Russian spy tactics are aggressive but, to those who know them, familiar.

Offering sex for favors, schmoozing with political operatives, cultivating an elaborate backstory, using a fake name to mask Russian roots – these are standard aspects of Russian espionage. They typically assume roles as professors, students, business owners – anything that lets them gain information but not draw attention.

That’s why accused Russian spy Maria Butina, 29, an unapologetically Russian gun-rights activist who gravitated toward publicity and the National Rifle Association, baffles some ex-intelligence officials with decades working counterintelligence for the FBI and CIA.

Butina faces a federal charge of conspiracy over the allegation she worked for Russia without informing the U.S. government, and a conviction could result in a five-year prison sentence. Her July 15 arrest came more than three years after the FBI claims she began her mission.

Butina pleaded not guilty, and her attorney, Bob Driscoll, maintains she committed no crime. Butina is currently in a Virginia jail. Her next court date is Sept. 10.

July 19: Who is Maria Butina?

Aug. 3: Trump campaign associate invited Maria Butina to Styx concert, report says

The four ex-intelligence officials who spoke to USA TODAY worked and oversaw countless Russian espionage investigations at home and abroad with careers dating to the 1960s through the modern day. 

They analyzed Butina’s case using public information on the alleged spy operation and their institutional knowledge. They describe her as a variation of a “spotter,” a person who makes connections in the U.S. and passes information to more senior Russian espionage officials. Her “influence” campaign, they said, sought grassroots goodwill toward Russia.

But she was not working in the shadows. Butina gave interviews and speeches, published articles and posed for magazine photos.

“That does not fit any spy that I can think of,” said Jack Devine, who ran all CIA operations worldwide in the mid-1990s, met with high-level KGB officers and served as the agency’s acting and associate deputy director.

It’s unclear if Butina’s public image was a tactic, opportunity or mishap. Some officials suggest Butina recycled an old Russian routine: target the presidential administration through an affiliated political group – no matter who resides in the White House.

“(Trump) and his administration are the target and groups that are related to the administration, or seek to influence the administration, are the means” to get access and information, said retired FBI special agent Ed Shaw, who worked several Russian espionage cases abroad during his career from 1989 to 2014. “They’re following the bread crumbs.”

If this is the case, the NRA made for a rich target of potential sources. Trump is an enthusiastic supporter of the organization. The NRA and other gun-rights organizations spent $55 million during the 2016 election. The NRA used $31 million in advertising money to back Trump.

Butina built a persona ripe for the NRA as the leader of her own Russian gun-rights group “The Right to Bear Arms.” She attended NRA events, developed a relationship with NRA leadership and went to member meetings, including one where she met with a political candidate.

NRA: Why National Rifle Association has so much clout in Washington

Gov. Scott Walker: I don’t know accused Russian spy Maria Butina

Butina tagged the NRA as the need-to-know group well before the 2016 election, calling a GOP victory early. 

In March 2015, the indictment states, she emailed her diplomatic goals to an American, who was not named but matches the description of GOP fixer Paul Erickson, 56. In the message, she describes how Republicans “would likely obtain control over the U.S. government after the 2016 elections” and pegs the NRA as a place of conservative influence.

Butina’s goal to build a backchannel communication line between Russia and the U.S. appeared to show some success. Erickson provided contacts while a Russian official directed her.

July 19: Prosecutors: Butina gained access to U.S. officials through Erickson’s ‘extensive network’

July 19: What we know about Paul Erickson, the South Dakota man tied to alleged Russian agent Maria Butina

She met Republican leaders, organized dinners in Washington, D.C., and attended two National Prayer Breakfasts, an annual D.C. event usually attended by the sitting president.

She’d gained access – and in the spy game, access rules.

“She was doing pretty well making pretty rapid progress and, in some respects, may have been doing too well too soon because her profile on the radar screen raised up too high,” Shaw said. “But that shows in some respects she’s a natural at engaging with people — figuring out who the movers and shakers are.”

“Ghost stories”

Butina’s case reminds ex-officials of a 2010 case in which federal authorities outed, arrested and expelled from the U.S. 10 Russian spies with fake names and years-long backstories.

The program, named “Operation Ghost Stories,” aimed to “search and develop ties in policymaking circles” and send intelligence reports to Moscow, according to a federal indictment. It involved Hollywood-level spy tactics, such as burying payments underground, sending encrypted messages on images and seamless cash hand-offs in train stations.

In that case, a couple working as spies targeted then-President Barack Obama’s young administration and his Cabinet. Just weeks into Obama’s first term, Moscow instructed Vladimir and Lydia Guryev – who were living in the U.S. under the aliases Richard and Cynthia Murphy – to gather information on U.S. international policy positions ahead of an Obama trip to Russia. The Murphys used fake birth certificates to back up their identities. 

“The Russians were heavily targeting the Democrats because they were in power,” said Eric O’Neill, a former FBI undercover operative from 1996 to 2001 who tracked numerous Russian spies in Washington, D.C., in hopes to uncover their information sources. “They were trying to understand the policy decisions of the political party that is in power at that time and to hopefully influence them.”

Butina’s efforts with Republicans were less subtle. She used Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in Russian. She spoke with a thick Russian accent and even earned her own article in Russian GQ.

July 22: Report: Alleged spy Maria Butina paid by Russian billionaire Konstantin Nikolaev

She also took opportunities to overtly connect Russia with the GOP. In 2015, a column she wrote for the foreign policy magazine The National Interest begins, “It may take the election of a Republican to the White House in 2016 to improve relations between the Russian Federation and the United States.”

“They’re trying to manage the perception of Russia in the United States,” said retired FBI special agent David Gomez, who worked a number of Russian espionage cases during his career from 1984 to 2011. “They were trying to make friends of Russia.”

Shun the sex ‘honey trap’

Butina burrowed into NRA and Republican spheres through Erickson, a South Dakotan with a spotty career in GOP politics.

The two met in Moscow in 2013 when Butina was leading “The Right to Bear Arms.” Erickson reviewed her diplomatic goals and lent her contacts, according to the indictment. The couple later dated, lived together and started a company.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office defined Butina’s relationship with Erickson as “duplicitous,” claiming Butina used it for her spy effort. Prosecutors also allege Butina offered sex with another person in exchange for a job with a special interest group.

Driscoll denied Butina offered sex for a job, calling the allegation a “sexist smear” meant to paint Butina “as some kind of James Bond spy character.” Driscoll confirmed Butina and Erickson were indeed “an item,” but any allegation she used him is “unsupported.” 

Either way, the allegation hints at an understood fact in the spy world: Sex is a well-worked method of coercion and blackmail. The Russians, in particular, are known for this, and FBI agents are trained to sidestep such “honey traps.”

July 25: Maria Butina’s lawyer rejects claim she tried to trade sex for a job

Opinion: Maria Butina is the ‘spy’ the Trump administration asked for

“The women are the most dangerous,” said O’Neill, who helped take down his boss Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent who was ultimately exposed as a Russian spy. “Part of that is because men are just way more susceptible to an attractive woman. That’s just the way it is.”

Sex can be used a few ways: for coercion, blackmail or as a way to get someone to divulge something they shouldn’t. The gathered intel may provide insight on a target’s exploitable weaknesses – a debt or affair, for example.

Relationships can be used similarly. Clayton Lonetree, a U.S. Marine who fell for a female KGB agent in the 1980s, ended up selling government documents to the Russian government.

“If you can have a dinner with someone who knows important policy decisions, and you’re an attractive woman, and that person feels flattered at the attention you’re laying on them, they might slip and saying something,” said O’Neill, national security strategist for cybersecurity company Carbon Black.

Butina’s ‘new fame’

Among the more memorable spies nabbed in the 2010 spy case is Anna Chapman, who posed as the founder of the website nycrentals.com in New York City. The case revealed that Chapman covertly passed information to other Russians using closed internet connections, often at New York City coffee shops and bookstores. After her arrest, Chapman, who ultimately returned to Russia in a prisoner swap, became a model, media personality and celebrity in her home country.

O’Neill sees similarities between Butina and Chapman. Butina’s own Russian contact made the same comparison.

“How are you faring there in the rays of the new fame?” the Russian official wrote to Butina in 2017. “Are your admirers asking for your autographs yet? You have upstaged Anna Chapman.”

The Russian official, described in the indictment only as a former member of the Russian legislature and a top official at the Russian Central Bank, fits the description of Russian politician Alexander Torshin.

The message came after a number of media articles mentioned Butina, whose prominence in American media bucks the norm for a Russian spy, the ex-officials agreed.

“Unlike Chapman and the rest of them, she comes over here as a Russian,” O’Neill said. “She’s hiding in plain sight. That’s very bold.”

Butina resided in the U.S. just a few months before the American press caught wind of her. In December 2017, her and Erickson’s attempts to make connections with the Trump campaign and the NRA were reported by The New York Times. 

Part of what differentiates Butina, Devine said, is how she blended covert political action, like cozying up to the NRA, and espionage, or gathering intelligence to send to Russia. 

Driscoll said Butina simply wanted to be a member of the NRA.

“I don’t think there’s much evidence she did anything covert,” he said. “She ran a Russian gun-rights group, so she joined the NRA to help get ideas for that.”

While the ex-officials all agree that a public and prominent spy is unusual, they differ over whether that was by design or whether Butina’s plan went awry.

O’Neill suggested Butina’s cover was the outward persona – an idea so brash it wouldn’t draw suspicion. There’s also the belief she possessed a genuine interest in gun rights and the Russian government used her to its advantage. Shaw credits her inexperience.

“She could have been unwitting in that sense,” he said. “She could have gone rogue or things could have just gotten away from her.”

There are more spies out there

Butina’s specific goal, even to the ex-officials, is unclear.

“The long-term objective may have been something completely unrelated to the NRA or guns,” said Gomez, a retired FBI agent.

But her case – and the Russian election meddling – is evidence the Russians have grown bolder in their spy efforts, said Devine, the ex-CIA official, who over a 32-year career led the effort to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan. He suggests Americans have let their guard down.

“There’s a view in Russia, as demonstrated by the intervention in the election, that you can get away with this stuff today where you couldn’t get away with it in the past,” he said. “The level of threat is much different, it’s not just meddling in the election, it’s out there collecting sources of information.”

Devine hinted the Russian election meddling should have driven home the point the Russians are a real threat – still. 

“The emphasis is on collusion and the political piece,” he said. “We don’t have enough focus on the fact this is a big intelligence initiative, and it lays bare how aggressive they are.”

Many of the officials agree other Russian espionage efforts are operating on U.S. soil. Shaw estimates the number of Russian spies in the U.S. could be somewhere between 10 and 20. While cyber warfare proved useful during the 2016 election, on-the-ground spying remains the most effective, and people, he said, ought to “absolutely” be fearful.

“Where (Russians) used to use people to spread disinformation, now they’re using social media and different electronic means to do the same things,” O’Neill said. “But the old ways still work.”

Contributing: USA TODAY archives, Dana Ferguson and Jonathan Ellis of the (Sioux Falls, S.D.) Argus Leader, Fredreka Schouten, Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY.

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Since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took the reigns of power in New Delhi in 2014, assaults on public intellectuals, humanists, rationalists and secular forces have reached a feverish pitch. By the time the BJP completed its fourth year in office, prominent public figures such as scholar Govind Pansare, academic MM Kalburgi and journalist Gauri Lankesh were murdered by “unidentified assailants”.

As we write, Maharashtra Police made five fresh arrests of rights activists, including the veteran Telugu poet Varavara Rao, and raided the homes of journalists and scholars across India.

In June 2018 alone, five Dalit rights activists, including a lawyer and a professor were arrested for allegedly inciting violence against the very Dalit community (“untouchable” castes) they represent. These arrests were made under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which enables the prosecution of Indian citizens merely on the basis of their ideology and thoughts, not necessarily for any actual crimes they might have committed.

In addition to this legalised persecution, dozens of Muslims and Dalits were subject to live burnings and public lynching by the so-called “cow protection” vigilante groups, most notably in the BJP-ruled states of Maharashtra, Haryana and Gujarat.

But perhaps the most astonishing case of all would be the arrest and life imprisonment of the wheelchair-bound professor, GN Saibaba, for his alleged connections with Maoist revolutionaries. 

The 827-page verdict delivered by the Gadchiroli District and Sessions judge reads more like an extension of Franz Kafka’s epic novel, The Trial, riddled with senseless details about how five hard disks, 30 CDs and DVDs, and three pen drives recovered from Saibaba’s home were labelled, stored and transported by various investigative authorities, with barely a legible sentence on the actual crime committed by the accused.

The only passage that holds some credible meaning is the judge’s own lack of faith in his judgment: “The imprisonment for life is not a sufficient punishment to the accused, but the hands of court are closed with the mandate of Section 18 and 20 of UAPA”.

And the only crime committed by GN Saibaba is the possession of the above-mentioned “digital devices”, which consisted of some “Maoist literature and documents” and, by association, were adequate enough to prove his “digital” links to the Maoist revolutionaries operating in the remote jungles of East and Central India.

Yet, on the basis of this “literary” evidence alone, the Sessions judge came to the unmistakable conclusion that Saibaba is a “member” of the Community Party of India (Maoist).

Not only do these charges have little or no factual basis, but they render themselves impossible to any logical or rational substance given that Maoists are banned revolutionaries who operate discretely and anonymously, often using aliases and longhand notes to communicate internally.

They rarely use mobile phones or other “digital devices” and it is highly doubtful that they have equipped themselves with a printing facility in the jungle to produce membership cards and go about distributing them like marketing vouchers.

A “membership” with such a closed organisation, especially for an outsider, is a highly subjective, self-pronounced association based on one’s political views and ideological proclivities. But even if we assume that Saibaba is a “member” of the Maoist party, as the Kerala High Court has reasserted in an erstwhile case in 2015, it is not a crime in itself, unless the activities of the “member” in question are unlawful.

The Supreme Court of India went even further to censure the law enforcement authorities for randomly arresting people for possessing Maoist material, issuing a directive that owning Maoist literature does not make one a Maoist, no more than owning a copy of Gandhi’s autobiography makes one a Gandhian! 

Be that as it may, if Saibaba’s crime is worth life imprisonment in solitary confinement, then we need to go no further than the fraternity of Bollywood stars and Indian politicians to get a glimpse into the Janus-faced justice system in India.

Maya Kodnani, a cabinet minister of Gujarat in 2004, was convicted in 2012 for orchestrating the massacre of 97 Muslims, including 36 women and 35 children in Naroda Gam and Naroda Patiya in February 2002.

Ironically, Kodnani was the Minister for Women and Child Development at the time of these killings, and was seen by the witnesses at the crime scene distributing swords to the Hindu mobs. For the brutal killing of 97 people, some of whom were butchered, mutilated, and even burned alive, she received a generous 28 years of imprisonment by a lower court. In April 2018, the Gujarat high court overturned the sentence. Kodnani walks free.

Salman Khan, a popular Bollywood star, was acquitted in a 2002 hit-and-run case after the testimony of his bodyguard, who stated that the actor was driving under the influence of alcohol when his car rolled over five homeless men sleeping on the pavement, was mysteriously deemed unreliable in an appeal 13 years later. 

Sanjay Dutt, another chest-thumping star, who was charged for the possession of illegal arms that were used in the Mumbai blasts in 1993 – killing some 300 civilians – received a mere five-year sentence, and was released on “good behaviour” after serving only three and half years, excluding numerous paroles, special family visits and a month-long furlough to look after his ailing wife.

While these three cases were dragged on for years, Saibaba’s case was wrapped up in a record time of three years. And luckily, these important personalities were not in possession of objects as lethal as “Maoist literature”, but just swords, AK-56s, explosives, and SUVs that roll themselves over innocent bystanders. 

But for a man whose sole crime was to own “digital devices”, even if he is 90 percent disabled, suffering from some nineteen other diagnosed illnesses, the same justice system shows little compassion to grant a bail.

Reiterating these concerns, the United Nations Human Rights Office of the Commissioner issued an unequivocal statement: “We would like to remind India that any denial of reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities in detention is not only discriminatory but may well amount to ill-treatment or even torture”. 

Efforts to put Saibaba behind bars started in 2013 when the Maharashtra police approached the Aheri Judicial Magistrate to obtain a “search warrant” to see whether some “stolen property” from their state could be found in Saibaba’s house in another state in New Delhi.

The alleged property theft had occurred some 760 miles away from where Saibaba lived. On September 12, 2013, 50 police personnel and intelligence officials raided Saibaba’s house on the University of Delhi campus.

Under the pretext of recovering “stolen property”, they confiscated Saibaba’s laptop, hard disks, pen drives, CDs and mobile phones. During his interrogation, Saibaba fully cooperated with the police authorities, even providing them passwords to all his personal electronic devices.

But little did the professor know that his research material, teaching notes and political writings would be used as evidence for his alleged links with the Maoists. 

On May 9, 2014, when Saibaba was returning home from his office, policemen in civilian clothes obstructed his car just 200 metres away from his house and detained him. 

Since then, the state agencies have launched a systemic media campaign against Saibaba, painting him as the face of the so-called “urban Maoists” – an utterly senseless label given that there is no such thing as “rural Maoists”, even if the latter appear to be the state’s preferred enemy, to say nothing of the “jungle Maoists”, “slum Maoists” or “suburban Maoists”.

If that is not enough, referring to the five Dalit Rights activists arrested on June 6, 2018, India’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley came up with an even more creative label, “half-Maoists“:

Willingly or otherwise, they become the over-ground face of the underground. They are a part of the democratic system. They masquerade as activist; they speak the language of democracy; they have captured the human rights movement in several parts of the country but always lend support to the Maoist cause.

If speaking the language of democracy or “capturing” human rights movements automatically translates into lending support to the Maoist cause, then the authors of this opinion piece should be called “quarter-Maoists”, “non-resident Maoists”, if not “cosmopolitan Maoists”.

But such endless streaming of prefixes to Indian Maoism by the state-sponsored Indian media has all but a single-minded, foregone agenda: to cast out anyone who questions state atrocities against Adivasis (India’s tribal people) – be they academics, environmentalists or Dalit activists – as “urban Maoists”. 

Like the “polluted” Dalits who were ostracised from the village proper to preserve the “purity” of the Brahminical castes, Maoists have become the new untouchables of India, whose very ideological proximity to one’s pedestrian views or private thoughts is enough to label him/her as their card-carrying member. 

In Chattisgarh alone, this ostracising campaign has reached such contagious proportions that when 10 tribal men, alleged sympathisers of Naxals – a vernacular term for Maoists – were killed by the state police in 2010, a bench of Supreme Court judges went on record to say that: “First, you say that operations are conducted against Naxals, then Naxal sympathisers and then sympathisers of such sympathisers. What is all this?”

GN Saibaba is a glaring victim of this systemic campaign to outcast Maoism from the civic and public spheres of debate, discussion and dissent. How else could we explain his incredible transformation from a child of illiterate peasants to a force so fearful and lethal that a small-scale army of “2000 police persons, 100 vehicles, and 20 land-mining clearance machines” was mobilised just to escort him from police station to court? What was his crime? What are the weapons of his choice? 

The mineral wealth upon which some 20 million Adivasis have settled from time immemorial is the major bone of contention. Their capital worth, as speculated by the Indian corporate elite, is $1 trillion. The easiest way to acquire this treasure trove is by bulldozing the Adivasis.

GN Saibaba came into the media limelight in early 2010 when he began to speak against the notorious military offensive Operation Green Hunt launched by the Indian state in November 2009. Its aim was to crush the Maoists, but the prize of it would have been the 55,000 hectares of mineral-rich Adivasi land, known variedly in the paramilitary’s shorthand as “Pakistan” or “Red Corridor”.

But it is not that GN Saibaba became an overnight sensation. He had a long history of championing issues of social justice and civil coalition movements. In 1997, he became the General Secretary of the All India People’s Resistance Forum. In 2004, he co-organised the Mumbai Resistance, which showcased alternative forms of civil society resistance to the World Social Forum. 

But why was Saibaba drawn to issues of civil and social justice in the first place? Is it so inconceivable that someone born into a “backward caste” family, who lost every inch of their three acres of farmland to the moneylenders, added with the burden of physical impairment, is drawn to the struggles and suffering of Dalits and Adivasis?

Is it so intolerable that Saibaba, a professor at a publicly funded university, chose to teach, speak and research on civil rights movements, tribal resistance and Maoist revolution?

Spare a thought for his colleagues at Delhi University, who risked their own careers to launch a sustained campaign against Saibaba’s imprisonment, some of whom indeed became the targets of repeated harassment, various disciplinary actions and suspensions by the university administration. And the process of outcasting many members of Saibaba’s Defence Committee as “urban Maoists” is already under way.

Not because these members sympathise with Maoism, but simply because they sympathise with someone who is allegedly sympathetic to Maoist views. The Brahminical logic triumphs yet again: one becomes “polluted” not only because one comes in direct contact with an “untouchable” person, but also because one touches someone who has allegedly touched an “untouchable” Dalit!

When the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen spoke in support of Binayak Sen – a physician and a civil rights activist, who is currently facing life imprisonment under the same sedition law which was used to silence Saibaba -, the Indian intellectuals in the West applauded his courage for questioning the shirking democratic values in India.

But the same intellectuals who offered the world various intellectual optics of postcolonial theory and subaltern studies, built on the histories and struggles of peasants, tribals and Dalits, have remained eerily silent about the persecution of a disabled public intellectual who literally crawled his way from a remote south Indian village to the elite educational institutions in India because he couldn’t even afford a wheelchair.

The figure of Saibaba is indeed one of a crawling creature whose dignity is being incrementally stripped away by the prison authorities who refuse him access to a special-needs toilet, medical treatment and spousal visits and haul him in and out of police vehicles like a piece of baggage.

Saibaba now sits in Nagpur Central Jail, in the solitary confinement of the notorious Anda (egg-shaped) cell with 360-degree surveillance, disabled from below the waist, enabled by his only functioning hand, and doing what he knows best – putting his pen to work: 

The closure of my voice within me exploded my crippled body from each of my organs. One after the other, my organs started bursting. The silence within me explodes into shooting pain. My vocal cords acquired lesion making my voice a thin and inaudible shrill. My heart broke with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. My brain has started having blackouts with a condition called syncope. My kidneys are silted with pebbles; gallbladder gathered stones and pancreas grew a tail of pain called pancreatitis. Nerve lines in my left shoulder broke under the conditions of my arrest, named as brachial plexopathy. More and more organs of silence replaced the original. I have been living with explosive and shooting pain day in and day out. I am living on the margins of life.

A 10 percent able body. A “half Maoist”. Full life sentence. A slow and screaming death, organ by organ.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. 

Eric Tucker, Associated Press
Published 1:18 a.m. ET Sept. 1, 2018 | Updated 1:19 a.m. ET Sept. 1, 2018

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump “nodded with approval” at the suggestion of a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a court filing Friday night that seeks leniency for a former campaign aide who lied to the FBI.

Lawyers for George Papadopoulos are seeking probation, saying the foreign policy adviser misled agents during a January 2017 interview not to harm an investigation but rather to “save his professional aspirations and preserve a perhaps misguided loyalty to his master.”

Papadopoulos is a pivotal figure in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as the first Trump campaign aide to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors. The revelation that he’d been told by a professor during the campaign that Russia had “dirt” on Democrat Hillary Clinton in the form of emails helped trigger the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation in July 2016 into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.

The 16-page defense memo paints Papadopoulos as an eager-to-please campaign aide who was in over his head and aims to counter the prosecution’s narrative that Papadopoulos’s deception irreparably damaged the investigation.

The defense lawyers say Papadopoulos was hired by the campaign in March 2016 despite having no experience with Russian or U.S. diplomacy. That month, he traveled to Italy and connected with a London-based professor who introduced him to a woman described as a Putin relative. That professor, Joseph Mifsud, would later tell him that individuals in Moscow possessed “dirt” on Clinton.

“Eager to show his value to the campaign,” defense lawyers say, Papadopoulos suggested during a meeting with Trump and his foreign policy advisers that same month he could leverage his newfound Russian connections to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin.

“While some in the room rebuffed George’s offer, Mr. Trump nodded with approval and deferred to Mr. Sessions who appeared to like the idea and stated that the campaign should look into it,” defense lawyers wrote.

That language is a reference to Jeff Sessions, who at the time was a Republican senator from Alabama and key campaign aide and later became the Trump administration’s attorney general.

Defense lawyers acknowledge that Papadopoulos “lied, minimized, and omitted material facts” to the FBI about his foreign contacts, saying, “Out of loyalty to the new president and his desire to be part of the administration, he hoisted himself upon his own petard.”

But they rejected the idea that those lies impeded the investigation, calling that argument by prosecutors speculative.

They also argued that he participated in four proffer sessions with prosecutors and provided important information, including a description of the March 31, 2016 meeting at which he proposed to arrange a meeting with Putin.

More: Mueller team wants Trump campaign adviser to spend up to six months in jail

Related: Who is former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos?

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London, England – A new self-help book covers everything from microaggressions in the workplace and the intricacies of dating, to education and identity.

But unlike other books in the genre, Slay In Your Lane – The Black Girl Bible was written by two black British women as an attempt to not only empower, but also dissect structural racism in the UK.

One chapter opens the sensitive subject of dating as a black woman. “Preferences aren’t born in a vacuum,” says Yomi Adegoke, author and journalist.

Another section tackles the various hurdles black British women face at work in order to grow professionally.

Nine publishers fought for the book, which was released in July.

Al Jazeera spoke to Slay In Your Lane authors Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinene, who is a marketing manager. They are both 26 years old, have been friends for years, and are British-Nigerian.

Al Jazeera: You have mentioned reading several books that aim to empower women, such as Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. What was missing in them, that inspired Slay In Your Lane?

Uviebinene: Those books were written by white women … I wanted a comprehensive guide for black women in the workplace and our experiences, which are very different. There are different stereotypes and prejudices that are committed to us, just by virtue of being a black woman.

Al Jazeera: Your book covers the issue of “microaggressions”. What are examples of these, and how do you recommend overcoming them?

Uviebinene: It was empowering being able to define the different types of microaggressions, from micro-invalidations to micro-insults. 

Before a black woman gets to her desk, there are different ways that microaggressions come into play – someone questioning authority, someone assuming you can’t be a manager, someone assuming you are a lower grade.

You walk in on Monday and your hair is different to how it looked on Friday. “Your hair looks nice” is fine [as a reaction], but then you hear comments such as, “your hair is a political statement”, “your hair looks like Bob Marley’s”.

Though these comments can be light-hearted, when our days are filled with them it becomes a weight on your shoulders.

Before you do your job, you have to deal with essentially being the other.

There isn’t an exact way to overcome microaggressions, but the most important thing is to pick your battles.

Al Jazeera: There is currently a debate in the world of publishing about diversity. A few authors, such as Lionel Shriver, have claimed that writers from minority backgrounds are more likely to get book deals as publishers attempt to fulfil diversity targets. What do you say to this idea?

Uviebinene: I find it frustrating where this conversation is going and that this is what we’re talking about. I think we’re derailing and being distracted by what the actual challenges are. Publishing remains very, very white in terms of who is giving and getting deals.

Al Jazeera: You are British-Nigerian. How would you characterise Britain’s relationship with its immigrant citizens? And are there similarities with your experiences in Nigeria, as a Briton?

Adegoke: As a Nigerian-Brit with two Nigerian parents, I have been told several times – at any point when I have something negative to say about [the UK], the country I [and my mother were] born in – that I should be grateful to have been born here and live here.

I think that is illustrative of how this country sees people who have immigrated here who are not white [compared to white immigrants]. There’s a big distinction.

That gratefulness is expected because I’m thought to be somebody who has come from somewhere else where the set-up isn’t as prosperous, or because me being born here has saved me from some other [perceived] hell-hole, without them acknowledging that the majority of the problems in the country I’m from stem from Britain’s colonial rule there.

You can’t slay your way out of systemic and institutional racism, that’s why it’s important that people who aren’t black and aren’t women, and aren’t black women, are privy to the conversation as well.

Yomi Adegoke, author and journalist

The hostility comes from the idea that you are renting as opposed to living here – you are essentially trespassing and will never truly be British. If anything showed that, it was the treatment of the Windrush generation … Had that happened to white people who were en masse told they weren’t British after all, despite their passports saying so, there would be outrage.

It’s a strained relationship, it’s one where you’re asked where you’re really from. Saying you’re from Croydon, which is where I live, isn’t enough. There is always this, “No, but where do you really come from?”. That emphasises the fact that it certainly isn’t Britain, it isn’t England.

In Nigeria, the first thing I am called there is white. I can’t speak Yoruba. There is a lot emphasis on how different you are, but it’s not hostile. Nigerians may call me white, but they also still call me Nigerian and they claim me as Nigerian.

Elizabeth and I are going to a literary festival in Nigeria, and we’ve been invited as Nigerians. I know I’m Nigerian. There might be some teasing about my pronunciation there, but I’m considered to be home. It’s not hostile, it’s not comparable to how things are in Britain at all. It’s very different.

Al Jazeera: What do you think your book achieves?

Adegoke: I hope it has achieved awareness. People in and outside the community weren’t aware of the levels of systemic, institutional racism, and sexism – and then the combination of the two which specifically affects black women – so, mysogynoir.

There is a myth that we are subject to the same hurdles as everyone else, as white women, black men, white men, even Asian women, Asian men. It’s not better or worse, it’s different. You can’t empower yourself if you don’t know what you’re subject to.

When it comes to allies and white society, how do we move forward if people aren’t aware of what they are complicit in? Let’s forget what people are actively doing, people aren’t even aware of what they are benignly allowing to happen.

The book has allowed a conversation to take place. 

You can’t slay your way out of systemic and institutional racism, that’s why it’s important that people who aren’t black and aren’t women, and aren’t black women, are privy to the conversation as well. 

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.

WASHINGTON – David Daks of New City, New York, paused in front of the American flag Friday to explain to his 6-year-old granddaughter, Arielle, that it was lowered to half-staff to honor the late Arizona Sen. John McCain.

The flagpole sits a few steps away from the path to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where the Daks family joined a steady stream of visitors to the memorial – known to most as “the Wall” – and other monuments saluting veterans on the National Mall.

Several people said they couldn’t help but think of McCain, a former Navy aviator and prisoner of war in Vietnam, as they searched for names of friends and loved ones engraved into the panels of black granite.

“I liked him,” said Daks, who said he voted for the Republican senator when he ran for president. “He was a real person with flaws and all.”

Daks’ daughter, Danielle, called McCain “one of the better politicians.”

“I like that he stood up for what he believed in. He wasn’t a cookie-cutter politician,” she said. “He was willing to go against his party for his convictions. We don’t have a lot of that today.”

Meanwhile, across town, members of Congress and other dignitaries were at the U.S. Capitol for a memorial ceremony for McCain. McCain is only the 31st person to lie in state in the Capitol.

Later Friday evening, hundreds were expected to gather for a candlelight vigil at the memorial to honor McCain.

Then, on Saturday morning, the motorcade carrying McCain’s casket to the Washington National Cathedral for a service will stop at the memorial where his wife, Cindy McCain, will lay a wreath.

Bob Healy, a ranger with the National Park Service, said a lot of people have streamed through the memorial in recent days, many of them saying they had come to Washington to pay their respects to McCain.

“Each has their own perspective on Sen. McCain and what he meant to them,” Healy said. “Many just felt he was a man of character and courage.”

Some visitors said they didn’t agree with McCain’s politics but praised him for his military service and efforts to work across the aisle.

“Even though I wasn’t a McCain supporter, hearing his name invokes dignity and decency,” Sue Halfond of Philadelphia said. “He seemed to put the needs and desires of the country above his own elevation.”

Halfond’s cousin, Lois Richards of Chicago, said she was impressed by the lineup of speakers McCain chose for his memorial service.

“I appreciate the clear message he’s sending with the speakers, especially Obama and Biden – two men who defeated him for the presidency,” she said of Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden. “To quote President Obama, Sen. McCain is saying we can disagree but not be disagreeable.’’

Deb Drummond of Brighton, Michigan, said she had considered going to the Capitol for the viewing but decided against braving the crowds. Instead, Drummond and Lori Weatherwax of Berkley, Michigan, visited the Vietnam wall.

They were in town for a conference of women who served in the Marines. 

“As a veteran, he was a hero,” Drummond said. “I didn’t agree with his politics in the end, but I always respected him as a veteran.”

Weatherwax said McCain was at the forefront of veteran issues.

“He was an advocate for bettering the VA system,” she said. “You don’t have to be a Republican or Democrat to try to do the right thing for your country.”

More: Nation’s political leaders pay tribute as John McCain lies in state at U.S. Capitol

Also: John McCain at Capitol: In line, mourners from opposing political views become friends

Related: VP Pence says John McCain ‘served his country honorably’

 

   

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Editors, USA TODAY
Published 4:10 a.m. ET Sept. 1, 2018

Nation’s capital bids farewell to Sen. John McCain

The political world pays its last respects this weekend to one of its giants: Sen. John McCain, who died last week after a 36-year political career. On Saturday, a motorcade will take his body along Constitution Avenue to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where his widow, Cindy McCain, will lay a ceremonial wreath honoring those who lost their lives in the war that cost McCain his freedom for 5½ years. Funeral services will then be held at Washington National Cathedral, where former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama will deliver eulogies. On Sunday, McCain will be buried at the U.S. Naval Academy next to his lifelong friend, Charles “Chuck” Larson.

Key matchups on first Saturday of college football season

College football is back! While Thursday marked the “unofficial” start of the season, Saturday is the real deal, with nearly every team in action and big games galore. USA TODAY reporters say Saturday’s best contests may be Auburn vs. Washington (an SEC-Pac-12 showdown) and the renewal of the Notre Dame-Michigan rivalry after a three-year lapse. Get your gridiron groove on with the Amway Coaches Poll Top 25, as well as our staff picks for Week 1. Not sure who to root for? Here’s our list of this season’s most compelling teams.

Havasu waterfalls to reopen after flood damage

The Havasu waterfalls, the wildly popular destination on the Havasupai Reservation in a remote part of the Grand Canyon, will reopen Saturday. The falls have been closed to the public since July 11 when flash floods forced the helicopter evacuation of about 200 tourists. The Havasupai Tribal Council closed the area, famous for its blue-green waterfalls, to repair the campground and make sure the trails are safe.

Funerals for Shanann Watts and daughters, killed in Colorado

Funeral services will be held in North Carolina on Saturday for Shanann Watts and her two daughters, who allegedly were slain by Watts’ husband in Colorado earlier this month. Christopher Watts, 33, is facing first-degree murder and other felony charges in the killing of his wife and daughters Bella, age 4, and Celeste, 3. Authorities say Shanann Watts, who was 34 and pregnant with the couple’s third child, was killed after she returned to their home in Frederick, Colorado from a business trip on Aug. 13. The funeral, which will be shown on live, streaming video, will take place at 1 p.m. ET at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

Labor Day weekend means Labor Day sales

The Labor Day holiday weekend signifies the end of summer and the beginning of fall as the kids return to school and the weather starts to cool slightly. But for many, the three-day holiday weekend also represents an opportunity to save as retailers attempt to lure shoppers in with a whirlwind of deals. Retailers focus on clearing out summer items and you can expect to find lots of deals on outgoing seasonal items such as summer clothing, lawn mowers, grills, patio furniture, back-to-school supplies and gardening tools. 

• Your favorite stores are having big Labor Day Weekend sales
• Here’s how to make the most of Labor Day sales 
• Best Labor Day car deals for bargain hunters

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Leicester City v Liverpool live in the Premier League’s early game – Live – BBC Sport

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Robert Kyagulanyi, a Ugandan pop star-turned-opposition politician, has flown out to the United States for medical treatment following alleged torture in detention, a day after he was denied boarding, his lawyer said.

Kyagulanyi, whose stage name is Bobi Wine, left Entebbe International Airport close to midnight on Friday, his lawyer in Uganda, Nicholas Opiyo, said on Twitter.

Video posted by Opiyo showed the 36-year-old singer in his trademark red beret and carrying crutches as he was taken to the departure gate on a wheelchair, saluting and thanking supporters along the way.

“I can now confirm that Hon Bobi Wine #FreeBobiWine is on a KLM flight out of Entebbe airport. I just saw him off,” Opiyo wrote.

“He was in the company of his wife Barbie and brother Daks Sentamu,” Opiyo told AFP news agency.

I can now confirm that Hon Bobi Wine #FreeBobiWine is on a KLM flight out of Entebbe Airport. I just saw him off. We will now embark on getting Hon Zaake to leave for medical treatment too. Thank you for all your prayers and support pic.twitter.com/cHdd2tkCvA

— Nicholas Opiyo (@nickopiyo) August 31, 2018

Kyagulanyi was arrested and charged with treason in August after protesters stoned President Yoweri Museveni’s car during a by-election campaign.

His arrest sparked violent protests with his supporters saying he was badly beaten and tortured while in army custody, during and after his detention in the northwestern town of Arua on August 13, and required medical treatment abroad.

Kyagulanyi was released on bail on Monday without any travel restrictions. But was detained again by police on Thursday evening at the airport, outside the capital Kampala, his lawyers said.

Robert Amsterdam, his lawyer, told Reuters news agency on Friday that Kyagulanyi said he had been tortured again while being transported from the airport to a hospital in Kampala. 

“He was beaten … he was groaning in pain, they kept telling him to shut up,” said Amsterdam.

Police spokesperson Emilian Kayima called the allegations “fake news”.

In a statement late on Friday, Kayima said that the director of public prosecutions instructed the police to investigate allegations of torture on Kyagulanyi, a move that required that he be examined by government medical experts.

“Before this medical examination was done, the Uganda Police Force learnt of his departure yesterday, August 30,” said Kayima in the statement. “As a result, Hon. Kyagulanyi was halted from departure.”

The re-arrest of Kyagulanyi triggered fresh protests in Kampala on Friday.

People demonstrated in different parts of the city, burning tyres and piling rocks and other barricades in the middle of the roads. Police said the protests were limited and contained.

Kyagulanyi is a musician who entered politics after winning a parliamentary by-election last year. He has emerged as a formidable threat to Museveni’s 32-year rule, winning popular support through his music and strong criticism of the government.

In July, the constitution was amended to remove the presidential age limit of 75 years, meaning Museveni can run again for president in 2021.

The 74-year-old Museveni, a close US security ally, has held power since 1986.

Another legislator who was blocked on Thursday from flying to India for treatment, Francis Zaake, was still being held in a hospital Friday night.

Zaake, who was arrested along with Kyagulanyi on August 13, said he was also tortured by security forces while in detention in August. 

Images posted on social media show him lying on a bed, eyes closed, with multiple bruises on his hand and other body areas.