Maria Butina claimed her arrest and incarceration were motivated by “racism” against Russians.
Butina, who was not charged with espionage, was released from prison last month and immediately deported to Moscow, months after she pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an agent of the Russian government without registering with the Justice Department.
The Russian national showed defiance in a feisty interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday. The interview was filmed while Butina was incarcerated at a Florida prison.
“Tell me that there is no racism here against the Russians. Oh, please. It is,” Butina, 30, said.
“I think it’s an American, very old saying, that suggests that wolves have teeth, but not all animals with teeth are wolves. You cannot judge a person based on appearance,” she said.
Butina denied playing any role in Russian interference in the 2016 election, which came at the same time she was cultivating relationships with conservative politicians while trying to infiltrate the NRA.
“If I were not Russian, that would be called social networking,” she said.
She also claimed she did not know whether Alexander Torshin, a longtime figure in Russian politics of whom she acted at the direction, had connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite writing to him that he was an “influential member of Putin’s team.”
“It doesn’t suggest he’s close to Putin in any way,” Butina argued, also dismissing the notion that she and Torshin were taking direction from someone high up in the Russian government as “conspiracy theories.”
Maria Butina’s introduction to the NRA was facilitated by Russian official Alexander Torshin. 60 Minutes obtained thousands of private Twitter messages the two sent each other over two and a half years https://t.co/2DTf1e1Z2H pic.twitter.com/enTqt1vpk9
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 4, 2019
John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security, called Butina’s answers “a masterpiece of disinformation” and predicted the Russian government would use her “as an instrument of propaganda.”
“Her lawyer is right that she didn’t get, as far as we know, classified information. But that’s not what she was doing here. She was an influence agent. She was getting access to Americans, who she thought were close to power in America,” the Justice Department official said.
“What makes her so dangerous is that the people she’s contacting don’t know that she’s there taking direction from the Russian government,” he added.
