NPR

The Russia Investigations: How Many More Maria Butinas Are There?

In a week even Hollywood couldn't have scripted, the feds launch their case against a Russian accused of infiltrating U.S. politics. And the deputy attorney general speaks out on foreign interference.
Maria Butina, leader of a pro-gun organization, speaks on October 8, 2013, during a press conference in Moscow.

This week in the Russia investigations: Two big questions about the second-most famous Russian in the world and Rod Rosenstein fires a warning shot.

Finnish fallout

No Hollywood screenwriter could get away with turning in a treatment for this week. The studio bosses would roll their eyes and ask for the story to be more plausible.

And yet Americans — and the rest of the world — really did just live through five days in which the president of the United States publicly sided with the president of Russia against his own intelligence community, then denied that foreign interference threats continue meanwhile holding open the possibility of making a former American diplomat available to Russian investigators who have traveled to the U.S. to pursue questionable criminal allegations leveled by Vladimir Putin.

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