WASHINGTON, November 16. /TASS/. The defense team of Maria Butina, a Russian citizen arrested in the United States, requested the judge to lift charges against her fully or in part.

According to documents, available in the database of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, defense attorneys request the judge "to dismiss the indictment (or one of the counts thereof), or to compel election between the multiplicitous counts."

"The indictment is constitutionally infirm because it is overly broad and functions unconstitutionally as applied to Maria Butina," the document reads.

Butina case

The 29-year-old Maria Butina was arrested in Washington D.C. on July 15, on the eve of the Helsinki summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump. The Russian gun rights activist was charged with conspiracy for conducting activities in the interests of a foreign state. The investigators claim she engaged in these activities without registering as a foreign agent at the US Department of Justice.

The FBI said Butina entered the US in August 2016 on a student visa and took up studies at the American University. She received the master’s degree in international relations in May 2018, according to her lawyer.

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.

On July 21, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underlined in his telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that US actions against Russian citizen Maria Butina were inadmissible.