Maria Butina was the first Russian national convicted of seeking to influence American policy in the run-up to the 2016 election as an undeclared agent of a foreign government. (Press Service of Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)U.S. prosecutors requested an 18-month prison sentence for Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina for conspiring with a senior Russian official to infiltrate the National Rifle Association and conservative U.S. political circles for the Kremlin from 2015 until her arrest in July. Butina “has done everything she could to atone for her mistakes through cooperation and substantial assistance,” wrote attorneys Robert N. Driscoll and Alfred D. Carry. “She did not seduce the figures within [the NRA] or funnel Russian money to it. Erickson was indicted in February in South Dakota over what federal prosecutors said was an unrelated investment fraud scheme.

Source: Washington Post April 20, 2019 02:03 UTC