re: BREAKING / NBC News: DOJ announces the arrest of Russian National Mariia Butina

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Was she arrested for not registering as a foreign agent or for something else?

A lot of orgs and lobbyists in DC fail to register as foreign agents. Aren’t people allowed to retroactively file FARA docs?

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That seems to be the gist of the indictment. If so this is a dog. A dog with fleas to be more precise with baldspots from too much scratching. While I find it odd that Russian politicos are making friends with the NRA, I'm not sure any of this is illegal on its face. Is it the government's contention that Butina was a bagman for Putin/ GRU? Or is it thatshe was wrong to even get involved with the NRA. Is there a money trail because what I've read in the indictment there is not.

It's not as though Butina was hiding her involvement with the NRA, it's been out there and she was using traditional social media like Facebook and Twitter. The government will contend that because she knows someone who is a politician in Russia and he introduced her to some over zealous NRA members that she is somehow in the business of exploiting and colluding with them to set up some sort of cover story or something more nefarious.

Discovery should be interesting on all of this. If there was no consideration of any appreciable extent, you really can't prove espionage and besides the NRA is a private organization who did not hide their "reservation" about Hillary Clinton.

However Michigan, the courts and the DOJ take a dim view of non citizens acting domestically as a foreign agent...traditionally