort County, in 2017 with her boyfriend Paul Erickson.

View the complete article here.

House Democrats say GOP blocked them from interviewing alleged Russian agent in probe

The following article by Eric Lutz was posted on the Mic.com website July 18, 2018:

Maria Butina Credit: AP

Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence are accusing their Republican counterparts of having blocked them from interviewing alleged Russian spy Maria Butina, who was arrested Sunday and charged over apparent attempts to infiltrate American political organizations to advance Moscow’s interests.

“More likely to come on this,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the panel, tweeted Monday. “No wonder GOP members of HPSCI refused our request to bring her and others in.” Continue reading “House Democrats say GOP blocked them from interviewing alleged Russian agent in probe”

This email from accused Russian spy Maria Butina did not age well

The following article by Josh Israel was posted on the ThinkProgress website July 18, 2018:

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there is no international conspiracy at work…”

Mariia Butina, leader of a pro-gun organization, at a press conference in Moscow. Credit:  STR/AFP, Getty Images

Maria Butina, the founder of the Russian equivalent of the National Rifle Association and a key ally of Vladimir Putin’s central bank deputy governor Alexander Torshin, was indicted on Tuesday on charges of conspiracyand for failure to registered as a foreign agent. According to the Department of Justice’s application for criminal complaint, Butina worked to “arrange introductions to U.S. persons having influence in American politics, including an organization promoting gun rights” and to “infiltrate those groups” to advance the Russian Federation’s agenda.

Nearly two years ago, ThinkProgress first reported on Butina and her group’s mysterious connections with the National Rifle Association and the 2016 elections. Experts at the time suggested that her connections with the Trump campaign and the gun-rights movement could be cover for a larger effort to undermine American sanctions against Russia. Among the connections noted were that Butina had somehow been able to ask Trump a question about trade with Russia at a Las Vegas campaign event and that her organization had helped pay to bring Trump surrogate and then-Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke to Moscow.

The arrangement caught the attention of federal prosecutors and Senate Democrats investigating the Putin regime’s meddling in the 2016 elections. The alleged ties were widely dismissed and mocked by conservatives.

View the complete article on the ThinkProgress website here.