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Putin's favorite congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, met with alleged Russian agent Maria Butina in 2015
Julia Davis
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@JuliaDavisNews
NEW: California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher met with alleged Russian agent Maria Butina in 2015, her emails reveal, fueling more questions about his longstanding Kremlin connections.
?
@JuliaDavisNews
NEW: California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher met with alleged Russian agent Maria Butina in 2015, her emails reveal, fueling more questions about his longstanding Kremlin connections.
Link to tweet
From Russia to Bistro Bis: The Calif. congressman who dined with alleged Russian agent
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/russia-bistro-bis-calif-congressman-dined-accused-russian/story?id=56839486&cid=social_twitter_abcn
When FBI counterintelligence agents plowed through the emails of alleged Russian agent Maria Butina’s networking around Washington, they discovered her plan to arrange “friendship and dialogue dinners" with influential Americans.
At one dinner, ABC News has learned, in February 2017 at the tony French eaterie, Bistro Bis, one guest who dined with the then-28 year old Russian was a California Republican congressman on the House Foreign Relations committee, Dana Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher’s office confirmed he attended.
It wasn’t their first meeting. Two years earlier, Butina had helped arrange a meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia that included Rohrabacher and her mentor, Kremlin-connected banker Alexander Torshin, federal officials have confirmed.
To Rohrabacher’s critics, these repeated interactions with a woman now jailed on suspicion of mounting an influence campaign at the behest of the Russian government, have added more fuel to longstanding questions about his Kremlin connections. This past weekend, anti-Putin crusader and businessman Bill Browder told a room of national security experts gathered in Aspen that he believes Rohrabacher is “on the payroll of Russia.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/russia-bistro-bis-calif-congressman-dined-accused-russian/story?id=56839486&cid=social_twitter_abcn
When FBI counterintelligence agents plowed through the emails of alleged Russian agent Maria Butina’s networking around Washington, they discovered her plan to arrange “friendship and dialogue dinners" with influential Americans.
At one dinner, ABC News has learned, in February 2017 at the tony French eaterie, Bistro Bis, one guest who dined with the then-28 year old Russian was a California Republican congressman on the House Foreign Relations committee, Dana Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher’s office confirmed he attended.
It wasn’t their first meeting. Two years earlier, Butina had helped arrange a meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia that included Rohrabacher and her mentor, Kremlin-connected banker Alexander Torshin, federal officials have confirmed.
To Rohrabacher’s critics, these repeated interactions with a woman now jailed on suspicion of mounting an influence campaign at the behest of the Russian government, have added more fuel to longstanding questions about his Kremlin connections. This past weekend, anti-Putin crusader and businessman Bill Browder told a room of national security experts gathered in Aspen that he believes Rohrabacher is “on the payroll of Russia.”
