WASHINGTON _ Maria Butina, the self-styled Russian gun rights activist who befriended senior officials from the National Rifle Association and the Republican party in the run-up to the 2016 election, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for failing to register as an agent of a foreign government.
Described by some as a Russian "spy," Butina, 30, was actually a master networker _ a woman who used her purported interest in gun rights to facilitate meetings with NRA officials and prominent figures in the Republican Party. She was arrested in July and has been held in prison since. Butina pleaded guilty in December.
In 2015, she met then-Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and attended the announcement of his presidential campaign. At a "FreedomFest" forum in Las Vegas that year, she asked candidate Donald Trump about his views on relations between the U.S. and Russia.
In a court filing last week, the former head of the FBI's counterintelligence division described Butina's role as part of a "spot and assess" operation to identify suitable targets for eventual recruitment.
"Butina provided Russia with information that has tremendous intelligence value," wrote the former FBI official, Robert Anderson. "Butina provided the Russian Federation with information that skilled intelligence officers can exploit for years and that may cause significant damage to the United States."
Russian interference in the 2016 election was the focus of the investigation recently completed by special counsel Robert Mueller. As part of his investigation, Mueller charged more than two dozen Russian nationals with computer hacking, defrauding the U.S. and related crimes. The Butina investigation was separate, conducted by the Justice Department's National Security division.
