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Article snippet: The case of Russian agent Maria Butina will come to a close Friday. Butina, who was swept up in a national furor last year over her efforts to create unofficial channels of communication between Washington and Moscow, will be sentenced in a federal court in D.C. on Friday. She pleaded guilty in December to acting as an unregistered foreign agent. The Russian national ultimately was not found to be connected to the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. But her attempts to persuade American officials and prominent groups including the National Rifle Association (NRA) to act in Moscow’s interests raised questions about the breadth of Russia’s attempts to influence U.S. politics. In a sentencing memo filed late last week, federal prosecutors said Butina “provided key information about Americans who were in a position to influence United States politics and took steps to establish an unofficial line of communication between Russia and these Americans,” all “for the benefit of the Russian Federation.” Prosecutors allege that Butina’s actions were “part of Russia’s broader scheme to acquire information and establish relationships and communication channels that can be exploited to the Russian Federation’s benefit.” “Butina was not a spy in the traditional sense of trying to gain access to classified information to send back to her home country. She was not a trained intelligence officer,” government attorneys wrote in their sentencing memo. “Bu... Link to the full article to read more