NRA-Involved Woman Charged With Being a Russian Spy

A 29-year-old woman active in Washington, D.C., politics has been arrested and charged with being a Russian agent. She was reportedly very involved with gun rights groups in D.C., including the NRA, and conspired to use one of these groups as a conduit to facilitate communication between a U.S. political party and the Kremlin. . .

Maria Butina was arrested on Sunday and appeared before a U.S. District Court judge on Monday. According to the unsealed criminal complaint, Butina was charged “with conspiracy to act as an agent of the Russian Federation within the United States without prior notification to the Attorney General.”

A press release from the Department of Justice stated that “from as early as 2015 and continuing through at least February 2017, Butina worked at the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government who was previously a member of the legislature of the Russian Federation and later became a top official at the Russian Central Bank. This Russian official was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control in April 2018.

The Washington Post reported that her attorney had said that the FBI had searched Butina’s residence. The complaint lists (with redacted names) messages between Butina, a Russian official, and at least two U.S. citizens.

According to a LinkedIn page for a Maria Butina with a profile picture that resembles pictures of her from news stories, Butina has been a research assistant at American University’s Kogod School of Business in Washington, D.C., since October 2017. It also claims that she “founded a gun rights organization in Russia [The Right to Bear Arms] that grew to over 10,000 members.” Her lawyer confirmed to the Post that she had recently earned a master’s degree from American University. (Read more from “NRA-Involved Woman Charged With Being a Russian Spy” HERE)

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