By RT - September 11, 2018 at 10:45AM
US prosecutors who wrongly accused Russian ‘foreign agent’ and gun activist Maria Butina of trading sex for influence peddled their own cheap James Bond fan fiction. No matter how incorrect, the media lapped it up.
Butina’s request to be released until the time of her trial was declined by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Monday. Chutkan ruled that the Russian activist is to remain in jail until she’s tried on the charges of acting as an unregistered agent for a foreign government. Butina has pleaded not guilty.
The judge has also slapped both the prosecution and the defense with a media gag order, after berating the defense attorney for giving interviews on his client’s innocence and slamming the prosecution for opening the case with a “salacious” and “notorious” claim that proved to be completely false. Days after Butina was arrested in July, Assistant US Attorney Erik M. Kenerson claimed she was offering an individual “sex in exchange for a position within a special interest organization.”
In a filing on Friday, prosecutors in the US attorney’s office in Washington, including Kenerson, backtracked on the July allegation, and stressed that it “was based both on a series of text messages between the defendant and another individual.” They admitted that the “government’s understanding of this particular text conversation was mistaken.”
Butina case was aimed 'at getting headlines'
Accusing Butina of trading sex for work was never about building a solid case against her, however. Instead, it was about portraying her as a Russian femme fatale; a pawn of Putin seducing her way through American political circles to sow division and discord in American politics.
“I think it was done to get headlines,” human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik told RT. “I think it was done to injure her reputation… All along, the US officials and even the press have tried to present her as some kind of spy, when in fact there is not even an allegation in that regard.”
Using the term “spy” to describe Butina, even to the untrained eye, is a bit of a reach. Before falling victim to Washington’s anti-Russian crusade, Butina moved to the US on a student visa in 2016. She graduated from American University in Washington DC with a master’s degree in international relations earlier this year. Butina is also the founder of Right to Bear Arms, a pro-gun organization that lobbies to change Russia’s strict gun laws. Right to Bear Arms has developed ties with the National RIfle Association (NRA) in the US. In her time in America, Butina met and socialized with several conservative political figures.
The sex allegations, Kovalik argues, were tacked on to bolster the US government’s already weak case against Butina. The 29-year-old gun activist was arrested for failing to register as a foreign lobbyist under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), an offense that doesn’t immediately scream “spy.”
"Clearly, this is a political case,” Kovalik said. “It is unclear to me what this young woman has done wrong, except maybe not registered under the FARA act. I believe no one has been arrested ever for violating that act which is rarely invoked.”
'Used as a political pawn by US'
The smear worked, and the salacious headlines did the rounds in US media. “A simple Google search using the phrase ‘Maria Butina and sex’ yields over 300,000 hits,” her defense lawyer Robert Driscoll said in an interview, after the government backtracked on the allegation.
With their imaginations left to run riot, American journalists pumped out cold-war style spy fiction with impunity. “Sex and schmoozing are common Russian spy tactics. Publicity makes Maria Butina different,” read a headline from USA Today on August 29.
The USA Today writer scratches his head as to why Butina operated so publicly; giving interviews and speeches, publishing articles explaining her political views, and even posing for photos in magazines. After speaking to four anonymous ‘intelligence officials,’ he can only conclude that Butina’s transparency is “evidence the Russians have grown bolder in their spy efforts.”
Throughout much of the mainstream media, journalists parroted the prosecutors’ claims. Butina’s activism, the New York Times wrote in July “appears to be another arm of the Russian government’s attempts to influence or gain information about the American political process.” Butina, Time Magazine wrote at the same time, “lived a double life by using sex and a love of guns to infiltrate American political organizations...in order to advance Moscow’s agenda.”
What ‘Moscow’s agenda’ is here is unclear. Butina’s however, is clear as day. “She was meeting with people to talk about gun rights that she wants loosen in her own country back home in Russia,” Kovalik told RT. After all, if you want to talk gun rights in the USA, who better to talk to than the NRA, the world’s best-known gun rights organization, with more than six million members and a yearly revenue of almost $500 million.
Why then did she find herself the unwilling star of a third-rate spy novel, serialized and dramatized in US newspapers?
“I think this was a political gambit to deal with bigger geopolitical issues to try to ruin the outcome of the summit between Trump and Putin,” Kovalik said. “She is being used as a political pawn by the US.”
'Charges will be dropped, but reputation and life will be destroyed'
As long as the case against Butina is ongoing, the US government has human proof that the specter of ‘Russian meddling’ in US politics is alive and well.Unfortunately for Butina, that means she sits in jail until her case is eventually resolved.
The Russian Embassy in Washington DC has accused American authorities of subjecting her to ‘borderline torture’ conditions, including unnecessary strip searches after every visit, sleep deprivation, and denying the 28-year-old medical treatment for a swelling on her leg. “There are attempts to break her will,” the embassy said.
According to Kovalik, Butina’s outlook is grim. “I am going to bet that this case will drag on and this poor woman will rot in jail, apparently subjected to all sorts of indignities, including a body cavity search she is after every meeting,” the veteran human rights lawyer said. “And ultimately the charges will be dropped for the lack of evidence. But in the meantime her reputation and life will be destroyed. That is how I see this case going, to be perfectly frank.”
While the sex allegations against Butina have been dropped, prosecutors have still clung to the claims that she is, in fact, a spy. They say that her having received multiple visits from Russian officials while in jail is somehow proof of her importance to the Russian government, as is the fact that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov complained about her detention to his US counterpart Mike Pompeo.
However, a visit from a Russian bureaucrat doesn’t sell newspapers like a juicy, sex-filled headline does. Therefore, this information was relegated to the final paragraphs of the retraction articles on Friday - an ignominious end to a damp squib of a modern spy thriller.
Reprinted with permission from RT.
from Ron Paul Institute Featured Articles
via IFTTT
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Merchandise
Ron Paul America Cloud
Site Credits
Ron Paul America
is voluntarily affiliated with
______________________________
Site created, maintained and hosted by
Tags
#TurnOnTheTruth
2008
2012
4th amendment
911
ACTION
Afghanistan war
Agency
Aggression Principle
al-Qaeda
Alan Colmes
Alert
America
America's Fault
Americans
antigun
AR 15
assault weapon
Audit
Authoritarian
bailouts
Believe
Big Brother
big government
bill of rights
Blame
blowback
bubbles
Bush
Campaign for Liberty
Career Politician Eric Cantor
Central Bank
Charity
China
churches
collapse
Collectivism
Commission
committee
Compassion
Congress
Conservative
constitution
Crash
dangerous person
Democrat
Democrats
Donald Trump
Donald Trump. Planned Parenthood
drones
economic
Economy
Edward Snowden
End the Fed
European Union
Federal Reserve
Floyd Bayne
floyd bayne for congress
force
foreign interventionism
free market
free markets
GOP Nominee
GOP Presidential Debates
Government
Great Depression
gun control
House of Representatives
housing bubble
HR 1745
I like Ron Paul except on foreign policy
If ye love wealth better than liberty
IFTTT
Individual
Individualism
Institute
Irag
Iran
Iraq war
ISIL
ISIS
Judge Andrew Napalitano
libertarian
Liberty
Liberty Letters
Liberty Report
Lost
mass
Media
meltdown
metadata
Micheal Moore
Middle East
Mitt Romney
nap
National
Neocons
New Ron Paul Ad
New York Times
Newsletters
Newt Gingrich
No
Non
non-interventionism
NSA
NSA Snooping
Obama
Overreach
overthrow
Patriot Act
peace
Peace and Prosperity
politicians
Pope Francis
President
Presidential
Presidential Race
programs
prosperity
Race
Racist
Racist Newsletters
Rand Paul
Read the Bills Act
recessions
redistribution of wealth
refugee crisis
Repeal Obamacare
Report
Republican
Republican Nomination
Republican Nominee
Republicans
Revolution
Rick Santorum
Rick Santorum Exposed
Ron
Ron Paul
Ron Paul Institute
Ron Paul Institute Featured Articles
Ron Paul Institute for Peace And Prosperity
Ron Paul Institute Peace and Prosperity Articles
Ron Paul Next Chapter Media Channel
Ron Paul Racist Newsletters
ron paul's foreign policy
Ronald Reagan
ronpaulchannel.com
ronpaulinstitute.org
Rosa DeLauro
russia
Samuel Adams
Saudi Arabia
Second Amendment
Security
Senate
Senator
September 11th attacks
Show
Soviet
Spying
stimulate
Stock Market
surveillance
Syria
tech bubble
terrorist
The
the Fed
the poor
US
US foreign policy
Us troops
USA Freedom Act
Virginia
Virginia Republican Primary
voluntarism. Liberty
Voluntary
Warner
Warning
warrantless
wiretaps
YouTube
No comments:
Post a Comment