The latest complaint against Mariia Butina says she was working under the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government and Russian central bank | AP Photo U.S. adds second charge against Russian national linked to NRA

A federal grand jury indicted Mariia Butina on Tuesday on charges of conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent, adding a new charge against the Russian national, who was arrested over the weekend in Washington and accused of playing a part in a secret Russian attempt to influence U.S. politics.

Jessie Liu, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, signed off on the two-count indictment against Butina, 29, who is accused of working as an unregistered Kremlin agent from at least 2015 through the present day.


Butina had been charged Monday with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, an offense with a statutory maximum of five years in prison. On Tuesday, U.S. officials persuaded the grand jury to add the second offense of acting as the foreign agent, which has its own 10-year-maximum prison sentence.

Like the charging documents released Monday, the latest complaint against Butina says she was working under the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government and Russian central bank “to arrange introductions to U.S. persons having influence in American politics, including an organization promoting gun rights … for the purpose of advancing the interests of the Russian Federation.”

While the indictment doesn’t name the Russian official or the gun rights group, it appears to refer to Alexander Torshin, an associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a longtime supporter of the National Rifle Association who also reportedly has ties to both Russian security services and organized crime figures.

Robert Driscoll, an attorney for Butina, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new indictment. On Monday, he issued a statement disputing the initial charge and said his client, a recent college graduate, was not “seeking to influence or undermine any specific policy or law of the United States — only at most to promote a better relationship between the two nations.”

Butina is scheduled to appear at a Wednesday afternoon hearing before Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson at the federal courthouse in Washington.

