All news

Maria Butina’s arrest not linked to Mueller investigation, says lawyer

Special counsel Mueller’s attorneys "had nothing to do with the search, they had nothing to do with the arrest", Robert Neil Driscoll said

WASHINGTON, July 21. /TASS/. Arrest of Russian citizen Maria Butina by US security services is not linked to the investigation of the alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election, which is conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller, Butina’s lawyer Robert Neil Driscoll told TASS on Friday.

"No," he said. "And I’ve talked to special counsel Mueller’s attorneys about that. They had nothing to do with the search, they had nothing to do with the arrest. They are aware of it but that’s it. They had nothing to do with it."

Arrest of Russian citizen Maria Butina in the US right before the first full-scale summit meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump was not accidental, the lawyer defending Butina, Driscoll added.

Butina was arrested in the afternoon on Sunday, July 15, and the US Department of Justice announced her arrest on Monday, July 16, when Putin and Trump were holding talks in Helsinki.

"I don’t think it was an accident," Driscoll answered. "I don’t know what the timing was but I know the reasons they gave to the court don’t make any sense."

"They told the court that they were worried that she was leaving because she was packing boxes," he said. "But the Government knew full well, because I told them at the end of June, that she was moving to South Dakota to live with her boyfriend."

Driscoll said there was no surprise in the fact Butina was packing over the weekend.

"She was staying within the United States, she didn’t buy an airline ticket or tried to leave," he said. "And they said that she transferred money to Russia but that was simply a credit card payment."

Driscoll said her credit card had been issued by a Russian bank, "so she went to the bank to make a credit card payment [in the amount of $ 3,500 TASS], and the Government presented that to the court as though she made some kind of money transfer to Russia as evidence of her leaving when it was simply to make a credit card payment."

"So those are the reasons they gave," Driscoll said. "Maybe they felt like they didn’t want to follow her in South Dakota because that’s a lot less fun than following her around in Washington DC. But that’s not a great reason to incarcerate somebody."

Driscoll confirmed Butina’s boyfriend was Paul Erickson, a political consultant of the Republican Party.

Maria Butina, 29, a gun rights activist, faces the charges of conspiracy for conducting activities in the interests of a foreign state. The investigators claim she engaged in these activities without registration at the US Department of Justice.

The FBI said earlier this week Butina entered the US in August 2016 on a student visa and took up studies at the American University. According to Driscoll, she received the master’s degree in international relations in May 2018.

Butina is a member of the board of the Russian public associations ‘The Right to Guns’. In this capacity, she attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington in February 2017 where President Donald Trump took part.

FBI special agent Kevin Helson said in his evidence to the court Butina has been trying to carry out an operation to influence the Americans in Russia’s interests. According to him one of the goals of the presumable conspiracy was "exploit personal connections with U.S. persons having influence in American politics in an effort to advance the interests of the Russian Federation."

It turned out later Butina had stayed under the FBI watch since 2016, or virtually as of the moment she arrived in the US.

Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s official spokesperson said earlier this week the US claims against Butina were too far-fetched and did not hold water.