Accused Russian Spy Maria Butina Met With Fed’s Stanley Fischer, Treasury’s Nathan Sheets, Because Why Not?

Listen, Maria Butina is not a Russian spy, ok?

Just ask Sergei Lavrov, who told Mike Pompeo on Saturday that the arrest and detention of Butina pending trial is based on “fabricated charges” and is “unacceptable” to the Kremlin.

Anatoly Antonov, Russian Ambassador to the U.S., called her arrest “totally illegal” and assured reporters in Moscow that Russia “will demand her release so that she can calmly go home.”

Just to reiterate, it is entirely unclear why anyone would think Butina was anything other than a “student”. I mean, just look at this picture and tell me whether it screams “Russian spy!” to you:

I’m being sarcastic. Butina couldn’t look more like a Russian spy if she tried.

And while not every picture of her looks like it could be the alternate cover for a James Bond DVD, that one sure does and if you read the backstory on this case, it is abundantly clear that Butina was not merely a “student”.

Here’s a bit in the way of background from the gals and guys over at Wonkette:

Butina has long been a known associate of another Russian, an oligarch named Aleksandr Torshin, a sanctioned individual who FOR SOME REASON is a lifetime member of the NRA; who has been under investigation for money laundering by Spanish authorities; and who dined with Donald Trump Jr. at the 2016 NRA convention in Louisville. (Butina schmoozed with Junior there too.) Torshin is not named in this indictment, but rather is alluded to as a “Russian official” who was Butina’s handler, so we guess his indictment is forthcoming.

Butina founded a Russian “gun group” called the Right To Bear Arms, and that group organized and helped to fund a very strange trip where American NRA gun-humpers like disgraced former Sheriff David Clarke went to Moscow the same weekend as that RT gala where Michael Flynn and Jill Stein drank toasts to Vladimir Putin. The NRA delegation was there to meet with a Putin deputy named Dmitry Rogozin, who is a super-important part of the gun rights movement in Russia, HAHAHA JUST KIDDING, THERE IS NO GUN RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN RUSSIA. He does want the Russian Empire to rise again, though, to the point that he thinks Alaska should be returned to its rightful owner, which SURPRISE! is Russia.

Did we mention Trump’s current national security advisor John Bolton made a nice promo video for Butina’s “gun” group, about how he supported the “gun movement” in Russia?

Butina has long bragged about her ties to the Trump campaign, and she’s long been suspected of posing as a student at American University in DC as a cover for her Russian spy work. (She was here on an F-1 student visa, but it sounds like she didn’t do much homework, on account of how she was always busy spying. Anyway, she graduated this spring.)

In case you somehow haven’t seen it yet, here’s the video of Butina asking Donald Trump to lift sanctions on Russia at an event way back in 2015:

NO COLLUSION!

Well, now, Reuters is out reporting that Butina (with Torshin) actually met with Janet Yellen’s number two, the Fed’s Stanley Fischer and also Nathan Sheets.

And yes, I’m serious.

“Butina [and] Alexander Torshin, then the Russian Central Bank deputy governor, took part in separate meetings with Fischer and Sheets to discuss U.S.-Russian economic relations during Democratic former President Barack Obama’s administration”, Reuters writes, adding that “the meetings were arranged by the Center for the National Interest, a Washington foreign policy think tank that often advocates pro-Russia views.”

Apparently, Reuters got their hands on a report from the think tank that describes the meetings as “helping bring together leading figures from the financial institutions of the United States and Russia.”

As a reminder, trying to pin down exactly what Butina does and/or who Butina actually even is, isn’t always straightforward. As the DailyBeast noted last year, “depending on who’s asking, she’s either a Russian central bank staffer, a gun rights advocate, or a connection between D.C. Republicans and Russia.”

She’s listed here as “a special assistant to the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Russia” and I guess she was serving in that capacity when she met with Fischer and Sheets.

Whatever the case, this is absurd in the extreme and as Reuters goes on to write, the previously unreported meetings “reveal a wider circle of high-powered connections that Butina sought to cultivate with American political leaders and special interest groups.”

Maybe Donald Trump can pardon her and make her Fed chair – you know, since she knows so much about central banking and the position is about to be open.

Meanwhile, the Russian foreign ministry has launched an all-out propaganda campaign to advocate for her release, but not because she’s a spy and might have sensitive information, mind you. Rather, because she’s just some poor girl that got caught up in a WITCH HUNT!

The ministry’s official Twitter account now features a picture of Butina, that looks a lot less Bond-villain-ish.

“They’re trying to break this girl,” the above-mentioned Antonov said this weekend. “But she will not be broken.”

Don’t worry Anatoly, I’m sure the President won’t let any harm come to her. After all, she’s a friend of his son’s.