with ties to Trump, is cooperating too, after admitting to federal investigators in New York that its chief executive talked to people on Trump's nascent campaign about buying and burying damaging stories that could damage the candidate. Russia says its spy agencies had no knowledge of Butina or her activities.

"When I heard something was going on around her, for a start I asked the heads of our secret services, 'Who is she?' Nobody knows anything about her," President Vladimir Putin said in a televised appearance in Moscow on Tuesday, the day after Butina said in a filing she wanted to change her plea. Butina travelled to the US in 2015 and entered the US on a student visa in 2016 to study at American University in Washington. Shereported to Alexander Torshin, the former deputy chairman of Russia's central bank, court documents show. Maria Butina has admitted to working as a Russian agent in the US. Torshin accompanied Butina to a variety of conservative political events. In 2015 and 2016, the pair attended at least one NRA conference and a National Prayer Breakfast, the filings say. At one conference, they met with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Butina also attended Walker's announcement that he was running for president. At a town-hall-style event in Las Vegas in 2015, Butina asked candidate Trump whether he would improve the US relationship with Russia. Trump said he would.