US Political Prisoner Maria Butina

By Stephen Lendman
Source

Thousands of political prisoners languish in America’s gulag, Russian nationals among them – subjected to abusive and humiliating treatment.

The US wrongfully imprisoned Konstantin Yaroshenko, Vadim Mirerin, Victor Bout, Maria Butina, and other Russian nationals for political reasons alone.

Actions against them reflect bipartisan Russophobia, Russian nationals subjected to “cruel and unusual punishment” – forbidden by the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment.

On July 14, two days before Putin/Trump summit talks in Helsinki, Finland, Butina was arrested on false charges of “conspiracy to act as a Russian agent within the United States without prior notification to the Attorney General” – no evidence cited proving it.

She’s a visa-approved American University graduate, earning a master’s degree in international relations, “not an agent of the Russian Federation,” her lawyer Robert Driscoll explained, adding:

She’s “not a proxy for any of the serious and substantial issues that our country has with Russia right now.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced her arrest, detention, and mistreatment, calling it part of the campaign in America to “stoke Russophobic hysteria.”

Despite innocent of bogus charges against her and posing no flight risk, she was denied bail, for much the past five months held in suffocating solitary confinement – mistreatment able to break the will of most everyone subjected to it longterm.

Last week, Zakharova again expressed outrage over Butina’s detention and mistreatment “on trumped up charges,” currently isolated 22 hours daily and denied proper medical care – aiming to break her will ahead of a scheduled December 19 court hearing moved up to December 12, wanting her to confess to bogus charges.

Throughout her confinement, Russian diplomats in Washington maintained daily contact, including regular protests to US prison authorities and the State Department over her illegal detention and abusive treatment.

On Monday, Butina’s attorneys and federal prosecutors filed a joint motion ahead of her Wednesday’s court hearing.

According to ABC News, she “agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and cooperate with federal, state and local authorities in any ongoing investigation” – despite having committed no wrongdoing.

According to information seen by ABC News, she and an unnamed “US Person 1 (believed to be) longtime Republican operative Paul Erickson… ‘agreed and conspired’ with a Russian government official and at least one other person, for Butina to act in the United States under the direction of Russian Official without prior notification to the Attorney General,” adding:

She “sought to establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over US politics.”

All of the above is pure rubbish. Butina likely agreed to a plea bargain for a more lenient sentence if convicted of phony charges against her – despite guilty only of being a Russian national in America at the wrong time.

Not a shred of evidence suggests she violated US laws. Following her arrest last July, Sergey Lavrov told Mike Pompeo that actions against her were inadmissible – a weak-kneed response achieving nothing.

The Kremlin should be much tougher with Washington over numerous issues, including the imprisonment of Russian nationals on phony charges, maliciously holding them hostage over unacceptable hostility toward the Russian Federation.

The only language Washington understands is toughness. Putin should order the arrests of US citizens in Russia, detaining them until all its nationals are released and proper compensation paid them for harsh illegal treatment they received.

That’s the only way to get Washington’s attention. Failure to challenge unacceptable US actions encourages more of them.

Political arrests and imprisonment of Russian nationals on bogus charges, along with other US hostility toward Moscow, won’t stop unless countered with toughness – the only language Republicans and undemocratic Dems understand.

Butina and her lawyers denied all accusations against her. A plea bargain if agreed to will be all about wanting brutal treatment mitigated and ended – even if she’s forced to serve time in prison unjustly.

Months of brutalizing physical and emotional mistreatment in confinement constitutes flagrantly illegal torture.

Under these conditions, most people will say anything to stop pain – despite having committed no crimes or other wrongdoing.

Butina and other wrongfully imprisoned Russian nationals are victims of US imperial arrogance.

Whatever the disposition of her case, other Russian nationals living outside the country risk hostile US treatment similar to what she endured for political reasons.

When is enough enough? How much more US hostility is too much? Unless Moscow responds with toughness, they’ll be no end of it.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Two Stories from the Propaganda War

By Philip M. Giraldi
Source

Two recent stories about Russians have demonstrated how the news is selected and manipulated in the United States. The first is about Maria Butina, who apparently sought to overthrow American democracy, such as it is, by obtaining a life membership in the National Rifle Association. Maria, a graduate student at American University, is now in detention in a federal prison, having been charged with collusion and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. She has been in prison since July, for most of the time in solitary confinement, and has not been granted bail because, as a Russian citizen, she is considered to be a “flight risk.”

Maria, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, is now seeking donations to help pay for her legal defense as the Russian government renews demands that she be released from jail or be tried on whatever charges the Justice Department can come up with, but her release is unlikely as she is really a political prisoner.

The media has been silent about Maria Butina because the case against her is falling apart. In early September prosecutors admitted that they had misunderstood text messages used to support claims that she had offered to trade sex for access to information. Demands that she consequently be released from prison were, however, rejected. Her lawyer observed that “The impact of this inflammatory allegation, which painted Ms. Butina as some type of Kremlin-trained seductress, or spy-novel honeypot character, trading sex for access and power, cannot be overstated.”

In an attempt to make the Butina embarrassment disappear from the news, the Justice Department has proposed an unprecedented gag order to prevent her attorney from appearing in the media in a way that could prejudice a jury should her case eventually come to trial. Currently there is no court date and Maria remains in jail indefinitely, but the press could care less – she is just one more Russiagate casualty in an ongoing saga that has long since passed her by.

Given the Maria Butina story and the hysteria over all things Russian it was perhaps inevitable that the tale of Kremlin interference in American elections would be resurrected and repeated. Federal prosecutors are now reporting that another Russian woman has illegally conspired with others to “defraud the United States” and interfere with the U.S. political system, to include plans for conducting “information warfare” to subvert the upcoming 2018 midterm elections.

The complaint was filed on October 19th at a federal court in Virginia which handles most national security cases. According to the court documents, Elena Alekseevna Khusyainova, a 44-year-old resident of St. Petersburg in Russia, has worked as the head accountant for “Project Lakhta,” a Russian influence operation backed by an oligarch close to President Vladi­mir Putin. According to the Justice Department, the operation “spread misinformation about US political issues including immigration, gun control, the Confederate flag, and protests by NFL players. It also used events including the Las Vegas mass shooting, and the far-Right rally in Charlottesville, to spread discord.”

Khusyainova, who is not likely to be extradited to the United States for trial, allegedly purchased advertising in social networks and also supported dissident groups. The accusation of the American authorities emphasizes the connection between Khusyainova and St. Petersburg businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was previously identified by the media as the owner of a ‘Troll Factory’ in St. Petersburg. In the U.S., several charges have already been brought against him and his staff, including interfering in the presidential elections in 2016.

The Maria Butina story reveals how there is a fundamental flaw in the justice system in the United States. When someone is found guilty by the media there is no way to right the wrong when the story shifts and starts to break down. The New York Times or Washington Post is unlikely to leap to the defense of the accused. Maria Butina has been raked over the coals in stories that were partly true but mostly false in terms of any criminal intent. She is still waiting for justice and will likely be doing so for some time.

The case of Elena Khusyainova is Maria Butina redux, only even more idiotic. No actual evidence is presented in the indictment and since Elena is in Russia and not likely to visit the United States, the entire affair is a bit of theater intended to heighten hysteria about the U.S. midterm elections. Is the U.S. electoral system really so fragile and what did Elena actually seek to do? The Justice Department is silent on the issue beyond vague accusations about trolling on the internet by Russians. One wonders who in the federal government ordered the investigation and signed off on the indictment.

Both Maria and Elena are victims of a politicized miscarriage of justice. Maria Butina should be released from prison now and allowed to pay her fine for being an unregistered agent before leaving the country. There is no justification for holding her in prison. And the indictment of Elena Khusyainova is not worth the paper it is written on. It should be torn up and thrown away.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!