Accused Russian agent met with suspected Kremlin spy

[DonViejo]

Source: Politico



Mariia Butina’s attorney insists the get-together was nothing more than one dinner with a prominent Russian official.

By JOSH MEYER 07/28/2018 06:43 AM EDT

Accused Russian sleeper agent Mariia Butina met in January with the head of a Russian government-affiliated cultural center that authorities have long suspected of being a front for recruiting young American spies.

Authorities believe the meeting with Oleg Zhiganov, the longtime director of the Russian Cultural Centre, was one of several pieces of evidence that Butina was a flight risk, and a judge recently agreed. But Butina’s attorney insists the get-together was nothing more than a nice dinner out between two Russian expatriots who had met a few times at the embassy, where Zhiganov serves as first secretary.

“As far as I know, they went out to dinner that one time,” Butina’s defense attorney, Robert Driscoll, told POLITICO. “And she might have known him from events at the embassy.”

Zhiganov’s identity, previously unreported, was confirmed to POLITICO on Friday by a source familiar with the investigation.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/28/mariia-butina-russia-kremlin-suspected-spy-746043

[Raine1967]

2. This part caught my eye:

Zhiganov’s cultural center and its parent organization, Rossotrudnichestvo, have also popped up in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe for possibly playing a small role in the Kremlin effort to sway the 2016 presidential election. Investigators have reviewed unverified claims made in the so-called Steele dossier that Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former fixer and personal lawyer, met in Prague with “interlocutors from the Kremlin [who were] working under the cover of Russian ‘NGO’ Rossotrudnichestvo.”

Cohen has strenuously denied the allegation, but a congressional source said Democratic lawmakers remain interested in Cohen’s possible connections to the group.

The Russian Cultural Centre in Washington also has come up in Mueller’s probe as part of a broader inquiry into millions of dollars in payments involving the Russian embassy, former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and several Moscow businessmen linked to Putin, Buzzfeed reported in January — around the time Butina met with Zhiganov.

According to Russian state-run media accounts, Zhiganov was one of the 60 unidentified Russian government officials in Washington and New York who were expelled in March, about the time the Justice Department prosecutor said that Butina’s dinner companion left.

I have to wonder if he was expelled on purpose.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Yeah, there's an expert defense attorney with all the facts

"she might have known him from events at the embassy.”

Blurring the issue because the hard truth is too damning