President Trump’s jaw-dropping performance in Helsinki is grabbing the headlines, but another, smaller news item that hit hours later may ultimately prove of equal or greater consequence: the Justice Department’s announcement on Monday that it had, the day before, arrested Russian national Maria (also known as “Mariia”) Butina.

Butina, a 29-year-old in the U.S. on a student visa, is charged with conspiracy to act in the U.S. as an unregistered foreign agent, stemming from a criminal complaint filed by a special agent in the Counterintelligence Division of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. The FBI complaint alleges that Butina worked with a sanctioned Russian official Alexander Torshin to establish “back channel” lines of communication with American politicians that “could be used by the Russian Federation to penetrate the U.S. decision-making apparatus to advance the agenda of the Russian Federation.”

Butina’s name might be new to many, but her face has had a way of popping up in certain Republican circles over the past few years.

Here she is in 2015, asking then-candidate Trump a question about U.S. sanctions on Russia, at FreedomFest in Las Vegas, one of many conservative conferences and events Butina attended during that time—apparently, given the details of the complaint, as part of a concerted effort to meet persons of influence in the Republican party. Trump’s candidacy was then only a few weeks old. The exchange was flagged in a report by Mark Follman that ran in Mother Jones earlier this year because it showed Trump’s early embrace of Putin and willingness to lift sanctions against Russia. It also contained the curiosity of Trump having an exchange with the protégé—Butina—of close Putin ally and Russian central bank deputy director Alexander Torshin, who claimed to have met Trump a few months prior and who may be the unnamed Russian official mentioned in the complaint.

Follman’s reporting from this year also examines another place where Butina offers a point of confluence: “ties among prominent members of the National Rifle Association, conservative Republicans, a budding gun-rights movement in Russia—and their convergence in the Trump campaign.” Given Butina’s very public association with the NRA—both she and Torshin boast of being lifetime members—it seems a reasonable-bordering-on-obvious assumption that the NRA is the unnamed “Gun Rights Organization” mentioned in the complaint.

And here are some photos of Butina posing with various past NRA presidents, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, and Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin.

So here we have a Russian national, connected to a Russian central bank official and Putin crony—Torshin—arrested for acting on behalf of Russia to advance its interests during and after the 2016 presidential campaign. She and Torshin, now under U.S. sanction, are prominent members of the NRA, which has been reported to be under FBI investigation for acting as a possible funnel of Russian money to the Trump campaign. Butina is known to have tried on at least one occasion to broker a meeting between Putin and Torshin; Jared Kushner, the president’s son in law and a White House adviser, rejected the meeting but Donald Trump, Jr., the president’s son, did meet with him during an NRA convention in May 2016. The New York Times also reports that Butina sought to establish a channel between Trump and Putin.

What happened when Congressional Democrats wanted to get Butina’s testimony about Russian election interference? Here’s what Representative Eric Salwell of California, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee had to say on Twitter after Butina’s arrest:

And here’s a tweet from Manu Raju, CNN’s Senior Congressional Correspondent, about the reaction of California Senator Dianne Feinstein, ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee:

It should be noted that the charges against Butina were filed by Justice Department national security prosecutors, not Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The timing could be coincidental, but taken along with the July 13 indictments delivered against 12 Russian military intelligence officials charged with hacking of various Democrats in the 2016 election cycle, and the lead-up to the Trump-Putin summit, it’s hard not to imagine that the Department of Justice may be trying to establish its own counter narrative to Trump’s practice of repeatedly dismissing U.S. Intelligence Community and Congressional findings that Russia actively interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

Given all the threads that converge in the person of Butina, and the apparent reluctance of Congressional Republicans to have her testify, one wonders what more we’ll be hearing about this Russian gun enthusiast in the weeks and months to come.

Ari Melber of MSNBC interviewed McClatchy’s Greg Gordon last night.  McClatchy has been out front on this story.  Please watch above.