Russian ‘agent’ Maria Butina faces sentencing
WASHINGTON: Alleged Russian agent Maria Butina faces sentencing in Washington Friday over her open effort to build a network of high-level Republican contacts via ties to the NRA gun lobby.
While prosecutors have asked for 18 months in prison for the 30-year- old Siberian redhead, she could be deported immediately, after already spending nine months in a US jail.
A key variable, analysts say, could be how her case is linked to Russia’s recent arrest of American former Marine Paul Whelan on spying charges.
The Justice Department alleged that although she lacks ties to Moscow’s espionage agencies, Butina was part of a broad Russian plot to infiltrate and disrupt US politics — which included meddling in the 2016 election.
But Butina argued that her five-year effort building a network with Republicans — bringing her into contact with President Donald Trump in 2015 — was no more than a private endeavor to build US- Russian friendship.
Moscow says she is the victim of a witch hunt and for months the Foreign Ministry has placed her picture at the top of its social media accounts, saying “Free Maria Butina.”
Butina is the only Russian to have been arrested during the sprawling, nearly three-year investigation into meddling in the 2016 election.
She pleaded guilty last year to one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the US government — a charge US prosecutors call ‘espionage-lite.’
Her case appears completely unrelated to the Russian election interference that Special Counsel Robert Mueller documented in his report last week on the investigation, and none of her American contacts have been accused of anything. — AFP