Prosecutors admit accused Russian agent Butina was wrongfully charged

If you remember, there was recently a big story about a Russian woman named Maria Butina who was attending a university in the United States on a student visa. Maria was arrested and charged with being a foreign agent and accused of offering sex for employment.
Welll... Prosecutors finally admitted she never actually did that and has been wrongfully accused.

US prosecutors have admitted that they wrongly accused Maria Butina ... of offering sex in exchange for a job.

prosecutors ... stressed that the July allegation “was based both on a series of text messages between the defendant and another individual.” They admitted that the “government’s understanding of this particular text conversation was mistaken.”

Butina’s charges make her case quite unusual, Driscoll believes, as the law basically makes otherwise legal actions of an individual prosecutable. “There’s no allegation of espionage, there’s no allegation of classified information, there’s no allegation she was paying anyone off, there’s no allegation she was recruiting spies.

There are a couple worrying things here. First, since the entire case was based on the content of some text messages, how did those specific messages come to the attention of authorities? Under what authority were those messages intercepted and read? Were the private conversations of American citizens being spied on? Was doing so even legal?
Second, as her attorney points out, Maria was essentially arrested for engaging in legal activity. If someone can be arrested and charged simply for text messages, aren't we all at danger then? Will I face being arrested and charged with corporate espionage if I have a flirtatious text exchange with a woman who works for a company I'm not an employee of?
This is an extremely slippery slope.

If the entire case was based on text messages. Why isn't Bruce Ohr, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page under arrest ? Unlike this case there's actually something there .

originally posted by: Fallingdown
If the entire case was based on text messages. Why isn't Bruce Ohr, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page under arrest ? Unlike this case there's actually something there .

That reality has been rejected....

a reply to: trollz

And yet it looks like they still plan on holding her...

In their latest filing, prosecutors argued that even if they had wrongly interpreted Butina’s text messages to a friend, she should not be released from custody, because she was likely to flee the country. Since her arrest, they said, it has become even clearer that she was not simply a foreign graduate student with an interest in U.S. politics, but a Russian operative.

They said that Russian government emissaries had visited her at least six times in jail, and that Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, had complained twice about her prosecution to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “The actions of the Russian Federation and its officials toward the defendant have confirmed her relationship with, and value to, her own government,” they said.

www.seattletimes.com...

Just know that as long as you're a Russian citizen visiting or living in the United States, it's a given that you're going to be spied on from now on.

a reply to: Blowback

Lol

Using the word reality when talking about Obama's department of justice .

Good one

a reply to: trollz

There are a couple worrying things here. First, since the entire case was based on the content of some text messages, how did those specific messages come to the attention of authorities?

It looks like the red flag in this case was Maria either studying politics in America or engaging in political activity along with hooking up with a political consultant.

Prosecutors said she has deep ties to Russia and few connections to the United States. They also assert other materials and communications investigators uncovered throw doubt on Butina’s claim that she should be freed on bond because she has U.S. ties in her longtime relationship with Paul Erickson, a South Dakota-based Republican consultant she met in Moscow in 2013 and with whom she has been romantically linked.

www.seattletimes.com...

a reply to: Deetermined

So Russian diplomats trying to get the release of a Russian national wrongfully arrested for texting is proof that she is an 'operative'?

Wonder what the American government would do if this was an American citizen arrested on the same charges in Russia?

a reply to: Freeborn

So Russian diplomats trying to get the release of a Russian national wrongfully arrested for texting is proof that she is an 'operative'?

Yeah, that was pretty weak. We should expect Russian diplomats to come to her aid, but prosecutors are trying to use the concern of the Russian Prime Minister to make it look sinister. Maybe it is, but I doubt that they have any proof of that based on the way this article has been written.

As Americans, I think we should be extremely cautious when visiting Russia. I'm sure the same is going on over there. It would be interesting to see how the American government would handle it if the reverse happened.

a reply to: Deetermined

Just know that as long as you're a Russian citizen visiting or living in the United States, it's a given that you're going to be spied on from now on.

Or if you are a US citizen.
You can expect the government to spy on you.... even if you are Donald Trump.

Those idiots destroyed her life.

I hope she sues the eff out of them.

a reply to: trollz
This is the kind of thing that happens when your government is on a witch hunt.

Due diligence be damned!

a reply to: trollz

I'm not sure if the link you read had the additional info that I will post below. You did not add a source to your OP.

The sex allegations were based on a text of her offering sex in exchange for having her bills paid, car insurance and an inspection. She replied that she has nothing to pay him back with but sex, as she does not have a nickel to her name.

The man that received a text denies it and says Butina knows his wife, he is married, it was obviously a joke. We don't know if it was a joke or not, but the prosecutors won't focus on that as they have a plethora of evidence otherwise. It is hard to prove they actually had sex.

The sexual allegation was only a small part of the evidence presented by prosecutors in arguing to jail Butina. Prosecutors largely argued that she posed an “extreme” flight risk and raised the prospect of her being swept out of the country by Russians using their diplomatic immunity to shield her from U.S. law enforcement. The U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Russia.

Prosecutors have said her activities in the U.S. were being directed by a Russian official, identified by Driscoll as Alexander Torshin. He is a senior official in the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, a former lawmaker and a member of the NRA since 2012.

Prosecutors say Torshin was Butina’s handler, but Driscoll has said he was only a friend and mentor with whom Butina traveled openly when he visited the U.S.

Torshin was also among a number of Russian businessmen and officials sanctioned this year by the U.S. Treasury Department for their ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and for their part in “advancing Russia’s malign activities.”

Prosecutors have said they also found evidence that Butina has had contact with Russian intelligence.

FBI agents photographed her dining with a diplomat suspected of being a Russian intelligence agent. They found she had contact information for people suspected of being employed by Russia’s Federal Security Services, or FSB, the successor intelligence agency to the KGB. They also found notes in her home referring to a potential job offer from the FSB.

I don't think she's going back home to Russia to take that State job any time soon.

Associated Press

originally posted by: Kharron
a reply to: trollz

I'm not sure if the link you read had the additional info that I will post below. You did not add a source to your OP.

The sex allegations were based on a text of her offering sex in exchange for having her bills paid, car insurance and an inspection. She replied that she has nothing to pay him back with but sex, as she does not have a nickel to her name.

The man that received a text denies it and says Butina knows his wife, he is married, it was obviously a joke. We don't know if it was a joke or not, but the prosecutors won't focus on that as they have a plethora of evidence otherwise. It is hard to prove they actually had sex.

The sexual allegation was only a small part of the evidence presented by prosecutors in arguing to jail Butina. Prosecutors largely argued that she posed an “extreme” flight risk and raised the prospect of her being swept out of the country by Russians using their diplomatic immunity to shield her from U.S. law enforcement. The U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Russia.

Prosecutors have said her activities in the U.S. were being directed by a Russian official, identified by Driscoll as Alexander Torshin. He is a senior official in the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, a former lawmaker and a member of the NRA since 2012.

Prosecutors say Torshin was Butina’s handler, but Driscoll has said he was only a friend and mentor with whom Butina traveled openly when he visited the U.S.

Torshin was also among a number of Russian businessmen and officials sanctioned this year by the U.S. Treasury Department for their ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and for their part in “advancing Russia’s malign activities.”

Prosecutors have said they also found evidence that Butina has had contact with Russian intelligence.

FBI agents photographed her dining with a diplomat suspected of being a Russian intelligence agent. They found she had contact information for people suspected of being employed by Russia’s Federal Security Services, or FSB, the successor intelligence agency to the KGB. They also found notes in her home referring to a potential job offer from the FSB.

I don't think she's going back home to Russia to take that State job any time soon.

Associated Press

And yet, none of that is a crime. At best it is suspicious. In the end, she was falsely arrested, and continues to be held because of who she knows and the fact that she is Russian.

a reply to: butcherguy


Check your PM's captain.