Russian agent connected to NRA charged with conspiracy against America

Just hours after President Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, the Justice Department revealed charges against a Russian citizen for conspiracy against the U.S.

Mariia Butina, a Russian national living in Washington, D.C., was charged Monday with conspiracy to act as an unregistered Russian agent, per the DOJ's press release. She was arrested in D.C. on Sunday after allegedly working from 2015 until at least February 2017 to infiltrate American politics.

Butina apparently built close ties with the GOP through a gun rights organization, which sources say is the NRA, to advance Russia's interests in America, per the DOJ affadavit. She connected with politicians and candidates and even went to National Prayer Breakfasts, all under the direction of a high-level Russian official who was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in April, The Associated Press reports. Butina was supposed to be studying international relations in the U.S. on a student visa but was secretly reporting back to Moscow, per NPR.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

In a statement, Butina's lawyer denied the charges, saying that "there is simply no indication of Butina seeking to influence or undermine any specific policy or law in the United States," NPR says. The charges are not part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into the 2016 election but are connected to a separate Russian intelligence operation, The New York Times reports.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.