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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe NRA Has Deep Ties to Accused Russian Spy Maria Butina
For decades, the National Rifle Association has promoted its hard-line politics with appeals to patriotism, freedom, and the staunch defense of the Second Amendment. But now, the controversial gun lobbying group finds itself deeply caught up in a wide-ranging effort to sabotage American democracy by an enemy foreign power.
Federal prosecutors unsealed charges this week against 29-year-old Russian national Maria Butina, a self-styled gun activist with long-running ties to the NRA who worked for Alexander Torshin, a high-level Russian government and banking official from President Vladimir Putins party. Butina, who was a graduate student at American University until this spring, began traveling to the United States in 2014 and operated as a covert Russian agent, according to an FBI affidavit. She acted as an unregistered foreign agent and participated in a multiyear conspiracy to infiltrate conservative political groups including the NRA, federal prosecutors say, in order to advance the interests of the Russian Federation.
Butina and Torshinwho for years also traveled to America for NRA events and was among Russian officials sanctioned by the Treasury Department in Aprilworked together in attempts to cultivate Republican politicians and eventually Donald Trumps presidential campaign. Under Torshins direction, the covert influence campaign involved substantial planning, international coordination, and preparation, according to court documents, which detail some of the evidence gathered by the FBI on Butinas connections to a Russian intelligence agency and Russian oligarchs. Torshin is referred to only as a Russian official in the court documents, but his identity has since been confirmed in multiple news reports, and he appears with Butina in both the United States and Russia throughout several years worth of social media posts previously documented by Mother Jones.
The pair of Russians spent years building ties with the NRA, as we reported in our recent investigation. And according to a New York Times report this week, the NRA repeatedly brought Butina from her native Russia to the United States for events until she obtained a student visa in August 2016.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/nra-maria-butina-spying-charges-trump-campaign/
Federal prosecutors unsealed charges this week against 29-year-old Russian national Maria Butina, a self-styled gun activist with long-running ties to the NRA who worked for Alexander Torshin, a high-level Russian government and banking official from President Vladimir Putins party. Butina, who was a graduate student at American University until this spring, began traveling to the United States in 2014 and operated as a covert Russian agent, according to an FBI affidavit. She acted as an unregistered foreign agent and participated in a multiyear conspiracy to infiltrate conservative political groups including the NRA, federal prosecutors say, in order to advance the interests of the Russian Federation.
Butina and Torshinwho for years also traveled to America for NRA events and was among Russian officials sanctioned by the Treasury Department in Aprilworked together in attempts to cultivate Republican politicians and eventually Donald Trumps presidential campaign. Under Torshins direction, the covert influence campaign involved substantial planning, international coordination, and preparation, according to court documents, which detail some of the evidence gathered by the FBI on Butinas connections to a Russian intelligence agency and Russian oligarchs. Torshin is referred to only as a Russian official in the court documents, but his identity has since been confirmed in multiple news reports, and he appears with Butina in both the United States and Russia throughout several years worth of social media posts previously documented by Mother Jones.
The pair of Russians spent years building ties with the NRA, as we reported in our recent investigation. And according to a New York Times report this week, the NRA repeatedly brought Butina from her native Russia to the United States for events until she obtained a student visa in August 2016.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/nra-maria-butina-spying-charges-trump-campaign/
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The NRA Has Deep Ties to Accused Russian Spy Maria Butina (Original Post)
demmiblue
Jul 2018
OP
How much Kompromat did she pick up on Republicans...and pass to Putin to pass to Trump?
Fred Sanders
Jul 2018
#2
dalton99a
(81,570 posts)1. The NRA is another Russian laundromat for the Trump campaign.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)2. How much Kompromat did she pick up on Republicans...and pass to Putin to pass to Trump?
Just saying if I was one of Butina's compromised men I would not be Trump's lapdog...any of that happening among Republican politicians?
How many more Nataschas and handler Boris's are still in the wild in America?
dalton99a
(81,570 posts)3. Yep. They didn't train just one woman
SHRED
(28,136 posts)4. "Deep" in more ways than one
Just sayin.
Sneederbunk
(14,300 posts)5. Waiting to hear from comrade La Pierre.
hunter
(38,326 posts)6. She's straight out of a spy novel...