Jail: Maria Butina appeared in federal court Thursday from her prison cell. She is awaiting sentence
Russian agent Maria Butina pleaded guilty Thursday in court to joining a conspiracy on behalf of the Kremlin to cultivate sources inside the Republican party before the 2016 presidential election.
The 30-year-old pleaded guilty to one count of 'conspiracy against the United States' when she appeared at federal court in Washington D.C.
The case has already sparked fury from the Kremlin who accused the U.S. of 'torture' and comparing her ordeal to the 'medieval Inquisition.'
Butina said she acted at 'the direction' of a Russian official, who was not named in court, but previously been identified as Alexander Torshin, a Russian politician close to Vladimir Putin and who is now subject to U.S. sanctions as well as being an alleged mafia money-launderer.
Together they worked on what was called the 'Diplomacy Project' using her boyfriend, conservative political operative Paul Erickson, 56, to help her as she tried to use his ties with the NRA to set up the back channels.
She managed to meet Donald Trump Jr., ask his father a question at an NRA-linked event, pose for pictures with top Republicans including Rick Santorum and Scott Walker, and take part in the national prayer breakfast in Washington D.C.
The agent faces up to five years in prison and deportation from the U.S. although she will not be sentenced until 2019.
The government dropped a second charge of failing to register while acting as a 'foreign agent.'
She is cooperating with prosecutors – and is the first Russian national convicted in connection with efforts to influence the 2016 elections.
Crucially, she has agreed to cooperate with all federal authorities, meaning that as well as telling the FBI and other intelligence agencies how her Kremlin spy operation worked, she could provide evidence to Robert Mueller's special counsel probe - although it was not mentioned in court.
Mueller has charged numerous Russians with hacking Democratic emails, and his probe has charged multiple officials who worked for Donald Trump with lying about their Russia contacts.
Admission: Maria Butin said 'absolutely as she stood, flanked by attorney Robert Driscoll, and was asked if she understood what she was pleading guilty to
Butina pleaded guilty to being part of a conspiracy to influence a political party – the GOP. Here she is with Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who was at one time a leading presidential candidate
Butina with former Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, who is now a CNN commentator - an image she posted openly on her Instagram feed
In this photo taken on Friday, Sept. 7, 2012, Maria Butina walks with Alexander Torshin then a member of the Russian upper house of parliament in Moscow, Russia. Prosecutors describe Torshin as her handler
'Butina sought to establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over US politics,' Judge Tanya Chutkan was told.
She faces up to five years in jail and a $250,000 fine, having already spent time in solitary confinement after her arrest.
Butina, who was a graduate student at American University studying in the U.S., built up an extensive resume, reaching out the National Rifle Association and Republicans, and even scored a meeting with the president's eldest son in the run-up to the presidential campaign.
PUTIN'S HENCHMAN CONTROLLED HONEYTRAP MARIA
Alexander Torshin is the most high-profile Russian politician yet to be directly implicated in investigations into whether his country meddled in the 2016 election.
His place controlling Maria Butina's 'diplomacy project' is unlikely to see him arrested or indicted as long as he stays in Russia.
A lawyer, the 65-year-old has been at the top of Russian politics since the collapse of the Soviet Union and has help positions including a senior executive at the Russian central bank in the 1990s, and for four months in 2011 was speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament.
In reality, his roles mean that he has had proximity to Vladimir Putin for years - and that anything he carried out would have been with the Kremlin boss's approval.
Ultimate boss: Maria Butina named her handler as Alexander Torshin, a Russian politician who is close to Vladimir Putin
Among the key appointments he has held one stands out - working on the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, which brings together the Kremlin's spies, military commanders and the foreign, interior and defense ministers.
At the start of this decade he became a gun rights campaigner and claimed to be setting up a Russian equivalent to the NRA.
He has boasted on Twitter, NPR reported, about meeting every NRA president since 2012, and used his friendship with NRA leaders to become an international election observer in Tennessee during the 2012 election.
Cultivating the gun lobby group worked; he is one of what he claims are only two Russian lifetime members of the NRA.
The other is Butina, who acted as his assistant in political campaigning in Russia, then came to the U.S. to study at American University - apparently a cover story which he knew about all along.
But Torshin is also accused of being a mafia boss who was involved in money-laundering.
Spanish police planned to arrest him when he was due to come to Mallorca in 2013 for a party but he did not show up - with fears that he had been tipped off by his own government.
And in 2017 he was scheduled to visit the White House but the meeting was cancelled when a national security aide realized that he was part of the Spanish authorities' continuing investigation, the New York Times reported.
This year he was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury as one of a group of oligarchs and politicians who 'who benefit from the Putin regime and play a key role in advancing Russia's malign activities.'
Clad in a green jumpsuit with her red hair pulled back in a long braid, Butina replied 'absolutely' when asked by Chutkan if her mind was clear as she prepared to enter her plea of guilty.
Although there are no sentencing guidelines for her specific crime, her lawyer, Robert Driscoll, estimated that under U.S. sentencing guidelines for similar crimes, she could face up to six months in prison.
In the statement of offense read aloud in court, one of the prosecutors said Butina had drafted a 'Diplomacy Project' that called for establishing unofficial back channels of communication between high-ranking American politicians to help benefit Russia.
As part of that plan, she acknowledged that she conspired with two Americans and a Russian official.
Butina's lawyers previously identified the Russian official as Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia's central bank who was targeted with U.S. Treasury Department sanctions in April.
Butina admitted that she 'sought to establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over U.S. politics.'
She said her boyfriend, Erickson, helped her as she tried to use his ties with the NRA to set up the back channels. Erickson, who is referred to as 'U.S. Person 1' in court papers, he has not been charged.
In their filings, prosecutors have said federal agents found Butina had contact information for people suspected of being employed by Russia's Federal Security Services, or FSB, the successor intelligence agency to the KGB. Inside her home, they found notes referring to a potential job offer from the FSB, according to the documents.
Investigators recovered several emails and Twitter direct message conversations in which Butina referred to the need to keep her work secret and, in one instance, said it should be 'incognito.'
Prosecutors said Butina had contact with Russian intelligence officials and that the FBI photographed her dining with a diplomat suspected of being a Russian intelligence agent.
Among those she had contact with were the president, who she asked a question of at an event linked to the NRA, and his eldest son Donald Trump Jr., who she met at an NRA dinner.
Her meeting with Don Jr. was one of a litany of contacts between Trump officials and Russians during the campaign.
A total of 16 people in Donald Trump's circle have been revealed to have met with Russians during the campaign.
According to papers filed earlier by federal prosecutors, Butina sent write-ups of events she attended to Torshin at his request.
She also helped coordinate Torshin's planned attendance at the National Prayer Breakfast, an influential event in Washington, and provided him with biographies on expected attendees.
During their email conversations, which investigators obtained from Butina's cell phone and devices, the alleged Russian agent discussed Torshin's 'serious mission – restoration of relations between [the U.S. and Russia].'
Torshin told Butina that their 'Russian-American project' had support from the Putin administration 'for building this back-channel.'
In 2015, Butina and Torshin attended a fundraising event with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who was considered at the time to be a frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.
Butina later wrote in her online journal that her meeting with Walker 'will remain in my memory forever' because he seemed to show an affinity for Russia.
'I first met Scott Walker, who was introduced to me,' she wrote.
'And then something happened that I did not expect: the first words in many, many days in Russian, I heard from the future nominee in the US presidency from the Republican Party, who, having learned that I from Russia with a smile said 'Hello!', And during the conversation he remembered another word: 'Thank you!'.'
'Imagine my shock at the very moment ?!' she added. 'We talked about Russia, I did not hear any aggression towards our country, the president or my compatriots,' wrote Butina.
'How to know, maybe such meetings are the beginning of a new dialogue between Russia and the US and back from the Cold War to the peaceful existence of the two great powers?!'
Maria Butina was able to infiltrate the National Rifle Association. She admitted she was directed by a powerful Russian handler
Contacts: Maria Butina asked Donald Trump a question at an NRA-linked event and had social contact with Donald Trump Jr.
Question time: This was the moment Maria Butina questioned Donald Trump on relations with Russia at a 2015 'freedom forum' event linked to the NRA
She admitted meeting with members of the NRA and 'Political Party 1,' - the Republican Party - as well as meeting arranging a meeting between the NRA and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in December 2015.
In an incriminating email, she reported back to Torshin, 'We should let them express their gratitude now, we will put pressure on them quietly later.'
Prosecutors have charged that her work was directed by the former Russian lawmaker who was penalized by the Treasury Department for his alleged ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and is alleged to have links to the Russian mafia.
Her lawyer had argued that Butina was a student interested in American politics and better U.S.-Russian relations, but her changed plea means she has abandoned that claim.
The charges against Butina were brought by federal prosecutors in Washington, and her case was unrelated to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
But her cooperation deal has no limits, meaning she could also be used by Mueller's probe as a source of evidence.
In Moscow, Vladimir Putin this week denied his spies knew her but on Wednesday Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova spoke about her, suggesting the Kremlin in quietly admitting she was one of their assets.
Zakharova claimed Butina has been subjected to a 'medieval inquisition'.
She told CNN: 'It's not about justice, it's not justice. It's just inquisition. It's medieval inquisition. Because she is intimidated, she was tortured and was not treated like a human being, not like a woman.
'I think she was treated and is still treated probably as a terrorist or something like that,' she added.
Zakharova claimed Butina is a political prisoner and is innocent.
She said: 'She did nothing wrong, she is not a criminal, not a terrorist ... We have no idea why she was treated like that.' The US attorney's office declined to comment.
Butina was charged in July with acting as an agent of Russia's government and conspiracy to take actions on behalf of Moscow.
Maria Butina, a gun-rights activist poses for a photo at a shooting range in Moscow, Russia. Russian woman Maria Butina has been jailed in the U.S. on charges that she tried to infiltrate U.S. political organizations as a covert Russian agent
One of the two Americans cited in the prosecution's criminal complaint was Paul Erickson, a conservative U.S. political activist who was dating Butina. Neither Erickson nor Torshin has been accused by prosecutors of wrongdoing.
The prosecutors in the Butina case are not from the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russia's role in the 2016 U.S. election and whether Trump's campaign conspired with Moscow to help him win.
The prosecution's complaint against Butina did not explicitly mention Trump's campaign.
Reuters previously reported that Butina was a Trump supporter who bragged at Washington parties that she could use her political connections to help people get jobs in his administration.
Trump has denied any collusion with Moscow. Russia has denied interfering in American politics
https://textbacklinkexchanges.com/category/the-sun-world/https://textbacklinkexchanges.com/accused-russian-honeytrap-spy-pleads-guilty-to-plotting-to-infiltrate-republican-party/
News Pictures Accused Russian honeytrap spy pleads GUILTY to plotting to infiltrate Republican party
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