Maria Butina
Maria Valerievna Butina is a Russian politician, political activist, journalist, and former entrepreneur who was convicted in 2018 of acting as an unregistered foreign agent of Russia within the United States.
Butina worked as an assistant for Aleksandr Torshin, a former member of the Federation Council, member of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, and deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia. In this role, she tried to infiltrate conservative groups in the US, including the National Rifle Association, as part of an effort to promote Russian interests in the 2016 United States presidential election. The Senate Intelligence Committee later concluded that she attempted to persuade the Trump campaign to establish a secret communications back channel with Russia.
In July 2018, while residing in Washington, D.C., Butina was arrested by the FBI and charged with acting as an agent of the Russian Federation "without prior notification to the Attorney General." In December 2018, she pleaded guilty to felony charges of conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent of the Russian state under 18 U.S.C. §951. In April 2019, a federal judge sentenced her to 18 months in prison. She served around five months at Tallahassee Federal Correctional Institution. Her 9-month pretrial prison term was counted towards her sentence. She was released and deported back to Russia in October 2019. She publicly denied being a Russian spy. In 2021, she was elected to the State Duma as a member of United Russia.
Early life and education
Butina was born on 10 November 1988, in the Siberian city of Barnaul, in Altai Krai, about east of the present Kazakhstan–Russia border. Her mother was the chief engineer of an energy enterprise and her father Valery Viktorovich Butin was an entrepreneur who established a furniture manufacturing business in Barnaul. She has one sister and one maternal niece, Kira.She graduated with honors at the age of 17 from Gymnasium Number 22 with in-depth study of the English language, and from school years she strove for active public activity. She studied political science at Altai State University and also received a teaching degree. At age 19, she was elected to the public council of Altai Krai in the last direct election for the council.
Business and lobbying career
At 21, Butina launched a furniture retail business in Altai Krai. In 2011, she moved to Moscow and sold six of her seven furniture stores to start an advertising agency.Further in 2011, Butina founded , described as a Russian gun-rights organization. She began traveling back and forth to the US, initially with Aleksandr Torshin, who was then a Senator in the Federation Council of Russia and a leading member of United Russia. He had hired her as his "special assistant" that year. In 2012, they lobbied the council to expand gun rights. Butina resigned from her position as the head of Right to Bear Arms in late 2014.
According to Russians interviewed by RFE/RL, the organization was notable for avoiding opposition to Putin during the 2011–2013 Russian protests, for its "quixotic" support for a cause with little public support and strong government opposition – Putin himself had told Russians "I am deeply convinced that the free flow of firearms will bring a great harm and represents a great danger for us" – for introducing legislation in the Russian parliament that "never went anywhere", and for receding from public view after Butina stepped down as its head. According to US prosecutors who prosecuted Butina on charges of conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent, her love of guns was a ruse to advance Russia's agenda within the Republican Party. Anders Åslund described Right to Bear Arms as a "front organization with the purpose of infiltrating American groups and forging cooperation with the National Rifle Association of America."
In 2013, she met Republican political operative Paul Erickson in Russia. The two became close, started dating, and eventually moved in together. In 2015, she emailed him a description of a proposed project to influence the Republican Party to be friendlier to Russia, through the NRA. In January 2015, Torshin became deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia, and Butina worked as his special assistant until May 2017. In 2017, Butina told The Washington Post that she never worked for the Russian government.
In August 2016, she moved to the US on a student visa and enrolled as a graduate student in the School of International Service at American University. While a student at American University, Butina got drunk on at least two separate occasions and bragged to her fellow students about her contacts in the Russian government; on both occasions, her classmates reported her to law enforcement, sources told CNN.
In February 2016, Butina and Erickson began a South Dakota business, Bridges LLC. Erickson later said the company was established in case Butina needed any monetary assistance for her graduate studies. In 2018, she completed a master's degree in international relations.
Involvement in U.S. politics
National Rifle Association
As part of her work as a foreign agent, Butina worked to infiltrate the National Rifle Association on behalf of Russia.Torshin and Butina established a cooperative relationship between the NRA and Right to Bear Arms. Torshin has attended NRA annual meetings in the United States since at least 2011. Following the 2011 meeting, then NRA President David Keene expressed his support for Torshin's "endeavors" and extended an invitation to the 2012 meeting. Torshin also attended NRA annual meetings in 2012 and 2013.
Butina and Torshin attended the 2014 NRA annual meeting as special guests of former NRA president Keene. Butina attended the Women's Leadership Luncheon at the 2014 meeting as a guest of former NRA president Sandy Froman. Butina presented to then NRA president Jim Porter a plaque from Right to Bear Arms. Afterwards, she tweeted "Mission accomplished". Butina and Torshin also attended the 2015 NRA annual convention.
In 2015, a number of NRA officials attended Right to Bear Arms's annual gun conference in Russia. Among them were Keene, gun manufacturer and NRA first vice president Pete Brownell, conservative American political operative Paul Erickson, and Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke. One of their hosts was Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who in 2014 was sanctioned by the White House following Russia's annexation of Crimea. Clarke's trip cost $40,000, with all expenses paid by the NRA, Pete Brownell and Right to Bear Arms. According to a disclosure Clarke filed, Right to Bear Arms paid $6,000 to cover his meals, lodging, transportation and other expenses. During the meeting, Clarke met the Russian foreign minister and attended a conference at which Torshin spoke. In November 2016, Torshin tweeted that he and Butina were lifetime NRA members.
Republican Party
Butina has attempted to develop ties to conservative American politics. In a supporting affidavit to the government's support for pre-trial detention following her indictment in United States of America v. Maria Butina, the FBI stated that she had successfully sought ties to the Republican Party, where it is referred to as "POLITICAL PARTY 1". According to The Daily Beast, she has presented herself as a "Russian central bank staffer, a leading gun rights advocate, a 'representative of the Russian Federation,' a Washington, D.C. graduate student, a journalist, and a connection between Team Trump and Russia" in order to gain access to "high-level contacts" in Washington. At the 2014 NRA annual meeting, Butina took pictures with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and former U.S. Senator and 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum.Obama administration officials
In 2015, Torshin, then the Russian Central Bank deputy governor, and Butina met the Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, Nathan Sheets, to discuss U.S.-Russian economic relations. Separately, they also met with a Federal Reserve vice chairman, Stanley Fischer, and with a State Department official.Donald Trump campaign
In a June 2015 article published in The National Interest, a conservative American international affairs magazine, just before Trump announced his candidacy for president, she urged better relations between the United States and Russia, saying, "It may take the election of a Republican to the White House in 2016 to improve relations between the Russian Federation and the United States." The next month, Butina attended FreedomFest, where Trump gave a speech, and asked him from the audience about ending U.S. sanctions against Russia, to which he replied, "I don't think you'd need the sanctions." Butina hosted a birthday party attended by Erickson and Trump campaign aides shortly after the 2016 election.Relationships with Trump associates
Butina was in a relationship with Overstock.com CEO and Trump conspiracy theorist Patrick M. Byrne. Byrne claimed the FBI encouraged him to pursue Butina, a claim retired FBI officials denied. In 2019, Byrne divested himself of all shares of Overstock after his relationship with Butina was revealed.For five years, prosecutors claimed, Butina lived with and maintained an intimate relationship with activist and fraudster Paul Erickson. During Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016, Erickson attempted to develop a back-channel between the NRA and the Russian government. Erickson was jailed and convicted of fraud unrelated to his relationship with Butina, then pardoned by Trump in his last week in office.
''United States of America v. Mariia Butina, aka Maria Butina''
Complaint
On 15 July 2018, Butina was arrested in Washington DC, and charged with acting in the United States as an agent of a foreign government; specifically the Russian Federation, without prior notification to the Attorney General, a conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, to wit, 18 U.S.C. §951, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §371.After her arrest, it was mistakenly reported she was charged with a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. United States law dictates that all lobbyists representing foreign governments must register as such with the Department of Justice. Her attorney said that "the allegations of the indictment are essentially that her only illegal act was not registering."
On 18 July, Butina pleaded not guilty, and a District Court judge ordered her jailed pending trial. She was also said to be cooperating in a federal fraud investigation in South Dakota. Butina was held in solitary confinement in Alexandria Detention Center.