Prosecutors Admit They Wrongly Accused Russian of Offering Sex for Republican Access

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Prosecutors Admit They Wrongly Accused Russian of Offering Sex for Republican Access
By Sharon LaFraniere
Sept. 8, 2018

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors have admitted that they wrongly accused Maria Butina, a Russian citizen now in custody on charges of illegally acting as a foreign agent, of offering to trade sex for a job as part of a covert effort by Russian government officials to infiltrate Republican circles in the United States.

In a court filing late Friday, prosecutors in the United States attorney’s office in Washington acknowledged that they had been “mistaken” in interpreting what were apparently joking text messages between Ms. Butina and a friend who had helped her renew her car insurance.
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Defense lawyers for Ms. Butina are arguing that the prosecutors’ error is emblematic of a flawed federal case that has wrongly landed their client in pretrial custody. A federal judge is scheduled to review Ms. Butina’s request that she be released from jail, as well as whether to impose a gag order, on Monday.
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“I’m glad they walked it back, but in a lot of ways, the damage is already done,” Robert N. Driscoll, Ms. Butina’s lawyer, said in an interview. In court filings, he has argued that his client engaged in innocent political activity but has now been falsely portrayed as a villain in a sensationalized spy drama. “A simple Google search using the phrase ‘Maria Butina and sex’ yields over 300,000 hits,” he said.

In their latest filing, prosecutors argued that even if they had wrongly interpreted Ms. Butina’s text messages to a friend, she should not be released from custody . . .

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"The damage is already done."
No kidding.

Last summer, this woman was promoted across the media as a basic whore and Russian spy. There were scintillating tales leaked and planted by the DOJ in a coordinated manner that destroyed the woman as she was perp walked to jail. Then, as she was held w/o bail, a gag order was placed to prevent any public discourse supporting her.

So along come court filings in September. Lo and behold, prosecutors basically said "my bad". They admitted the scillacious crap they'd planted in the media about Butina was BS. Those court filings made not a ripple on any TV news network.

When it was disclosed Maria Butina had been falsely accused of whoring herself in a spy network, you'd think it would have pushed every #metoo button in existence, and that women's rights activists would have been screaming from every mountaintop about it. Instead . . . crickets. Why? Because a sullied Maria Butina serves as a means to forward the idiotic Russians-Russians-Russians! narrative.

In Butina, you have a Russian citizen initially absorbed in the cause of gun rights in Russia. She naturally made Russian political contacts in that effort. Then she fell for an American visitor and US gun rights activist. They moved in together. Then she moved here with him.

At that point, she became interested in US gun rights. She enrolled in a MS International Studies program here. Meanwhile, she pursued gun rights with the same passion within our "great democracy" that she had back in her native Russia. She was all over social media. After all, this was America, the land of free-speech. She was wide-open about her identity, her Russian citizenship, and her beliefs. Not exactly the behavior of a "spy" or surreptitious "foreign agent".

Turns out the woman is no more likely "a foreign agent" than any foreign citizen promoting a cause in the US. Lord knows, if she is convicted, someone like Jorge Ramos should receive a life sentence under the same auspices.

. . . and Jeff Sessions' DOJ did this to her.

Sessions did it to her at the same time he refused to even look at Lois Lerner, pursue punishment for contempt charges against Holder, or hire a SC to examine the Clinton 2016 situation.
Pathetic!