>> butina: no. god found me. he was always there.ped me to go through all these tough days. >> stahl: that included over 100 days in solitary confinement. >> butina: it is a torture. it is not normal for a human being to be locked for 23, 20, 22 hours in a cell by your own. do you really think for not filing the paper, you deserve 18 months of incarceration, four months in solitary confinement, and all this experience in jail? is that the way? >> demers: when she was talking to you in your interview, her audience wasn't the american people. it was vladimir putin and all the people in russia who are going to decide her fate when she goes back there. >> stahl: are you worried that she's going to go around the country, criticizing, you know, "how dare the americans talk about human rights, look what happened to me?" >> demers: and i have very little doubt that the russian government will leverage her as an instrument of propaganda, to say, "here was this poor, young, idealistic russian student, and look what happened to her. they threw

but consider also the case of maria butina. she was released from federal prison about three weeks ago after she served more than 15 months in federal prison for acting as a foreign agent secretly working on behalf of the kremlin to influence republican and conservative political entities in this country ahead of the 2016 election, particularly the nra. she did serve more than a year in federal prison, three weeks ago she was released and deported immediately to moscow. when she landed in moscow, she was greeted with a hero's welcome, flowers, throngs of well-wishers. well, today we learned that while maria butina did have to serve more than a year in u.s. federal prison, her homecoming was this celebratory thing when she got there. and on top of that as of today we have learned that maria butina has been offered her pick of several different high-level jobs in the russian government. i mean, however we in the united states might view her russian government mission to influence the republican presidential primary in conservativ

maria butina was convicted of trying to influence u.s. policy to help the kremlin.n a new interview she denies any wrongdoing and blames what she calls racism against russians for the charges she faced. this morning, a convicted russian agent is telling her side of the story. i never sought to influence your policies. i came here on my own because i wanted to learn from the united states and go back to russia to make russia better. >> reporter: maria butina is the first russian national convicted for trying to influence u.s. politics. during the 2016 campaign, the 30-year-old befriended powerful republicans and forced a relationship with the nra allegedly to promote pro-russia policies. she was sentenced in april 2018 after pleading guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent. butina is now back in russia, but she sat down with "60 minutes" before she was deported. she claims the feds tried to paint her as a criminal seductress. >> you traveled across the united states attending nra meetings. the u.s. government says that you were making connections with repub

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. >> maria butina is telling her story.ke with "60 minutes" shortly before being sent back to russia. butina served 15 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to act as a foreign agent. prosecutors say she tried to use the nra as a back channel to push pro-russia policies, but butina, a gun rights activist, says her nra connections were strictly business. >> i was brought to influence your policies, i came here on my own because i wanted to learn from united states and go back to russia to make russia better. >> butina claims prosecutors tried to paint her as a kremlin seductress. she feels had she been american, the connections she made with the nra and prominent conservatives would have been considered social networking. >>> tesla is under the microscope after a number of reports about its vehicles bursting into flames. now the company is staring at a potential investigation and a possible lawsuit. here's abc's trevor ault. >> reporter: tesla facing a potential federal investigation amid accusations some of i

. >>> we move to a new interview with con victimed russian agent maria butina. back in russia after serving a 15-month prison sentence. our chief national affairs correspondent tom llamas here with her side of the story. good morning, tom. >> reporter: george, good morning to you. maria butina did this interview while she was still in custody sitting down with "60 minutes" and despite some damni ining evidence she claims she's a victim of racism against russians. others calling it a masterpiece of disinformation. for the first time convicted russian agent and provocative gun rights activist maria butina telling her side of the story. >> i never sought to influence your policies. i came here on my own because i wanted to learn from the united states and go back to russia to make russia better. >> reporter: the 30-year-old befriended powerful republicans and forged a relationship with the nra. the u.s. government believes to promote pro-russia policies. butina claims the feds tried to paint her as a kremlin seductress. >> you traveled across the united states atte

in 2018 maria butina pleaded guilty to acting as a foreign agent. spent 15 months behind bars before being deported. >> reporter: her introduction into the nra was facilitated by this man, aleksandr torshin, a russian official who she had admitted in court papers directed her activities in the u.s. butina met him, she says, when he attended one of her gun rights rallies in moscow. we obtained thousands of private twitter messages they sent each other over 2 1/2 years. was he close to putin? >> i don't think so. >> so you wrote him a message and you said "you are an influential member of putin's team." your words. >> it doesn't suggest he is close to putin in any way. >> was he an influential member of putin's team? >> i don't know. >> well you wrote that. you know, in reading through your messages, it reads as if he's your intelligence case officer. >> look, this is -- i think it's an american very old saying that suggests that wolfs have teeth, but not all animals with teeth are wolves. you cannot judge a person based on appearance. >>> a slow moti

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maria butina pleaded guilty to acting as a foreign agent and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.ince her arrest, butina told lesley stahl she never tried to interfere in the 2016 election on behalf of the kremlin. >> the u.s. government says that you were making connections with republicans so that you could influence u.s. policy and you were doing it slowly but deliberately. pwould be called social , that networking. it's pretty explicit that our two countries establish friendship between each other and i don't mean governments. i mean people. >> butina was released from a florida prison last month and deported to russia. >>> we're on the road to 2020 this morning with less than a year now to go before the presidential election. polls show the nation remain starkly divided on impeachment. the latest fox news poll shows 49% of voters want president trump removed from office. 4% say he should be impeached but not removed and 41% oppose impeachment. but will the inquiry have any bearing on how americans vote next november? ed o'keefe is in iowa where the first in the nation caucuse

. >>> maria butina convicted, denouncing u.s. at a meeting on human rights in moscow she said she was strip searched five times a day, called a kremlin tem tres indictments she said that was an insult to her as a woman. >>> commuter train struck a motor home in southern california the camper burst into flames after the collision. the train was headed to los angeles. luckily no one on the train got hurt it is unclear if anyone was in the motor home at the time of the accident. >>> rock group u 2 named artist of the decade. they raked in over $1 billion in sales in the past decade the most of any rock group rolling stones came in second at 929 million. followed by ed sheeran 122 million. >> thank you, sue. first place. maybe they finally found what they're looking for. >> oh! >> got you, carl dom chu has a breakdown of today's market action overseas. >> i'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, irish markets are still doing good along with rest of europe. generally speaking higher as you can see behind me. major forces closi

we interviewed maria butina in a florida prison shortly before she was deported back to moscow. >> tellacism here against the russians? oh, please. >> the case against her rests on her own words in private twitter messages she sent to her contact in russia. so, incognito, patience, cold blood. what is that? ( ticking ) >> understand brexit? neither did we. but after spending time in the united kingdom last week, we realized that this is basically the stor

>>and quickly so suzy loftus stays in position ainterim d a until january when butina sworn in.>>all right michael yaki we ok forward to your political show always love watchin that. thanks so much michael to take a moving on right now businesses shut down during the king cake wildfire are working to reopen kron four's felipe juggle visited a winery in windsor today. it house firefighters from across the state during e fire idol. the owns say without them, the property would not have survived. >>as he drives around his faly owned property taking note of the damage done to notre blue estate winery and vineyards in windsor jared stein says he feels fortunate and not burdened of the 710 acres of land probably abou 60% of a property's saw some form of fire grass and brush burned out use ne the vineyard managers home went down in flames, some furniture was destroyed, but nothing that can'be replaced. most importantly the winery's survived lee fortune and i an. this is the heart of the gotten smoke damage. they got a fire in here it wod have shot. >>this town stein and his usiness par

smooth and immediate obviously butina was viewed as one of the most progressive in this race and 's the victor here tonight, so there's a lot of happy faces. >>well thank you so much the ad and we talk about this for district attorney ernie and it really d come down to the wire nd we're only talking about after the choice the ranking system only a couple 1000 votes. but this is somebody. if you could expand on at the may and police officersssociation was against. we do want to move on we lt and there are going to work in getting his shot back up for when the new district attorney's does a arred this afternoon interim district attorney's suzy loftus conceded with the following statement sayg she's grateful for the chance to run and serve as district attorney ernie loftus says it's then an honor to lead the officshe cares deeply about and that even though she didn't win the race. she won the support of many san franscans who are demanding that our city work re effectively together to build safety. she finished her statemenwith a congratulations to ase abboud dean saying she will work to e