Accused Russian Spy Maria Butina Speaks Out.
BLITZER: For the first time on camera, we're hearing directly from the accused spy, Maria Butina, speaking out in a T.V. interview shortly before her release and deportation back to Russia. CNN's Brian Todd is here with details. Brian, she remains rather defiant about the allegations against her.</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: She really does, Wolf. Maria Butina has some strange denials in this interview. She says she merely doing some social networking, not spying. And at one point when she was cornered, she pulled an odd claim of racism against Russians in the U.S.</s>TODD (voice-over): Maria Butina calls it nonsense, the accusation that she tried to infiltrate the NRA as a means of getting to higher level Republicans and influencing U.S. policy.</s>MARIA BUTINA, ALLEGED RUSSIAN SPY: If I were not Russian, that would be called social networking.</s>TODD (voice-over): The accused Russian spy spoke to CBS's "60 Minutes" just before she was released from a federal prison in Florida and deported back to Russia. Butina, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, previously admitted she was directed by Aleksandr Torshin, a former top Russian Central Bank official with ties to President Vladimir Putin. But she denied that Torshin was close to Putin, denied that Torshin acted like her case officer.</s>BUTINA: Wolves have teeth, but not all animals with teeth are wolves. You cannot judge a person based on appearance.</s>TODD (voice-over): But "60 Minutes" presented Butina with direct Twitter messages it says she exchanged with Torshin as the 2016 election was approaching. Butina writes to Torshin -- we made our bet. I am following our game. Torshin writes back -- this is the battle for the future, it cannot be lost. Patience and cold blood. A few days later, Butina wrote to Torshin -- only incognito. Right now, everything has to be quiet and careful.</s>LESLEY STAHL, CBS NEWS HOST: Incognito, patience, cold blood, what is that?</s>BUTINA: Let me take you back to 2016 around the elections time. Do you remember how, at that point, American media treated Russia? Everything was toxic. Tell me that there is no racism here against the Russians. Oh, please, it is.</s>TODD (on camera): When she says, incognito, be careful, I'm following our game, is she protecting herself from racism?</s>ERIC O'NEILL, SECURITY STRATEGIST, VMWARE CARBON BLACK: No, she's -- Butina is certainly working for Russian intelligence. Now, she wasn't convicted or tried for espionage, but she certainly was working for someone in Russia who was gathering intelligence against the United States.</s>TODD (voice-over): Journalist Elena Nicolaou, a one-time friend of Butina's, told CNN Butina was fun-loving, like when she sang "Beauty & the Beast" with her American boyfriend, Republican political operative Paul Erickson. But Nicolaou says Butina also displayed some mysterious behavior, like missing a whole day of activities at Disney World saying she'd chipped a tooth.</s>ELENA NICOLAOU, FORMER FRIEND OF MARIA BUTINA AND PAUL ERICKSON: She may have done something to her tooth or maybe she was gone for different reasons, but I don't know.</s>TODD (voice-over): Butina told "60 Minutes" she faced tough conditions in American jails.</s>BUTINA: It is a torture. It is not normal for a human being to be locked for 23, 22 hours in a cell by your own.</s>TODD (voice-over): That could be an appeal to Putin who, former FBI counterintelligence agent Eric O'Neill says, might treat Butina harshly because she was caught, because she cooperated with, and she was debriefed by U.S. intelligence.</s>O'NEILL: I think what is going to happen is that she is going to go through a period of interrogation to learn what secrets we may now know about how Russia engages in trying to recruit spies and trying to learn intelligence. And it is not a pleasant process.</s>TODD: But Eric O'Neill believes that Putin's government may stop short of incarcerating Maria Butina for a long period of time or punishing her more harshly. If they did that, he says it might be an acknowledgment -- too much of an acknowledgment, really, to the United States that Butina was a valuable spy, that she decent information from the U.S. or gave good information to the U.S. Interestingly, Butina is, tonight, in her home of Siberia where Russian political prisoners, Wolf, as you know, were often sent.</s>BLITZER: Yes, they were. Brian Todd, thank you. There's breaking news next. The testimony of two key witnesses in the impeachment inquiry is made public, revealing what they told lawmakers about Rudy Giuliani's efforts for President Trump in Ukraine.