Russian admits effort to forge Kremlin bond with US conservatives
A Russian gun rights activist pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiring with a senior Russian official to infiltrate the conservative movement in the United States as an agent for the Kremlin from 2015 until her arrest in July.
Maria Butina, 30, became the first Russian national convicted of seeking to influence US policy in the run-up to the 2016 election as a foreign agent, agreeing to co-operate in a plea deal with US investigators in exchange for less prison time.
Butina admitted to working with an American political operative and under the direction of a former Russian senator and deputy governor of Russia’s central bank to forge bonds with officials at the National Rifle Association, conservative leaders and 2016 US presidential candidates, including Donald Trump, whose rise to the White House she presciently predicted to her Russian contact.
‘‘Guilty,’’ Butina said with a light accent in entering her plea with US District Judge Tanya Chutkan yesterday in federal court in Washington.
As part of her plea, Butina admitted seeking to establish and use ‘‘unofficial lines of communication with Americans having influence over US politics’’ for the benefit of the Russian government, through a person fitting the description of sanctioned Russian central banker Alexander Torshin, prosecutor Erik Kenerson said.
Butina’s case is a vivid ‘‘part of a larger mosaic of Russian influence operations’’ laid out in part by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference, said David Laufman, a former Justice Department official who headed the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section until earlier this year.
‘‘This case shines important light on the nature and aggressiveness of Russian influence operations targeting the United States, a threat that we need an unequivocal US government commitment to counter, including the president of the United States, and both houses of Congress,’’ he said.
In plea documents read by prosecutors in court yesterday, Butina admitted undertaking a multiyear influence campaign coordinated through Torshin, a top Russian official, that she proposed in March 2015 as multiyear ‘‘Diplomacy Project.’’
Requesting US$125,000 (NZ$183,000) from a Russian billionaire and citing the NRA’s influence on the Republican Party, Butina travelled to conferences to socialise with GOP presidential candidates, host ‘‘friendship dinners’’ with wealthy Americans, bond with NRA leaders and organise a Russian delegation to the influential National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.
Kenerson said at the dinners, ‘‘Butina was able to meet individuals with political capital, to learn their thoughts and inclinations toward Russia, gauge their responses to her, and adjust her pitch accordingly.’’
Butina’s efforts, which continued after she moved to Washington as a graduate student at American University in 2016, included asking whether the Russian government was ready to meet her contacts.
Court documents indicate Butina worked closely in her efforts to advance Russia’s interests with a Republican Party consultant with whom she had a romantic relationship after they met while he visited Moscow in 2013.
The operative, previously named as Paul Erickson, is a longtime GOP political adviser from South Dakota who managed the 1992 presidential campaign of Pat Buchanan.
In a statement on Thursday, Erickson’s lawyer, William Hurd, said, ‘‘Paul Erickson is a good American. He has never done anything to hurt our country and never would.’’
Butina’s initiative came during what the US intelligence community has said was a concerted Russian government effort to help elect Trump, including by hacking and distributing emails stolen from Democrats. Although Mueller is investigating links between that effort and individuals in Trump’s campaign, Butina was prosecuted by the US attorney’s office in Washington.
Butina crossed paths with Trump in July 2015, when she asked the newly declared Republican candidate about Russia and sanctions at a public event in Las Vegas. ‘‘We get along with Putin,’’ Trump told Butina, referring to the Russian president. ‘‘I don’t think you’d need the sanctions.’’
Erickson also tried to get Trump to meet Torshin when both attended the NRA’s convention in May 2016, referring to Torshin as ‘‘Putin’s emissary’’ in an email to a campaign official. The campaign declined a meeting, but documents provided to Congress show Butina and Torshin met briefly during the event with Donald Trump Jr, one of the president’s sons.
In plea papers, prosecutors agreed to drop a second count against Butina of violating a law that requires foreigners working for their government to register with the US Justice Department. There is no suggestion in the documents that Butina was employed by the Russian intelligence services, but violations of the law are considered more serious than a separate law that requires registration by paid lobbyists for foreign entities.
Under her plea deal, Butina agreed to co-operate ‘‘completely and forthrightly’’ with American law enforcement.
Butina faces a possible maximum prison sentence of five years followed by deportation. Under the deal, her defence agreed that she could face a recommended zero to six months in prison under federal guidelines, and could seek a lower sentence. Prosecutors did not agree on any guidelines range, but agreed to request leniency if she provides ‘‘substantial assistance.’’
Butina, who has been jailed since her arrest in July, agreed to remain behind bars pending her sentencing date, which has not been set pending Butina’s ongoing co-operation. She appeared thinner in court yesterday than in appearances last summer, wearing a green prison jumpsuit with holes in the elbows of a white thermal undershirt, with her red hair braided.
Before the plea, the Russian Foreign Ministry continued to support Butina, planning to send embassy personnel to her hearing and posting a statement on Twitter by spokeswoman Maria Zakharov, saying, ‘‘We demand that Washington observe legal rights of Maria Butina & release her as soon as possible.’’ In the ‘‘Diplomacy Project,’’ Butina suggested using unofficial channels to influence US foreign policy.
Butina and Torshin invited NRA leaders to Moscow in December 2015, a delegation that included David Keene, a former NRA president and past head of the powerful American Conservative Union. Documents reviewed previously by The Washington Post show the group met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
– Washington Post
The group documented more than 120 crimes, including homicide, disappearances and rape in Tumaco, most taking place after the 2016 signing of the accord to end Latin America’s longest-running conflict. The homicide rate in Tumaco was four times higher than Colombia’s national average in 2017 and ex-combatants with the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia are believed responsible for much of the violence, the group said.
‘‘This is brutal,’’ said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Human Rights Watch’s Americas director.
Kidnappings and homicides have dipped to record lows in many parts of Colombia but residents live in fear in more remote regions where even basic services like safe drinking water and medical care are scarce.
Vivanco noted that at least 300 members of a criminal gang known as ‘‘Los Rastrojos’’ had become employees of the FARC before the peace deal but were not counted as former rebels when it came time to implement the accord. Instead, many ended up joining dissident factions of the guerrilla army and returning to combat.
Other former rebels went to transition zones set up by Colombia’s government only to find the sites lacked essentials like running water and electricity and eventually became so disillusioned they decided to join their dissident comrades.
Violence is being used in Tumaco by the dissident guerrilla front and other armed criminal groups competing for territory in one of the nation’s biggest coca growing regions, Vivanco said.
Human Rights Watch documented 21 killings there, including that of a fisherman who was found shot to death with a sign on his chest that read ‘‘for thieving and snitching’’.
Vivanco said a military response alone would not be sufficient to quell the violence and urged Colombia’s government to pursue development strategies that would improve economic prospects for residents and curb the illegal drug trade. –AP