(17 Jul 2018) RESTRICTION SUMMARY: AP CLIENTS ONLY
ASSOCIATED PRESS - AP CLIENTS ONLY
FILE: Moscow, Russia - 21 April 2013
1. Two STILLS of Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina speaking to a crowd during a rally in support of legalising the possession of hand guns
ASSOCIATED PRESS - AP CLIENTS ONLY
FILE: Washington DC, USA - 16 July 2018
2. STILL Court papers unsealed on 16 July 2018 showing part of the criminal complaint against Butina
STORYLINE:
A 29-year-old gun-rights activist served as a covert Russian agent while living in Washington, gathering intelligence on American officials and political organizations and working to establish back-channel lines of communications for the Kremlin, federal prosecutors charged on Monday.
The announcement of the arrest of Maria Butina came just hours after US President Donald Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin and just days after special counsel Robert Mueller charged 12 Russian intelligence officials with directing a sprawling hacking effort aimed at swaying the 2016 election.
Butina, a Russian national who has been living in the US, was charged with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of the Russian government.
A federal judge in Washington ordered her jailed until a hearing set for Wednesday, according to a statement from the Justice Department and Jessie Liu, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia.
In a statement, Butina's attorney, Robert Driscoll, called the allegations "overblown" and said prosecutors had criminalized mundane networking opportunities.
Driscoll said Butina was not an agent of the Russian Federation but was instead in the US on a student visa, graduating from American University with a master's degree in international relations.
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