The 29-year-old Russian woman accused of working as a foreign agent in the U.S. reportedly met with senior officials in the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve in 2015.
Sources familiar with the meetings and the think tank that helped set them up told Reuters that Maria Butina met with Stanley Fischer, then-vice chairman of the Fed, and Nathan Sheets, then undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Treasury.
Butina was indicted last week on charges of conspiracy and acting as an agent of the Russian Federation without notifying the attorney general. She is accused of trying to infiltrate the National Rifle Association to advance Russian interests in the U.S.
She is being held in custody while awaiting trial after Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik Kenerson argued that she is a flight risk.
The Reuters report indicates that Butina’s contacts were with higher-level officials than previously reported. Washington pro-Russia foreign policy think tank Center for the National Interest [formerly The Nixon Center] set up the meetings between Butina and the officials, according to the news service.
Alexander Torshin, then the Russian Central Bank deputy governor [& suspected to be involved in Russian Mafia], also met with Sheets and Fischer separately, though he and Butina traveled together, Reuters reported.
The Center for the National Interest described the meetings as bringing together “leading figures from the financial institutions of the United States and Russia” in a report seen by Reuters.
Fischer confirmed to the news service that he met with Torshin and his interpreter. Butina often served as Torshin’s interpreter. Sheets declined to comment to Reuters through a spokesman.
The Justice Department indictment alleges that Butina “worked at the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government,” believed to be Torshin.
Torshin, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been the focus of Democrats in the Senate Judiciary Committee, who claimed earlier this year that they had obtained documents suggesting that Russia had used the NRA to funnel money to the Trump campaign.
If she is an interpreter than its probably the state departments fault for not vetting her.
But mean while in realville Two planes meet in the middle of the night who just happen to hold US AG and the husband of a political figure being investigated by said US AG and nothing happen to either one? Now that is a real story!!!
