Russian sought ever-expanding circle of prominent friends

WASHINGTON — Twelve days after a young Russian gun-rights activist gained access to some of America’s most prominent conservatives, a Republican operative was eager to keep the momentum going.

In a February 2017 email, Paul Erickson, proposed another “U.S./Russia friendship” dinner. He noted that the activist, Maria Butina, who now is accused of being a covert Russian agent, was making an “ever-expanding circle of influential friends.”

The recipient of the email was George O’Neill Jr., a Rockefeller relative and conservative writer. He was helping pay Butina’s bills, said a person familiar with their relationship, and hoped to make her the centerpiece of his own project to improve U.S. ties to Russia.

In bringing charges last month against Butina, 29, federal prosecutors described her activities as part of a campaign, supported by Russian intelligence, to use gun rights as a Trojan horse to make her way into conservative groups and advance Moscow’s interests in the U.S.

While the charging documents focus on her alleged ef- forts to infiltrate the National Rifle Association, interviews with more than two dozen people in Russia and the U.S. show that her attempts at connecting with prominent U.S. conservatives extended beyond the gunrights group. The interviews, along with emails obtained by the New York Times, also reveal new details about her ties to the two older U.S. men she relied on to make her way in the U.S.: Erickson, with whom she struck up a romance, and O’Neill.

Prosecutors allege that the relationships were nothing more than vehicles for her work on behalf of Russia, citing messages in which Butina told a Russian official that all her activities would be “only incognito!”

Butina’s defenders say she was an idealistic, if naive, activist. She denies allegations she was a covert agent who used sex as spycraft, according to her lawyer, Robert Driscoll.

In the past four years, roughly $89,000 moved between the U.S. bank accounts of Erickson, who could not be reached for comment, and Butina’s Russian bank account. All told, Treasury officials flagged as suspicious nearly $300,000 in transactions in and out of her Russian bank account.

O’Neill, who is not accused of wrongdoing and who declined to comment, met Butina at a convention for big-game hunters in Las Vegas. He has used his wealth to advocate a U.S. withdrawal from conflicts around the world and for better relations with Russia.

With Erickson opening doors, Butina met with conservatives around Washington. Some of the sessions were organized by O’Neill, who once compared America’s national security establishment to the “wickedness” of the Soviet Union.