9 months counted as time served, so 9 more months, followed by deportation to Russia (which, let's be honest, is potentially a death sentence, since she cooperated with prosecutors and Putin is Putin):
A federal judge in Washington D.C. sentenced Russian national Maria Butina on Friday to 18 months in prison, but credited her with nine months time served. That means the defendant has to spend nine more months behind bars.
Butina pleaded guilty in December to conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, and she agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. She admittedly traveled to the United States so she could make connections with members of the Republican Party, and the National Rifle Association. Her handler was former politician Alexander Torshin, prosecutors said. They wanted to influence American politics on behalf of the Russian government, and do it in a way that could possibly hurt U.S. interests, authorities said.
Butina lawyer Alfred Carry told Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday that his client did not work for the Russian government.
Carry: "Maria is not a spy. She’s not intelligence. She’s never been employed by the Russian government. She knows of no secret codes, safe houses ... She has never engaged in covert activity and she has never lied to our government."
Carry said Butina's relationship with Aleksandr Torshin (Russian Central Bank official that she was in regular comms with) was a mix of personal (i.e. buying his grandchildren clothes, it was not romantic) and relaying her experiences interacting with influential Americans
Butina said in court that she would’ve registered as a foreign agent if she knew she had to. Chutkan didn’t accept this framing of events.
Chutkan is up (we may go right to sentencing without a break). She says she agrees with the govt that Butina wasn't just a student and this wasn't just a registration offense — Butina was sending info to Russia at a time when Russia was trying to interfere with the US election
The road here has been pretty messy. The case caught attention in part because of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, but also because of some of the salacious allegations against Butina.
Prosecutors, however, walked back their claim that she offered sex in exchange for political access. Her attorney Robert Driscoll called out the government last year for burying this on “page 19 of a 22-page brief filed near midnight.”
“Whatever the reason, it is nothing short of cowardice to make false proffers to much fanfare only to deny them later in a mere sentence or footnote,” he wrote.
Butina’s American boyfriend, Republican operative Paul Erickson, was implicated after prosecutors suggested she started her relationship with him to gain access to political figures. He wasn’t charged in this case, but is facing a separate one in a South Dakota federal court for financial crimes. Erickson pleaded not guilty.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver
"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.
I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
I bet there are a lot of people more worried about what she told Federal Prosecutors. I see many more going down on this.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
I bet there are a lot of people more worried about what she told Federal Prosecutors. I see many more going down on this.
We can only hope, but after the results of the Mueller report, my faith in the ability or willingness of the DOJ to nail any of these bastards is deeply shaken.
Note: this is not a concession that there was nothing there, because there very clearly was- and DOJ policy and the narrowness of certain laws thoroughly tied Mueller's hands in doing anything about it. Granted, Butina, and those she was in contact with, don't enjoy the protection of an absurd rule like "Can't indict a sitting President"- but once again we have seen that it is hard to make rich white people pay a price in this country. Its frankly amazing that Mueller managed to nab as many people as he did (Stone, Papdapolous, Gates, Manafort, Flynn).
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver
"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.
I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
