Steven Hall, the CIA's former chief of
Russian operations, said her operating in the open was simply an
innovative tactic in Russian President Vladimir Putin's "broader
hybrid-warfare influence operation."
"She's part of the Kremlin's plan to try to weaken the United States and the West," he said.
Butina's lawyer Robert Driscoll, a prominent Republican attorney, said
she had broken no law besides the registration statute, and would not
have been pursued had she been of a different nationality.
It remained to be seen whether Butina's sentencing would impact the case
of Paul Whelan, an American corporate security expert arrested while in
Moscow for a wedding late last year and accused of espionage.
Some Russian experts said his arrest was retaliation for that of Butina,
although Whelan's brother, David, has said he doesn't believe the cases
are related.
But before Butina's sentencing Hall, who is no longer with the CIA, said
Washington "has to take into account that they do have an American over
there, and we have a Russian here."
"So is there not a deal to be had?" he said.
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