Senator asks whether NRA used Russian funds to free other money for politics
BY PETER STONE AND GREG GORDON
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article203536484.html
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WASHINGTON
A senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee pressed the National Rifle Association Monday to divulge whether it has concealed financial support from Russia during the 2016 election campaign by channeling the money to a nonpolitical account whose donors need not be publicly disclosed.
In a letter to the NRA’s top lawyer, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon also asked whether the powerful gun lobby group can state firmly that it has “never wittingly or unwittingly” received money “from individuals or entities acting as conduits for foreign entities or interests.”
Wyden first sent queries to the NRA in early February in response to a McClatchy report that the FBI was investigating whether Alexander Torshin, a top Kremlin central banker with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, had funneled money to the organization. The NRA gave an unusually early endorsement to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in May 2016 and became his biggest financial backer, spending $30 million on his behalf.
The group forged particularly close ties with Torshin, who attended several of its national conventions, hosted senior NRA officials on a December 2015 trip to Moscow and helped found a Russian gun rights group in 2013. The FBI got interested in Torshin after Spanish law enforcement authorities issued a secret investigative report that found he helped Russian organized crime figures launder money into banks and hotels in Spain – an allegation that Torshin has denied.
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