Meet alleged Russian agent Maria Butina
Guns, student visa paved path to elite conservative circles and GOP influence
WASHINGTON — For nearly five years, the young Russian political-science student was an unusual fixture at the most important events of the U.S. conservative movement.
Maria Butina, who was indicted this week on charges of being a covert Russian agent, struck up friendships with the influential leaders of the National Rifle Association and the Conservative Political Action Conference, touting her interest in U.S. affairs and efforts to promote gun rights in Vladimir Putin’s restrictive Russia. She sidled up to GOP presidential candidates, seeking first an encounter with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and then, after his rising candidacy stumbled, with Donald Trump.
But by August 2016, when she moved to the U.S. on a student visa, the FBI was watching, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
By then, Butina had already publicly quizzed Trump about his views on Russia and briefly met his eldest son at an NRA convention. After the FBI began monitoring her, Butina attended a ball at Trump’s inauguration and tried to arrange a meeting between him and a senior Russian government official at last year’s annual National Prayer Breakfast.
By 2017, after she had enrolled as a graduate student at American University in Washington, D.C., Butina began probing groups on the left as well, trying unsuccessfully to interview a D.C.based civil rights group about its cyber-vulnerabilities for what she said was a school project, according to a person familiar with her outreach.
On Sunday, alerted that she was preparing to leave Washington for South Dakota, where monitoring her would be more difficult, federal authorities arrested Butina.
The 29-year-old was indicted by a grand jury on Tuesday, accused of conspiracy and failing to register as a foreign agent. The indictment alleges that she worked with her contact in the Russian government to infiltrate American political groups as part of a scheme “to advance the interests of the Russian Federation.”
Robert Driscoll, an attorney for Butina, said she is not a Russian agent but merely a student with an interest in politics and a desire to network with Americans.
Butina’s activities raise questions about why the NRA and other groups gave her high-level access, allowing her to meet important politicians and influential thought leaders.
NRA officials did not respond to requests for comment.
After a brief career as the owner of a small chain of furniture stores, Butina began a career in public relations and founded a group in Moscow called the Right to Bear Arms to advocate for the loosening of Russia’s restrictive gun laws.
Her group soon acquired a powerful patron, a Russian senator from Putin’s party who later became the deputy director of Russia’s central bank: Alexander Torshin, a lifetime member of the NRA who had ties with Christian conservatives through an annual prayer breakfast he helped host in Moscow.
Acting as Torshin’s assistant and translator, Butina soon began forming her own Maria Butina is accused of conspiracy and failing to register as a foreign agent. connections to the NRA, becoming friendly with David Keene, a past chairman of the American Conservative Union who served as the NRA’s president from 2011 to 2013.
In 2013, Butina and Torshin invited Keene and other American gun enthusiasts to Moscow to attend the annual meeting of her organization.
There, Butina met Paul Erickson, a South Dakotabased Republican operative who was well known to Republican insiders, going back to the work he did as national political director for Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaign in 1992. She told the Senate Intelligence Committee in April that she began a romantic relationship with the American op- erative, people familiar with her testimony said.
Erickson matches a description of an American described in court filings as a political operative who helped introduce Butina to influential American political figures “for the purpose of advancing the agenda of the Russian Federation.”
Erickson, who has not been charged, did not respond to requests for comment.
Starting in 2014, Butina began attending annual NRA conventions, according to her social-media accounts. She and Torshin got unusual access to elite NRA gatherings, according to a person familiar with NRA event arrangements. In recent years, they were regular guests at Golden Ring of Freedom dinners and VIP events reserved for people who typically donate $1 million to the NRA.
Butina told the Senate Intelligence Committee that neither she nor Torshin made contributions to the NRA other than membership dues, according to people familiar with her testimony. Their warm treatment was extended merely to thank them for serving as hosts to NRA leaders in Moscow, she said.
The NRA, which spent millions more to support Trump than any previous presidential candidate, has denied accepting funding from Butina or Torshin.
Still, it was the the NRA that gave Butina a springboard into the world of Republican politics. In March 2015, court documents show that she and Erickson exchanged emails about a special “diplomacy” project, aiming to use the organization to influence the Republican Party, which Butina predicted would win control of the White House.
At the group’s annual convention in Nashville that year, which featured a dozen presidential hopefuls, they mingled with headliners in a VIP green room, according to a person whowas present.
Butina had access to VIP areas at political events such as CPAC, giving her an in with organization leaders and top staff, according to people who saw her there.
She often raised the issue of gun rights before asking to exchange business cards and to stay in touch on social media, according to people who met her.
In a 2017 email to The Washington Post, Butina argued that her group was “not very popular” with Russian officials. She said she received no funding from the Russian government. “No government official has EVER approached me about ‘fostering ties’ with any Americans,” she wrote.
But according to the FBI, she spoke frequently with a “high-level official in the Russian government” about her efforts to broker better ties between Russia and the U. S. The description matches Torshin, who was among 17 senior Russian government officials penalized by the U.S. government in April for playing a role in advancing Russia’s “malign activities.”
In March 2016, she emailed an American contact that Putin’s administration had expressed approval for her and Torshin’s efforts to build a “communication channel” in the U.S., according to court filings.
On the night of Trump’s election victory, the filings say, she messaged Torshin, “I’m going to sleep. It’s 3 a.m. here. I am ready for further orders.”