Maria Butina

Butina cultivated connections with prominent U.S. conservatives. She pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as a clandestine foreign agent. Now she's expected to be deported back to Russia.

She faces a maximum of five years in prison and could be deported to Russia after finishing her sentence, according to a plea deal she made with prosecutors.

Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee sent letters to the Center for Public Interest, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department asking for information about meetings with Russians in 2015.

When a Russian citizen handed him a memory stick, Paul Whelan thought it contained travel snapshots, his lawyer told reporters. Whelan was denied bail at his first court appearance.

A top Russian official has dismissed suggestions that Paul Whelan would be traded for any Russian in U.S. custody.

This week Butina admitted she wasn't just a student and Russian gun rights activist, pleading guilty to a count of conspiring to act as a foreign agent. NPR's Scott Simon talks with her lawyer.

Robert Driscoll told NPR that Butina, who is facing charges of conspiring to act as a Russian agent, will "be proven innocent in this case."