Russian operative Maria Butina was indicted this week on charges of being a covert Russian agent.

Butina struck up friendships with the influential leaders of the National Rifle Association and the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Butina was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of the Russian Federation and is being held without bond.

On Wednesday night investigative reporter John Solomon told Lou Dobbs that the FBI knew about Butina and her operations but they did not warn the conservatives who she was cozying up to.

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This is a STUNNING development.

John Solomon: I’ll tell you a little story I’ve never told before. In March of 2015 I observed her at several events and really cozying up to conservatives and making what I thought was a weak-handed case that she was this courageous gun rights activist going up against Putin and there would one day be a Second Amendment in Russia. There’s never going to be a Second Amendment in Russia. I became very perplexed by her behavior and her efforts of going up to presidential candidates and congressional candidates. So I started to do some reporting and I called FBI and US intelligence sources and very quickly I learned, “Yeah, we know that she’s somebody here as an agent of influence. She’s connecte to this guy Tortian(sp?) and we know what she’s trying to do.” And I thought, that’s really interesting. Are they going to tell the people she’s meeting with and it doesn’t appear they ever did. I thought the role of FBI counter-intelligence was to prevent contacts from occurring that are not in the interest of the United States. It sounds like they sat around and watched this for three or four years until it was convenient to create a headline.

This won’t help build back trust with the Deep State FBI.

Was this just a set-up on conservatives and the NRA?

It very well may be.

Via Lou Dobbs Tonight: