Maria Butina Pleads Guilty to Role in a Russian Effort to Influence Conservatives

Maria Butina has pleaded guilty to her role in infiltrating and influencing Republican conservatives. Vladimir Putin has publicly stated they have no idea who she is and denies any Russia involvement in Butina's infiltration into American politics. Yet, when she was arrested, Russia's top spy Sergei Lavrov publicly called for her immediate release. The Russian Foreign Ministry even has her avatar on their twitter account.

Maria Butina Pleads Guilty to Role in a Russian Effort to Influence Conservatives

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/us/politics/butina-guilty.html
WASHINGTON — To the conservative Americans she courted, Maria Butina was the right kind of Russian.

She loved guns and the church and networking with top officials in the National Rifle Association. She schmoozed with Republican presidential candidates, and became a supporter of Donald J. Trump. She spent Thanksgiving at a congressman’s country house, took a Trump campaign aide to see the rock band Styx and helped a Rockefeller heir organize “friendship dinners” with influential Washingtonians.

On Thursday, Ms. Butina, 30, pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring to act as a foreign agent in a deal with federal prosecutors. In doing so, she acknowledged that her activities were motivated by more than mere personal conviction.

 

Scapegoat, seriously there's much bigger fish to fry

 

Yeah including Trump but Mueller seems to be playing it VERY smart - he is picking off the small fry before going after the big boys.

He knows that it is unlikely Trump will be charged whilst in office so he is holding some back for when Trump is no longer protected

 

She sounds more of a groupie than a foreign agent... nether the less he's likely after Torshin... the money trail

 

OP

The Washington Post and the New York Times just don't seem to get it - that when someone has been caught lying (as they were about the 'Russian interference' in the presidential election ), nobody will believe another word they say, or in this case, report? Bottom line? They've lost their credibility as being truthful nd trustworthy reporters of the news.

 

Mueller needs a scalp or two on his totem pole to save face with his people

 

As John Kiriakou has noted, a veteran of the American Gulag himself, putting a person in a cage for 23 hours out of 24 will break them down. It is a form of torture, and will often produce a strange behavior.

She was basically tortured into the guilty plea.

 

I guess the best way to influence conservatives is to watch libs like Michael Moore marching in a Russian organized protest.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/20/michael-moore-participated-anti-trump-rally-allege/

 

Well he has Trump's campaign manager and Trump's personal lawyer and that just the start.

 

That's nonsense. Trump lies repeatedly and his worshippers still believe him.

 

All on unrelated charges

But it probably does i press ignorant anti trumpsters who think mueller is really finding trump-russia collusion

 

For nothing to do with Russia collusion.

 

When Vladimir Putin asked the Intelligence agencies if anyone knew her they said no. The women was arrested and held in solitary confinement for no reason. They said she was selling sexual favors which was a lie, and was sexually harassed in prison as well as other atrocities. Her parents couldn't afford anymore to pay lawyers, and so she had to use whoever was given to her - so she would say and do anything to get back home.

What a disgrace for our country, when someone can't meet with government officials to try to better relations between Russia and the US? For heaven's sake she's studying foreign relations at American University. Soviet Union anyone?

It's okay though if you're a Russian liberal and non Christian, or better yet to be Ukrainian and a billionaire like the criminal Kolomoisky. He's the one who was passing the big bucks around Washington to put the blame on Russia for the shoot down of the airliner. Integrity anyone? No wonder we're so hated?

Butina was probably naive, not knowing the real America versus the America touted in our propaganda networks. When a member of my family attended American University, he made sure his conservative views were very well hidden - and that was over 10 years ago. So much for our freedoms.

 

I'm beginning to wonder if Maria Butina was held prisoner not only to irk Vladimir Putin so he wouldn't better relations with Trump, but also to incriminate the conservative politicians she knew and the NRA in some way.

 

So, Putin says "Maria Butina? Never heard of her!", so you conclude that she wasn't really not here to influence conservatives on Russia's behalf? *LOL*

I wonder how this poor nobody had access to Russian government officials and was able to get NRA folks to Moscow for lavish dinners and meetings with Russian governmental operatives?

Your claim is a load of horseshit:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/17/maria-butina-donald-trump-accused-spy-russia-charges

"A few weeks later, Butina was back in the US for the NRA’s 2015 convention. Held in Nashville, Tennessee, it again gave her access to the most in-demand figures in the conservative movement. She and Torshin chatted with Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, who posed for a photograph with her and spoke a few phrases in Russian. In July, Butina attended the launch of Walker’s presidential campaign.

The Kremlin seems to have been interested. Court filings said Butina wrote Torshin a memo about a political campaign event that detailed her “private meeting” with the same candidate at the NRA convention. Walker was not identified by name. Then came Butina’s encounter with Trump at the Freedom Fest event in Las Vegas.

Late that year, Butina’s gun rights group paid to fly NRA allies to Moscow for a visit that included lavish dinners and a meeting with Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s deputy prime minister. Her guests included Erickson, Keene and David Clarke, the former sheriff of Milwaukee, who would go on to support Trump’s presidential campaign.

Pete Brownell, a gun company chief executive who also took part in the 2015 Moscow trip, became NRA president in 2017. In May this year, his tenure ended abruptly and earlier than expected. Representatives did not respond to questions about whether his departure was connected to the Russia trip."

 

You're quoting the Guardian, not much credibility there. Britain is the same nation that supported Soros' Obama, and made up the Trump dossier.

Seems to me that it isn't Russia that's the threat, but the one world government freaks in Washington. If it wasn't so, then true conservative patriots wouldn't be befriending Russia in preference to our treacherous, immoral and tyrannical liberals.

 

*LOL*

Said the person citing to Vladimir Putin. Yeah, he's a beacon of truth, alright.

Your posts are thick. With irony.

 

Hey, you craaaazy kids--any further word on that claim that the FBI was "being mean" to the poor college student from Russia, so she pleaded guilty?

*LOL*

How damned gullible does someone have to be to believe that? She arranges meetings with high-level Russian officials and has NRA folks flown over to Moscow for that purpose, but she's really just a poor grad student? *LOL*

 

Lay a pumpkin on the grave of Alger Hiss, and G-d Bless Joseph McCarthy!

 

Has that great bastion of honesty, Vlad Putin, let any other pearls of truth dribble from his lips lately? I'd love to hear about it!

 

Russian spies are increasingly reliant on prostitutes.
I guess brain drain is kicking in.
Having said that - I’d do that one.

 

Thank you for correcting me. ( )

 

What's the big deal... they don't have to attend the meetings.... as if it's a crime to arrange a meeting, I think the case against her is very weak...I want to see evidence that she stole secrets or did actual spying... not arrange meetings, they'd have to arrest a stack of people on that basis

 

Starting with those who arranged the Trump Jr/Russian meeting.

 

Likely there WAS a reason for putting her in solitary. Likely they were attempting to torment the woman into a guilty plea.