Mariia Butina, a gun-rights promoter and graduate student in America, has been in jail since her arrest last July on charges of operating as an unregistered foreign agent and conspiracy.
The sentence — which coincidentally came the same day Trump spoke to the NRA — means Butina could be deported to her native Russia in about six months. U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan gave Butina credit for time served and she’ll be eligible for good behavior credit.
In a deal with prosecutors, Butina pleaded guilty last December to the conspiracy charge, which carries a five-year maximum prison sentence.
Still, Butina’s sentence — precisely in line with prosecutors’ recommendation — was longer than many expected. The decision seemed driven by Chutkan’s conclusion that the Russian’s actions were part of a broader set of Kremlin attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Butina’s efforts, the judge said, took place “at a time when the Russian government was seeking to interfere with and affect the U.S. political process.”
“This was no mere failure to provide the U.S. government with required information,” she added.
Just before the sentence was announced, Butina — wearing dark-green jail garb — stood at a courtroom lectern and addressed the judge for about five minutes. Speaking in a clear voice, but with a mild Russian accent, she was contrite. However, Butina also suggested she was baffled to have ended up at the center of an international scandal.
“If I had known to register as a foreign agent, I would have done so without delay,” Butina said, while adding: “Ignorance of the law is no excuse in the U.S. or in Russia.”
“While it has never been my intent to harm the American people, I did just that,” she said. “I destroyed my own life, as well. ... I’m sorry for all the alarms my behavior has been the reason for.”
Butina’s lawyers expressed disappointment in the sentence.
“I don’t believe the additional nine months in jail serves any purpose,” defense attorney Robert Driscoll told reporters.
Driscoll said he found it “curious” that the judge mentioned Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election. He said Butina was interviewed briefly by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, but that nothing came of it. He noted that there is no mention of her in the publicly-released version of Mueller’s final report.
“Had she been involved in that, I think that’s something special counsel Mueller would have mentioned in his 400 pages,” Driscoll said.
Butina’s case has taken a winding path over the past nine months, with titillating allegations being made and then dropped amid rampant speculation over her possible connection to the Kremlin’s 2016 election meddling efforts.
The case even included some last-minute twists. In a sentencing filing last week, prosecutors said Butina appeared to be part of a “spot and assess” operation aimed at finding Americans who could be recruited as spies for Russia.
“This is not a registration offense,” prosecutor Erik Kenerson said.
Defense attorneys complained bitterly they were sandbagged by the 11th-hour claims. However, Chutkan refused a defense request to exclude the allegations from the case.
Butina’s Russian mentor and primary contact was Alexander Torshin, a prominent conservative politician who served as deputy chairman of the Russian central bank until last November. Butina tried to broker a meeting between Torshin and Trump at an NRA convention in May 2016. And she relayed to Torshin numerous details on her dealing with the group and with U.S. conservatives.
“She knew that some of the information was going to the Russian government writ large,” Kenerson said. He also said that if Butina had registered, her efforts might have been thwarted, either because she wouldn’t have gotten a student visa or because American University might not have admitted her.
However, the prosecutor acknowledged that Butina cooperated with authorities and her conduct did not involve efforts to get classified information. “This is not espionage,” he said.
Defense attorney Alfred Carry stressed a similar point.
“Maria’s not a spy. She’s not intelligence. ... She’s never been employed by the Russian government,” Carry told the judge. “She knows no secret codes.”
One misstep by the defense seemed to come when Carry said Butina suffered “discrimination” at American University. Chutkan interrupted, skeptically, to ask what he meant. The defense attorney said press coverage led classmates to regard her with suspicion.
Butina’s arrest last year came amid a frenzy of interest in Russian efforts to influence the 2016 president race and Trump’s campaign. However, the arrest’s connection to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation remains unclear.
Butina is not mentioned in the publicly-released portion of Mueller’s final report. It’s unclear if her activities are discussed in the part that was blacked out to protect ongoing legal matters.
Butina was not charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law that has been the focus of much of Mueller’s work and was the basis for charges Mueller brought against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and deputy chairman Rick Gates. That foreign-lobbying statute also figured in the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Instead, Butina was charged under a separate statute more often used in cases U.S. prosecutors describe as “espionage-lite,” typically involving intelligence gathering activities. The law was used in 2010 to arrest 10 individuals accused of acting as “deep-cover” agents for Russia in the U.S. — the case that inspired “The Americans” TV drama.
Driscoll told reporters that the laws involving foreign political activity in the U.S. “are clearly ripe for reform.” He noted that while violating the lobbying-focused Foreign Agent Registration Act is usually regarded as less serious than the law Butina admitted to breaking, prosecutors have to show that a person knew about the FARA requirement to file a charge under that law. The foreign-agent charge Butina faced has no such requirement.
“It’s very clear that her lack of knowledge ended up with her being charged with a more serious crime,” Driscoll said.
Prosecutors initially alleged that text messages showed Butina struck up a sexual relationship with American gun activist Paul Erickson in order to advance Russian interests in the U.S.
However, government attorneys later withdrew that claim.
Chutkan noted that episode Friday, observing that the accusations leveled at Butina included “some salacious details that proved to be incorrect.”
“In the era of Google, these will be hard to overcome,” the judge said.
In February, federal prosecutors in South Dakota hit Erickson with an 11-count indictment for wire fraud and money laundering, stemming from various investment schemes he allegedly ran.
Erickson also came under investigation in connection with the effort to build connections between Russian officials and U.S. political activists, but he has not been charged over those activities.
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