Maria Butina, who studied at American University in Washington and is a founder of the pro-gun Russian advocacy group Right to Bear Arms, was arrested on Sunday and accused of operating at the direction of a high-level official who worked for the Russian Central Bank and was recently sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Justice Department said. While allegations that Butina illegally lobbied in the US come amid fervor from Democrats, the intelligence community, and the mainstream media over Mueller's latest indictments and friendly comments made by US President Donald Trump at a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, Mueller "has not expressed interest" in allowing Butina to interview him as she has requested, according to the statement from Driscoll. According to court documents, an unnamed American who worked with Butina claimed he was involved in setting up a "private line of communication" before the 2016 election between the Kremlin and "key" officials in an American political party through a "gun rights organization." Butina has been cultivating her own ties with American gun-rights activists, like Republican strategist Paul Erickson, whom she has been acquainted with since at least 2013. And when the NRA sent a delegation to Moscow in the winter of 2015, it was Torshin who received them on behalf of The Right to Bear Arms, the Russian gun-rights group that Butina spearheads. This Russian official was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control in April 2018.”

Butina served as the deputy to Alexander Torshin, a former member of President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party and the deputy head of the Central Bank of Russia. According to the Justice Department, “from as early as 2015 and continuing through at least February 2017, Butina worked at the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government who was previously a member of the legislature of the Russian Federation and later became a top official at the Russian Central Bank. "Maria Butina is not an agent of the Russian Federation," attorney Robert Driscoll, Burtina's legal representation, said in a statement obtained by Sputnik News. The crux of the allegation against Butina, who recently completed a masters degree in international relations, is that she acted as an unregistered foreign agent, communicating with a Russian official via email and Twitter direct messages, according to the indictment. "While styled as some sort of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agent Registration Act, in actuality it describes a conspiracy to have a 'friendship dinner' at Bistro Bis with a group of Americans and Russians to discuss foreign relations between the two countries."
The US government charges Maria Butina, a 29-year-old Russian woman with conspiracy to act as a Russian government agent while infiltrating political groups.