Putin calls U.S. treatment of admitted agent Butina an outrage

Reuters ^ | 04-27-19 | Vladimir Soldatkin

[Redwood71]

Deep cover is extremely old. And we were, and are, just as guilty as any country in the game.

The relation is that both were caught spying as that is what the U2, the TR, and the SR-71 were designed for.

Powers was caught in the air over Russia and was shot down and imprisoned. It would have been a lot longer if a prisoner exchange had not been set up. Under Russian law, espionage can carry between 10 and 20 years in prison.

Butina was tried and convicted of espionage just like Powers was, and in my mind, awarded only 18 months in prison, sans a deal being made for an exchange. They both were working for their governments as an undercover agent. Here is a short list of some of our “finds:” And with the exception of Marthe Cnockaert, they were all American citizens. She was Belgium.

Aldrich Ames: Convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia, 1994, Life sentence (without parole)

David Sheldon Boone: Sold secret documents to the Soviet Union and is estimated to have received $60,000 from the KGB, February 26, 1999, 24 Years and 4 Months

Marthe Cnockaert: Convicted for spying for the United Kingdom and its allies during the First World War, 1916, Life sentence (released 2 years later)

James Hall III Signals analyst who sold eavesdropping and code secrets to East Germany and the Soviet Union from 1983 to 1988 July 20, 1989 40-year sentence

Robert Hanssen: Spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States from 1979 to 2001, 2001, Life sentence (without parole)

Ana Montes: Convicted for conspiracy to commit espionage for the government of Cuba, 2002, 25-year prison term followed by five years probation

Harold James Nicholson: twice-convicted spy for Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, 1997, 23 years 7-month sentence

Stewart Nozette American: Attempted espionage and fraud against the United States, 2009, 13-year sentence

Ronald Pelton: Spied for and sold secret documents to the Soviet Union, 1983, Life sentence (Released November 24, 2015)

Earl Edwin Pitts, Accused of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia, and pleaded guilty to conspiring and attempting to commit espionage, 1997, 27-year sentence

Jonathan Pollard, Passed classified information to Israel while working as an American civilian intelligence analyst, 1987, Life sentence

George Trofimoff, Convicted for spying for the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s, 2001, Life sentence

John Anthony Walker: Convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1985, 1985 Life sentence

Ever even heard of these people? And did you notice that the shortest of the sentences for these people was 13 years for Nozette? She got off light as these cases go clear to 2009.

rwood

[NorseViking]

Nothing I know about Butina indicates she is a real spy.
She was a famous gun rights activist back home. Not a kind of person intelligence would use.

[Redwood71]

“...expressed remorse for conspiring with a Russian official to infiltrate a gun rights group and influence U.S. conservative activists and Republicans.”

Spies, if you want to call them that, come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and uses. Their job is to accomplish their sortie and get out without tipping the trick. She openly admitted in her “mercy plea”to trying to persuade people within the electoral system to try to influence the vote in the next election with her actions and efforts by actually defining them by political stance and party. You were fooled by her just like others. But she got caught, and as I mentioned in my post, got a light sentence in comparison to other countries that find Americans guilty of the same to include Russia who she worked for.

Why is it so horrible the way we treat criminals, whether federal or civil, when other countries that complain about it are normally much worse with their treatment of American criminals? And espionage is just as illegal in our country as it is in theirs. This is why Uncle Sugar doesn’t talk about it but has numerous agencies that are capable of the same. So do they. And that’s the real world, not Marvel Comics.

rwood