NRA Was 'Foreign Asset' To Russia Ahead of 2016, New Senate Report Reveals

[Botany]

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/27/764879242/nra-was-foreign-asset-to-russia-ahead-of-2016-new-senate-report-reveals


The National Rifle Association acted as a "foreign asset" for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election, according to a new investigation unveiled Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Drawing on contemporaneous emails and private interviews, an 18-month probe by the Senate Finance Committee's Democratic staff found that the NRA underwrote political access for Russian nationals Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin more than previously known — even though the two had declared their ties to the Kremlin.

The report, available here, also describes how closely the gun rights group was involved with organizing a 2015 visit by some of its leaders to Moscow.

Then-NRA vice president Pete Brownell, who would later become NRA president, was enticed to visit Russia with the promise of personal business opportunities — and the NRA covered a portion of the trip's costs.

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In 2016 the NRA spent almost 1/2 a billion $s of almost all Russian money to install Trump and the many of the
current GOP senators. See The Moscow 8.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eight-republicans-spent-july-4-in-russia-where-are-the-fireworks/2018/07/06/beae30be-812e-11e8-b658-4f4d2a1aeef1_story.html