Ummm. 1953 …..

Already in process, if I'm not mistaken. Of course, the US was rather inept at the spy biz at the time. They needed a few Brits and Canucks to teach them.

With a few quickly "de-nazified" German Nazis, for that special experience, thrown in.

Being an "agent" of is quite a bit different than being a spy. It seems to me that what she is guilty of is simply of acting as an agent (on behalf of) a Russian politician or the government without being properly registered. It doesn't mean she was spying or anything else nefarious.

Adam Schiff: Dems wanted Russian agent Maria Butina to testify but GOPers refused because it would ‘tarnish the NRA’
David Edwards

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Thursday that Democrats tried to call Russian agent Maria Butina to testify but Republicans refused because they worried that she would “tarnish the NRA.”

During an interview on CNN, host Alisyn Camerota asked Schiff if he was aware that Butina tried to establish backchannel communications between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We certainly knew about her and part of the role she was playing we didn’t know whether she was an agent of a foreign power,” Schiff explained, adding that the committee had email correspondence that talked about “setting up a secret back channel through the NRA.”

“We heard credible allegations that the Russians may have been funneling money through the NRA so, yes, we wanted to pursue this but like many other things,” he continued. “When it got too hot, the Republican reaction was, ‘We don’t want to know. We’d rather not know.'”

“But just to be clear,” Camerota pressed. “You’re saying that your Republican colleagues on the committee called her and said do not come in? How exactly did they block her sharing information with you?”

Schiff replied: “During the course of time when they were actively in the investigation, the majority that is, we said let’s bring in Maria Butina, here are the reasons why we should hear from her, here are the reasons why we should hear from Paul Erickson who is alleged to have been involved in setting up this secret back channel.”

“The Republicans were unwilling,” the California Democrat recalled. “They said no. We don’t want to have them come in, we don’t want to hear what they have to say. They wouldn’t explain why but it was very clear that anything that might tarnish the NRA, anything that might lead to discoverable evidence that might incriminate the White House or people around the president, they didn’t want to hear.”

Watch the video below from CNN.

vid at source

SOURCE

The Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

This "infographic" is remarkably helpful ~ ~ Sooz

INFOGRAPHIC: Alleged Russian Agent Mariia Butina’s Influence Operation
By Allegra Kirkland | July 20, 2018 6:00 am

Alleged Russian agent Mariia Butina was indicted this week on two very serious charges: conspiring against the U.S. and acting as an unregistered foreign agent.

But the influence campaign Butina allegedly carried out over the past few years was so brazen that it was almost comical. The 29-year-old essentially made her very own “Where’s Waldo?” series out of the 2016 GOP presidential campaign.

Butina was captured on camera at a 2015 Las Vegas libertarian convention asking then-candidate Donald Trump about U.S. sanctions. She popped up at NRA events throughout the Midwest and at the National Prayer Breakfast in D.C. On the day of President Trump’s inauguration, Butina even sent a selfie to her alleged handler, Russian Central Bank official Alexander Torshin, of her beaming near the U.S. Capitol building.

Many of those interactions, like her run-ins with short-lived GOP candidates Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum, were just embarrassing photo ops for those politicians she was allegedly targeting. But some of the connections—like her intimate relationship with GOP operative Paul Erickson and her association with former NRA president David Keene—were involved and forged over years.

As the Washington Post and others have documented, Russia used religion and guns to make inroads with the American conservative community. According to court documents, Butina also used sexual favors as a lure, allegedly offering sex for a position at a special interest organization.



https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/maria-butina-web-connections-republican-party