Maria Butina, Suspected Secret Agent, Used Sex in Covert Plan, Prosecutors Say
By Sharon LaFraniere and Adam Goldman
WASHINGTON — For four years, a Russian accused of being a covert agent pursued a brazen effort to infiltrate conservative circles and influence powerful Republicans while she secretly was in contact with Russian intelligence operatives, a senior Russian official and a billionaire oligarch close to the Kremlin whom she called her “funder,” federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The woman, Maria Butina, carried out her campaign through a series of deceptions that began in 2014, if not earlier, prosecutors said. She lied to obtain a student visa to pursue graduate work at American University in 2016. Apparently hoping for a work visa that would grant her a longer stay, she offered one American sex in exchange for a job. She moved in with a Republican political operative nearly twice her age, describing him as her boyfriend. But she privately expressed “disdain” for him and had him do her homework, prosecutors said.
In a dramatic two-hour hearing in Federal District Court here, prosecutors said that Ms. Butina, who is charged with conspiracy and illegally acting as an agent of the Russian government, was the point person in a calculated, long-term campaign intended to steer high-level politicians toward Moscow’s objectives. Though prosecutors did not name any party or politician, Ms. Butina’s efforts were clearly aimed at Republican leaders, especially those with White House aspirations in 2016, including Donald J. Trump.
She “should be considered on a par with other covert Russian agents,” prosecutors said in a memo.
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Over all, they described what appears to be another arm of the Russian government’s attempts to influence or gain information about the American political process. While Russian military intelligence officers were hacking into the computers and email accounts of the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, Ms. Butina was building connections on the Republican side under the direction of an official believed to be Alexander Torshin, the deputy head of the Russian central bank, who has established ties to Russian security services, according to the court filings.
Secretly, she and others laid the groundwork for a $125,000 operation to connect with Republican leaders through a network of contacts with the National Rifle Association and conservative religious groups, including the organizers of the National Prayer Breakfast, prosecutors said. “The defendant’s covert influence campaign involved substantial planning, international coordination and preparation,” they said.
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Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson of Federal District Court denied bail for Ms. Butina, accepting prosecutors’ argument that she was at high risk to flee the country. Prosecutors sought criminal charges after agents reported over the weekend that she was moving money out of the country, had her boxes packed, looked into renting a moving truck and had terminated her apartment lease. Judge Robinson noted that Ms. Butina, whose name was also spelled Mariia in court papers, could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
Although she has not been charged with espionage, prosecutors said Ms. Butina kept in touch with Russian intelligence operatives. In March, she had dinner with a Russian diplomat described by prosecutors as a suspected Russian intelligence officer. He left the United States two weeks later, around the time a dozen Russian intelligence officers were expelledfrom the country over the poisoning of a British informant.
Her contact list included an email account associated with the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the Russian intelligence agency that is the main successor to the Soviet K.G.B., and F.B.I. agents who searched her apartment found a handwritten note that read, “How to respond to F.S.B. offer of employment?” She was also photographed with the former ambassador at the Russian Embassy in Washington.
She could easily slip out of the reach of the Justice Department merely by getting into an embassy car, said Erik M. Kenerson, an assistant United States attorney. Russia does not extradite its citizens for prosecution in the United States.
Ms. Butina’s defense lawyer, Robert N. Driscoll, tried to distance his client from Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election. He stressed that Ms. Butina was not indicted by the special counsel investigating Russia’s meddling, Robert S. Mueller III, and should not be lumped with more than two dozen Russians charged with infiltrating the computers of Democratic organizations or illegally using social media to try to influence the election.
“Miss Butina is not a proxy for any of the serious or substantial issues” involving relations between the United States and Russia, Mr. Driscoll said. She “has nothing to do with Mueller.”
In Moscow, Russian government officials said that Ms. Butina, who pleaded not guilty to charges, was a pawn in a much bigger geopolitical game. “You get the sense that someone grabbed a watch and a calculator to determine when the decision on Maria Butina’s arrest should be adopted,” Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said at a briefing. The charges against her were “deliberately timed,” she said, to undermine the results of Monday’s summit meeting between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
The hearing, through which Ms. Butina sat mostly expressionless, also revealed a wider federal investigation into her activities than was previously known. Mr. Driscoll disclosed that investigators for the Federal Election Commission had questioned Ms. Butina about “whether certain donations had been made to a political campaign.” Prosecutors revealed that the Republican political operative from South Dakota who created a company with her in 2016 was the subject of a fraud investigation. Unidentified in the indictment, he is believed to be Paul Erickson, 56, whom Ms. Butina has described as her boyfriend.
F.B.I. agents have been surveilling Ms. Butina, who graduated in May with a master’s degree in international relations, for the past year.
In a search of her apartment near American University in the Tenleytown neighborhood of Washington, F.B.I. agents uncovered a trail of messages between Ms. Butina and Mr. Torshin, who, like Ms. Butina, worked to build contact with N.R.A. officials. After she was featured in several news articles, Mr. Torshin likened her to Anna Chapman, a Russian intelligence agent who was arrested in the United States in 2010, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to act as a Russian agent, and was deported to Russia as part of a swap for American prisoners.
“Are your admirers asking for your autographs yet? You have upstaged Anna Chapman,” Mr. Torshin wrote.
In the weeks before the election, the two agreed she should keep a low profile, with Ms. Butina referring to herself as being “underground.” But after Ms. Butina sent Mr. Torshin a photograph of herself near the United States Capitol on the day Mr. Trump was inaugurated, he exclaimed: “You’re a daredevil girl! What can I say!” She responded, “Good teachers!”
Mr. Kenerson argued, “This is not the language of someone here just to study at American University.”
For the first time, prosecutors also linked Ms. Butina to an unnamed wealthy Russian oligarch who they said has deep ties to the Kremlin’s presidential administration and often travels to the United States. Ms. Butina repeatedly referred to the businessman as her “funder,” they said. Before her first trip to the United States in late 2014, she met with him and communicated with another rich Russian businessman by text about her travel budget, according to court papers.
According to the prosecutors, the oligarch told Ms. Butina, “I want you to go work in the United States, not go on a tourist trip.” Later, worried that her frequent trips on short-term visas would attract too much attention, Ms. Butina schemed about how she could obtain a work visa, they said, offering sex in exchange for a job at an unidentified “special interest organization.”
Although her lawyer said Ms. Butina maintained a 4.0 average at American University, prosecutors described her graduate studies as her “cover.” She relied on Mr. Erickson to help her complete exams and assignments, they said. Although he is her closest tie to the United States, “she appears to treat that relationship as simply a necessary aspect of her activities,” the government’s memo said.
Correction:
An earlier version of this article misstated how Maria Butina, who is accused of being a foreign agent, entered her plea. She pleaded not guilty.
Follow Sharon LaFraniere and Adam Goldman on Twitter: @SharonLNYT and @adamgoldmanNYT.
A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Outlines Web of Sex, Lies And Ties to Russian Operatives. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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