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Maria Butina, Suspected Secret Agent, Used Sex in Covert Plan, Prosecutors Say

"There’s actually lots of evidence of Trump-Russia collusion"

Video - 2:35 Shadowy Foreign Agent? Hardly. Inside Maria Butina’s Prolific Social Media Feed.
Maria Butina pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as a foreign agent by working for an organized Russian effort to influence
U.S. politics. But she was hardly a shadowy figure. Here’s what her online profile revealed.CreditCreditAssociated Press

By Sharon LaFraniere and Adam Goldman

July 18, 2018

WASHINGTON — For four years, a Russian accused of being a covert agent pursued a brazen effort to infiltrate conservative circles and influence powerful Republicans while she secretly was in contact with Russian intelligence operatives, a senior Russian official and a billionaire oligarch close to the Kremlin whom she called her “funder,” federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.

The woman, Maria Butina, carried out her campaign through a series of deceptions that began in 2014, if not earlier, prosecutors said. She lied to obtain a student visa to pursue graduate work at American University in 2016. Apparently hoping for a work visa that would grant her a longer stay, she offered one American sex in exchange for a job. She moved in with a Republican political operative nearly twice her age, describing him as her boyfriend. But she privately expressed “disdain” for him and had him do her homework, prosecutors said.

In a dramatic two-hour hearing in Federal District Court here, prosecutors said that Ms. Butina, who is charged with conspiracy and illegally acting as an agent of the Russian government, was the point person in a calculated, long-term campaign intended to steer high-level politicians toward Moscow’s objectives. Though prosecutors did not name any party or politician, Ms. Butina’s efforts were clearly aimed at Republican leaders, especially those with White House aspirations in 2016, including Donald J. Trump.

[...]

Secretly, she and others laid the groundwork for a $125,000 operation to connect with Republican leaders through a network of contacts with the National Rifle Association and conservative religious groups, including the organizers of the National Prayer Breakfast, prosecutors said. “The defendant’s covert influence campaign involved substantial planning, international coordination and preparation,” they said.

[...]

Her contact list included an email account associated with the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the Russian intelligence agency that is the main successor to the Soviet K.G.B., and F.B.I. agents who searched her apartment found a handwritten note that read, “How to respond to F.S.B. offer of employment?” She was also photographed with the former ambassador at the Russian Embassy in Washington.

[...]

F.B.I. agents have been surveilling Ms. Butina, who graduated in May with a master’s degree in international relations, for the past year.

In a search of her apartment near American University in the Tenleytown neighborhood of Washington, F.B.I. agents uncovered a trail of messages between Ms. Butina and Mr. Torshin, who, like Ms. Butina, worked to build contact with N.R.A. officials. After she was featured in several news articles, Mr. Torshin likened her to Anna Chapman, a Russian intelligence agent who was arrested in the United States in 2010, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to act as a Russian agent, and was deported to Russia as part of a swap for American prisoners.

“Are your admirers asking for your autographs yet? You have upstaged Anna Chapman,” Mr. Torshin wrote.

In the weeks before the election, the two agreed she should keep a low profile, with Ms. Butina referring to herself as being “underground.” But after Ms. Butina sent Mr. Torshin a photograph of herself near the United States Capitol on the day Mr. Trump was inaugurated, he exclaimed: “You’re a daredevil girl! What can I say!” She responded, “Good teachers!”

Mr. Kenerson argued, “This is not the language of someone here just to study at American University.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/us/politics/maria-butina-russia-espionage.html