ACCUSED RUSSIAN AGENT PLEADS GUILTY

WASHINGTON: A Russian national who built a powerful network of Republican contacts via the US gun rights lobby that reached into President Donald Trump’s circle admitted on Thursday acting as an illegal foreign agent.

Maria Butina - the first Russian convicted in the sprawl of cases arising from Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election - faces up to six months in prison, followed by likely expulsion.

Prosecutors said she launched a plan in March 2015 to develop ties with the Republican Party with the aim of influencing US foreign policy.

They also said she worked together with her American boyfriend, Republican operative and National Rifle Association insider Paul Erickson, to pursue the plan.

The plot was guided and financed in part by Alexander Torshin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin and deputy governor of the Russian central bank whose retirement was reported last week by US media.

Butina’s contacts took her into the high echelons of the Republican hierarchy.

She gained public attention in July 2015 when she was selected to ask then-candidate Trump a question about his plans for ties with Russia at a rally in Las Vegas.

“I believe I would get along very nicely with Putin... I don’t think you’d need the sanctions,” he said.