Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 7-20-18

White House and Political News
From The Start, Trump Has Muddied A Clear Message: Putin Interfered
Maria Butina, Suspected Russian Secret Agent, Used Sex In Covert Plan, Prosecutors Say
WASHINGTON — For four years, a Russian accused of being a covert agent pur- sued a brazen effort to infil- trate conservative circles and influence powerful Republi- cans while she secretly was in contact with Russian intelli- gence operatives, a senior Russian official and a billion- aire oligarch close to the Kremlin whom she called her “funder,” federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The woman, Maria Butina, carried out her cam- paign through a series of de- ceptions that began in 2014, if not earlier, prosecutors said. She lied to obtain a stu- dent 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 pri- vately 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 calcu- lated, long-term campaign intended to steer high-level
The United States has accused Ms. Butina of working with Americans to carry out a secret Russian effort to influence U.S. politics. But she is hardly a shadowy figure. Here’s a look at what her online profile reveals.
politicians toward Moscow’s objectives. Though prosecu- tors did not name any party or politician, Ms. Butina’s efforts were clearly aimed at Republican leaders, espe- cially those with White House aspirations in 2016, including Donald J. Trump.
She “should be consid- ered on a par with other covert Russian agents,” pros- ecutors said in a memo.
Over all, they described what appears to be another arm of the Russian govern- ment’s attempts to influence or gain information about the American political process. While Russian military intel- ligence officers were hacking into the computers and email accounts of the Hillary Clinton campaign and Dem- ocratic Party organizations,
Ms. Butina was building connections on the Republi- can side under the direction of an official believed to be Alexander Torshin, the deputy head of the Russian central bank, who has estab- lished ties to Russian security services, according to the court filings.
Secretly, she and others laid the groundwork for a $125,000 operation to con- nect with Republican leaders through a network of con- tacts 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, inter- national coordination and preparation,” they said.
PRESIDENTS VLADIMIR PUTIN AND DONALD TRUMP
WASHINGTON — Two weeks before his inaugura- tion, Donald J. Trump was shown highly classified intel- ligence indicating that Presi- dent Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had personally or- dered complex cyberattacks to sway the 2016 American election.
The evidence included texts and emails from Russ- ian military officers and in- formation gleaned from a top-secret source close to Mr. Putin, who had described to the C.I.A. how the Kremlin decided to execute its cam- paign of hacking and disin- formation.
Mr. Trump sounded grudgingly convinced, ac- cording to several people who attended the intelligence briefing. But ever since, Mr. Trump has tried to cloud the very clear findings that he re- ceived on Jan. 6, 2017, which his own intelligence leaders have unanimously endorsed.
The shifting narrative un- derscores the degree to which Mr. Trump regularly picks and chooses intelligence to suit his political purposes. That has never been more clear than this week.
On Monday, standing next to the Russian president in Helsinki, Finland, Mr. Trump said he accepted Mr. Putin’s denial of Russian
election intrusions. By Tues- day, faced with a bipartisan political outcry, Mr. Trump sought to walk back his words and sided with his intelli- gence agencies.
On Wednesday, when a re- porter asked, “Is Russia still targeting the U.S.?” Mr. Trump shot back, “No” — di- rectly contradicting state- ments made only days earlier by his director of national in- telligence, Dan Coats, who was sitting a few chairs away in the Cabinet Room. (The White House later said he was responding to a different question.)
Hours later, in a CBS News interview, Mr. Trump seemed to reverse course again. He blamed Mr. Putin personally, but only indi- rectly, for the election inter- ference by Russia, “because he’s in charge of the country.”
In the run-up to this week’s ducking and weaving, Mr. Trump has done all he can to suggest other possible explanations for the hacks into the American political system. His fear, according to one of his closest aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity, is that any admis- sion of even an unsuccessful Russian attempt to influence the 2016 vote raises questions about the legitimacy of his presidency.
Senate Democrats Want To Question Trump's Interpreter At Putin Summit
Senate Democrats, who be- lieve they won't get any in- sight into what actually took place during the private meeting between Presi- dent Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin from the administra- tion itself, are now looking to the U.S. interpreter who was in the one-on-one encounter for more information.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen,
who sits on the Senate For- eign Relations Committee, is leading the charge among her colleagues in the Senate to bring in Marina Gross, the American interpreter who sat in on the private meeting with Putin, to talk to the
President Donald Trump and his interpreter.
committee.
“If the president won't
share that information with us, then the interpreter is the
only person we can look to,” the Democrat from New Hampshire told ABC News in an interview Wednesday.
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