U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan sentenced Maria Butina to 18 months in federal prison on April 26, 2019 for conspiring to act as a Russian agent without registering with the Justice Department. The sentencing took place in Washington, D.C. federal court. Butina had been in custody since her arrest …
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Maria Butina pleaded guilty in federal court on December 13, 2018 to one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of the Russian Federation without registering with the U.S. government, while the original charge of failing to register as a foreign agent was dropped. She became the first Russian …
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The FBI arrested Maria Butina in Washington, D.C. on July 15, 2018, charging her with acting in the United States as an agent of the Russian government without prior notification to the Attorney General, and conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States. The arrest came after an 18-month …
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Facebook embeds staff directly in Trump campaign headquarters in San Antonio, working side-by-side with campaign staff including Cambridge Analytica to optimize Facebook advertising for voter targeting and suppression. The unprecedented corporate-political coordination provides Trump’s …
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On July 27, 2016, at a televised press conference, Donald Trump publicly called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” According to Mueller’s indictment of 12 GRU …
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On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks released 19,252 DNC emails and 8,034 attachments stolen by Russian GRU intelligence—strategically timed for maximum political damage just three days before the Democratic National Convention. The release, coordinated between Russian intelligence (via Guccifer 2.0), …
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On June 15, 2016—just one day after CrowdStrike publicly disclosed that Russian intelligence had hacked the Democratic National Committee—the GRU launched the “Guccifer 2.0” persona and began releasing stolen DNC documents. The Mueller investigation later proved that Guccifer 2.0 was not …
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Alexander Torshin, working with Maria Butina, requested that Donald Trump meet with him on the sidelines of the National Rifle Association’s convention in Louisville, Kentucky from May 20-22, 2016. While Torshin never succeeded in meeting with then-candidate Trump himself, he did secure a …
Alexander TorshinMaria ButinaDonald Trump Jr.Donald TrumpNational Rifle Associationrussian-influencenratrump-campaignforeign-agents2016-election+2 more
During the 2016 election cycle, the National Rifle Association spent a record $30-55 million supporting Donald Trump’s presidential campaign—triple its 2012 spending for Mitt Romney. The unprecedented spending occurred during and after Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin’s systematic …
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On July 11, 2015, at the FreedomFest libertarian conference in Las Vegas, Russian intelligence operative Maria Butina publicly questioned presidential candidate Donald Trump about US sanctions on Russia. Trump responded that he knew Putin and believed they would “get along very nicely” …
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In 2011, Maria Butina founded the Russian gun rights organization “Right to Bear Arms” as a front operation and was hired as “special assistant” to Alexander Torshin, a Russian Senator with Kremlin connections. Together they initiated a systematic multi-year intelligence …
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