From Russia to Bistro Bis: The Calif. congressman who dined with alleged Russian agent

Source: ABC News | July 26, 2018 | Ali Dukakis

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.”

“I believe he is under some type of influence by the Russian government,” Browder said.

Rohrabacher has steadfastly rebutted those claims, criticizing the recent broadside from Browder, a British citizen, for interfering in U.S. politics. In one interview with ABC News last year, he decried what he said were “personal attacks” on his patriotism.

“They call me Putin’s best friend. I’m not Putin’s best friend,” he said. “I’m a patriotic American who knows that it would be really good for America to cooperate with Russia. I could care less whether it’s good for Russia.”

But the Butina meetings and references to Rohrabacher in an FBI affidavit– his office confirming he is the unnamed congressman who met with her–add to a growing list of contacts he has had with central characters in the ever-evolving Russia probe.

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  • Consistent July 26, 2018 at 4:45 pm #24779

    Consistent July 26, 2018 at 4:47 pm #24780

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