A lawyer for alleged Russian agent Maria Butina says a video showing his client and Republican operative Paul Erickson singing a song from the 1991 Disney animated film “Beauty and the Beast” shows the two were in love and she was not using the relationship to obtain influence, as the government has argued.
Federal prosecutors have alleged that Butina, who was arrested in July and charged with working to infiltrate the conservative political groups and the National Rifle Association as an unregistered Russian agent, at least once offered sex to someone in “in exchange for a position within a special interest organization.” They described her romantic relationship with Erickson as “duplicitous.”
In video released to ABC, Butina and Erickson are shown in a studio smiling and singing the title song from “Beauty and the Beast” to one another.
“I find it adorable, and I think you also look at this and say this looks pretty legitimate,” Butina’s lawyer Robert Driscoll told ABC. “Maybe I’m a sucker for romance, but to me it looks really pretty happy.”
Driscoll has argued that the government has little evidence to back up its claim that Butina used sex to advance her career. In a court filing Friday, he detailed a three-year text conversation between Butina and a male friend in Russia, in which Butina offered sex after he had taken Butina’s car for an annual inspection and insurance renewal. Driscoll said the text exchange was merely a joke between two friends and there was no evidence they ever had sex.
[Also read: Lawyers for alleged Russian agent Maria Butina accused of violating court rules]
