Maria Butina, Russian Who Infiltrated Conservative Circles, Is Deported – The New York Times

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A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, said President Vladimir V. Putin had no plans to meet with Ms. Butina when she returned to Russia. The Russian foreign ministry’s Twitter account continued to display a “#freeMariaButina” image.

For Ms. Butina, a graduate student and gun lover, it was the end of her nearly five-year tour in the United States. While she was in the country, Ms. Butina dined with prominent American conservatives and began a romantic relationship with an American political operative, Paul Erickson, a member of the National Rifle Association who formed a South Dakota company with Ms. Butina in 2016. She also posed in a photograph with President Trump’s oldest son, Donald Jr. Prosecutors said she tried to broker a meeting between the candidate Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The Justice Department last year charged Ms. Butina with acting as a foreign agent without registering with the department, as is required by law — a charge Russia at the time called “fabricated.” Prosecutors said she, along with a senior Russian official, Alexander Torshin, worked for the Russian government to influence American politics.

Ms. Butina has denied that she was a covert Russian agent. During an interview earlier this year with NPR from prison, she said that she came to the United States as a “peace builder,” and that she loved both the United States and Russia.

“The worst pain of my situation now was that I am embarrassed that instead of creating peace — by not registering — I created discord,” Ms. Butina said in the interview. “That is what I’m going to carry for the whole of my life.”

Anton Troianovski contributed reporting from Moscow.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/25/us/politics/maria-butina-russia-deported.html

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