Why Is Maria Butina In Prison?? By Ron Paul
(2019-04-30 at 00:14:24 )

Why is Maria Butina in Prison? By Ron Paul

Russian gun rights activist and graduate exchange student Maria Butina was sentenced to 18 months in prison last week for "conspiracy to act as a foreign agent without registering."

Her "crime" was to work to make connections among United States of American gun rights activists in hopes of building up her organization, the Right to Bear Arms, when she returned to Russia.

She was not employed by the Russian government nor was she a lobbyist on Putins behalf.

In fact the Putin Administration is hostile to Russian gun rights groups. Nevertheless the United States mainstream media and President Trumps Justice Department are treating her as public enemy number one in a case that will no doubt set the dangerous precedent of criminalizing person-to-person diplomacy in the United States.

The Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) was passed in 1938 under pressure from the FDR Administration partly to silence opposition to the United States entry into World War II.

While a handful of cases were prosecuted during the war, between 1966 and 2015 the Justice Department only brought seven FARA cases for prosecution.

Though very few cases have been brought on FARA violations, one of them was against Samir Vincent, who was paid millions of dollars by Saddam Hussein to lobby for sanctions relief without registering. He got off with a fine and "community service."

Millions of dollars in unregistered payments from Saddam Hussein gets no jail time, while Butina gets 18 months in prison for privately promoting a cause most Americans support!

How is this justice???

The United States Justice Department is not even as tough on illegals who commit capital crimes in the United States!!

Unfortunately Ms Maria Butina was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

With the rise of the "Russiagate" hysteria, Ms Butinas case was seen as a useful tool by Democrats to push the idea that President Trump was put into office by the Russians.

Plus, many of them are also hostile to our Second Amendment and to the National Rifle Association.

So it was a perfect storm for Ms Butina.

Sadly, conservatives are mostly silent on this miscarriage of justice.

They are also caught up in the idea that the United States of America can only be great if it goes abroad seeking monsters to destroy.

Also, a new Cold War is very profitable to the military industrial complex and Ms Butina serves an important propaganda purpose.

The media is an all-to-willing participant in this farce.

Even though President Trump has been exonerated by a Mueller investigation that did not even view the Ms Butina case as worth investigating, the President has been silent on her persecution.

This is similar to his sudden silence on Wikileaks now that Julian Assange may be facing an eternity in a United States supermax prison.

As author James Bamford wrote recently in an excellent New Republic article on the Butina case, the national security agencies are also eager to get another notch in their belts and the Russian gun activist was low-hanging fruit for their ambitions.

Non-interventionists believe strongly in citizen-to-citizen diplomacy as a way of avoiding war and conflict overseas.

Exchange students, international business ventures, tourism, and just communicating with others is such an important way to thwart the plotting of the warmongers who lurk in all governments.

I am saddened to see that the United States has made such a hostile move toward peaceful foreign citizens seeking friendship with United States of Americans.

When citizens are no longer allowed to engage in diplomacy we are left with only the state.

And the state loves war.

Copyright 2019 by "Ron Paul Institue". Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.