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

[brooklynite]

Source: NPR

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-Oregon.

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.

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

[lagomorph777]

1. This could be slightly awkward for all those GOP Senators who take #NRAROUBLES by the truckload.

[Raven123]

2. Thanks for posting. Easy to miss this important story in this news environment

[TheRealNorth]

3. So, does anyone think Trump will carry out his threats

About what spies and traitors deserve (when it's the NRA)?

[wiggs]

4. That sounds illegal. Didn't they launder 250 million into Trump campaign in

2016 election? Did they really have that much money on their own?

[Botany]

5. And besides all the money that Russia paid the NRA for Trump many republican senators ....

.... took NRA/Russian money too.

Hello Mitch McConnell & Rob Portman.

[DENVERPOPS]

17. To say nothing

To say nothing of the fortune that his wife's Chinese oligarchs funneled to Mitch...........

[underpants]

6. NRA Bam! 💥

[gademocrat7]

7. The NRA is a corrupt nest of treasonous vipers.

Rethugs have gladly taken NRA money.

[Leghorn21]

8. My obligatory "Torshin/Jr" post, fwiw:

Don't forget Spanish prosecutor Jose Grinda saying Don Jr should be "very concerned" about wiretaps of his meetings w Putin crony Alexander Torshin (also NRA's contact in Russia). Grinda turned those wiretaps over to FBI.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-jr-should-be-concerned-over-putin-allys-wiretapped-calls-spanish-945753

Jose Grinda

[BumRushDaShow]

9. It's not like they were hiding it either

They were flaunting it.



NPR has a link to the report here - https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=6432520-The-NRA-Russia-How-a-Tax-Exempt-Organization

[Botany]

22. Alexander Torshin (NRA friend/Maria Butina's sponsor) looking at an EES voting machine in 2012

Link to tweet

In 2016 he was very busy in Luzerne County PA which went red for the 1st time
since 1988 but in 2018 it went back blue

[BumRushDaShow]

23. Seems they had a REAL good look!

And it was good enough for the idiots to buy some new ones here in Philly to replace our antiquated but less hackable machines. I want my 1940s-style lever machines back!

[Botany]

24. Ever since we went from the old pull down tabs and lever actuated voting machines to the ...

...electronic ones the vote recorded has stopped matching the polls in many cases.

[llmart]

10. This needs to be front and center also.

This is an important story. The NRA needs to be disbanded.

[dchill]

19. The GOP needs to be disbanded. Also, too.

[Sherman A1]

28. Agreed

[vlyons]

11. Yes Putin figured out long ago

that t was so much easier and cheaper to buy Republicans than to buy a hot war

[certainot]

12. rw talk radio needs to be labeled russian asset since at least 2008 when it forced palin on mccain

manafort was campaign cochair and limbaiugh wouldn't support mccain (an impending disaster going into the convention) until minutes after mccain picked palin. russian oil and gas was courting palin then.

then there was climategate, tea party, debt default, benghazi, and EVERTHING else since up to trump and ukraine

[getagrip_already]

13. "WAS"????? N/T

[ffr]

14. Of course they did. NRA leadership are TRAITORS to the United States.

And I don't mean unwitting. They knew full well what they were doing was a betrayal.

[Marthe48]

15. My Dad was a member of the NRA in the 1960s

and yet, he displayed a sign in his grocery store: BETTER DEAD THAN RED

I imagine his head would be exploding if he knew how badly NRA lost its way.

[rwsanders]

16. Awww, this makes the movie "Red Dawn" so much more confusing for the rednecks

[riversedge]

18. Putin has funneled money to Trump businesses and the NRA. Senator: Russians Used Greed to 'Capture'

Putin has funneled money to Trump businesses and the NRA. Senator: Russians Used Greed to ‘Capture’ NRA https://thedailybeast.com/russians-used-greed-to-capture-nra-senator-ron-wyden-alleges-in-new-report?source=twitter&via=desktop via @thedailybeast

Link to tweet

?s=20

[safeinOhio]

20. NRA can get those teabaggers

the same gun laws that Russia has.

[JHB]

21. Getting their marching orders straight from Moscow

All part of the ongoing Sovietization of the Republican party.

[alfredo]

25. For the love of money

[empedocles]

26. Dots

[Sherman A1]

27. Thanks for posting

It is easy to miss these important stories.