(CNN) -- The young Russian gun enthusiast was struggling. Maria Butina had twice applied for visas to attend the National Rifle Association's glitzy annual meeting. But she said she was twice denied.
Then, in 2013, the NRA came to Moscow and met her fledgling Russian gun rights group. Soon after, Butina was headed to the United States, visa in hand.
"I want you to go work with the US, not go on a tourist trip," a Russian oligarch who funded at least one of her trips told her, according to US prosecutors.
By the summer of 2016, Butina was settled in the United States on a long-term visa, making her way in US political circles during one of the most contentious elections in recent American history -- while allegedly working with the Russian government.
Her partner: Paul Erickson, an ambitious conservative political operative from South Dakota who once did public relations for John Wayne Bobbitt, produced a movie about a Soviet soldier with former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and had regular cash flow problems.
Whether Butina duped Erickson or drew him willingly into a spy operation is now part of an unfolding Washington drama fit for Hollywood.
Butina, a 29-year-old flame-haired Russian who once posed posing with guns in Russian GQ magazine, pleaded not guilty this week to charges she acted as a covert Russian agent working with a Kremlin-connected banker to spread influence in the US. Prosecutors allege she conspired with a Russian official, who CNN has learned is Alexander Torshin, in a plan spanning several years that "was calculated, patient, and directed by the Russian Official."
The charges appear to be part of a wide-ranging Russian attempt to influence US politics ahead of the 2016 election.
