Hours after Donald Trump shocked the world by siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin rather than his own intelligence agencies regarding Russia’s attempts to skew the 2016 election, the Justice Department announced that it had filed charges against yet another Russian. Maria Butina, a pro-gun activist and graduate student living in the D.C. area, was indicted for “infiltrating organizations having influence in American politics, for the purpose of advancing the interests of the Russian Federation.” Butina, 29, was arrested on Sunday in Washington, D.C.

If true, the indictment, which was unsealed Monday, paints a remarkable picture of Russian efforts to use the National Rifle Association to insinuate themselves into Republican politics and, ultimately, the 2016 presidential campaign. Butina and her former boss, Alexander Torshin—the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank and a former Russian senator who allegedly has ties to Russia’s criminal underground—became lifetime members of the N.R.A. and ran a Russian version of the group called the Right to Bear Arms. Over the years, both cultivated relationships with powerful members of the gun-rights group, particularly Republicans, who they allegedly believed would be friendlier to Russian interests. (Torshin is reportedly under investigation by the F.B.I. for channeling money to the N.R.A. to benefit the Trump campaign.) According to the indictment, Butina even had a “private meeting” with an unnamed “political candidate” in 2015, at the N.R.A.’s annual members’ meeting.

Could that candidate have been Donald Trump? Torshin, on his verified Twitter account, claimed in 2015 that he had access to Trump through the N.R.A., and cited the 2015 convention as a point of connection. Whether the two men spoke, however, is unclear. In a later interview with Bloomberg, Torishin “said he’s known Trump for five years and the two men last had a jovial exchange at the National Rifle Association Convention in Tennessee in 2015, just before the future president announced his run for the White House.” While Torshin allegedly tried to arrange a meeting with Trump during his campaign, the White House has previously denied that Trump and Torshin ever met. (The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

There are additional points of contact, however. Torshin did meet with Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., at a private dinner during an N.R.A. convention in Louisville, Kentucky, the following year. (Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for Don Jr., said their conversation was restricted to “gun-related small talk.”) Butina also has ties to Paul Erickson, a G.O.P. operative who has reportedly bragged about advising Trump and whose background aligns with the description of “U.S. Person 1” in the indictment. Butina and Torshin allegedly used their gun-rights group as a way to connect with Republican officials in the United States; Erickson, former N.R.A. president David Keene, and former Wisconsin sheriff David Clarke attended a December 2015 trip to Moscow funded by the organization. (Erickson was not identified in court records and has not been charged.)

The alleged connections between Butina, Torshin, and the Trump campaign could become significant as Robert Mueller continues his investigation. According to the Justice Department complaint, Butina is accused of acting as an unregistered agent on Russia’s behalf from 2015 to 2017, collaborating with “others known and unknown, including an official of the Russian Federation” and “work[ing] at the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government.” Butina privately claimed to work on behalf of the Russian government to build a back channel between the Trump campaign and Moscow, the Daily Beast reported last year. (Previous efforts to reach Torshin for comment were unsuccessful.)

Butina allegedly had help from an unnamed American. The indictment states that on October 4, 2016, “U.S. Person 1” sent an e-mail to a person believed to be Butina describing efforts to establish this backchannel. “Unrelated to specific presidential campaigns, I’ve been involved in securing a VERY private line of communication between the Kremlin and key [Republican] leaders through, of all conduits, the [N.R.A.]” (A spokesperson for the N.R.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

According to a statement from her attorney, Butina voluntarily testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee for eight hours “months ago.” Last spring, Butina told The Washington Post that her outreach to U.S. political operatives was conducted purely out of a shared passion for firearms, and that “no government official has ever approached me about ‘fostering ties’ with any Americans.”