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unz review

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rww

02/27/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

The misogynist facing charges of human trafficking is on a plane back to the United States.

As part of a new interview series, white Christian nationalists C. Jay Engel and Andrew Isker spoke with Ron Unz about Charles Lindbergh and World War II. A well-known Holocaust denier, Unz has written that the Holocaust was a “hoax” and that Jews have a “notorious tendency to lie and dissemble.”

Republican Congressman Mark Alford of Missouri offered thoughtless religious platitudes to his constituents.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) claimed Wednesday that Americans who attended recent rowdy Republican town halls were “paid protesters.”

President Donald Trump on Thursday acted as though he had no recollection of calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator.”

The previous Trump administration effectively banned transgender people from joining, but the new memo says currently serving transgender troops will be discharged.

lots of talk Talk:Ron Unz - Wikipedia

Unz is notable for one reason, and one reason only - he publishes a far-right anti-semitic, Holocaust denying, white supremacist website. That's it. He's not notable for being a businessman, not even close. His run for governor put him in a distant 2nd-place in the primary and that was the end of it, so that wouldn't be enough for an article about him either. The lead should start with the reason he's notable. Pushing it farther down reeks of NPOV, and it will not stand....

@Philip Cross: I don't understand why we can't cite the website itself for undeniable facts. The fact that the Unz Review reposts articles from the Daily Stormer is an undeniable fact, they openly state that's what they do. This page says at the bottom "(Republished from The Daily Stormer by permission of author or representative)"

...

believe the following have been removed:

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2 25

Ronald Keeva Unz (/ʌnz/; born September 20, 1961) is an American technology entrepreneur, political activist, writer, and publisher. A former businessman, Unz became a financial software multi-millionaire before entering politics.[1] He unsuccessfully ran for governor as a Republican in the 1994 California gubernatorial election and for U.S. Senator in 2016. He has sponsored multiple ballot propositions promoting structured English immersion education as well as campaign finance reform and minimum wage increases.

Unz was publisher of The American Conservative from 2007 to 2013, and since 2013 has been publisher and editor of The Unz Review, a website which self-describes as presenting "controversial perspectives largely excluded from the American mainstream media."[2] Unz Review has been criticized by the Anti-Defamation League for hosting racist and anti-semitic content,[3] and the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled it a white nationalist publication.[4] Unz has also drawn criticism for funding VDARE and other publications accused of white supremacism.[5]

In February 2025, an essay by Unz was cited as the beginning of the “political awakening" of Department of Government Efficiency worker Gavin Kliger, in a now-deleted Substack post.[6]

Early life and career

Ronald Keeva Unz was born in Los Angeles, California, on September 20, 1961,[7] to a Ukrainian family of Jewish descent. His family migrated to America in the 20th century and was raised household in North Hollywood.[8][9][1] His mother was an anti-war activist[9] who raised her son as a single mother. Unz has said that his childhood as a fatherless child in a single-parent household which received public assistance, was a source of "embarrassment and discomfort".[9]

He attended North Hollywood High School and, in his senior year won first place in the 1979 Westinghouse Science Talent Search.[8] He attended Harvard University, graduating in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics and ancient history.[7][10] He then took graduate courses in physics at the University of Cambridge and began a Ph.D. at Stanford University before abandoning the program.[9][10]

Unz worked in the banking industry and wrote software for mortgage securities during his studies. In 1988 he founded the company Wall Street Analytics in New York City, moving it to Palo Alto, California, five years later.[9][10] In 2006 the company was acquired by the ratings firm Moody's.[11]

Political career

Unz made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination in the 1994 California gubernatorial election, challenging incumbent Pete Wilson. He ran as a conservative alternative to the more moderate Wilson and was endorsed by the conservative California Republican Assembly.[12] He came in second place to Wilson, receiving 707,431 votes (34.3 percent).[13] Newspapers referred to Unz's candidacy as a Revenge of the Nerds and often quoted his claim of a 214 IQ.[14][12][1][10]

In 1998, Unz sponsored California Proposition 227, which aimed to change the state's bilingual education to an opt-in structured English-language educational system. It was approved by the voters[15] despite opposition from language education researchers.[16][self-published source?] Proposition 227 did not seek to end bilingual education since special exemptions were made for students to remain in an English immersion class if a parent so desires. However, there were limits (such as age restrictions) for the exemptions, and there were provisions to discipline teachers who refused to teach solely or predominantly in English.[17] Proposition 227 was approved in 1998, but repealed by Proposition 58 in 2016. In 2002, Unz backed a similar initiative, the Massachusetts English Language Education in Public Schools Initiative,[18] which was approved by 61.25% of the voters.[19] He also supported ballot initiatives in other states including Arizona Proposition 203 and Colorado Amendment 31.[20]

In early 1999, Unz introduced a campaign-finance reform ballot initiative known as the California Voters Bill of Rights (Proposition 25).[21] Co-sponsored by California Democrat Tony Miller and endorsed by Senator John McCain,[22] the proposal would have required campaign contributions greater than $1,000 to be declared online within 24 hours, limited individual contributions to $5,000, banned corporate contributions to candidates, and permitted statewide candidates to raise funds only within the 12 months before an election.[23][24] In late 1999 Unz briefly entered the U.S. Senate race to challenge incumbent Dianne Feinstein,[25] declaring his candidacy in October[22] and dropping out by December to focus on fundraising for Proposition 25, which was ultimately defeated in the March 2000 primary election.[26][27]

In 2012 and 2014, Unz worked on a ballot initiative to raise the California minimum wage from $10 to $12, but his campaign failed.[28][29] His proposal was supported by economist James K. Galbraith.[28]

In 2016, Unz organized the "Free Harvard, Fair Harvard" campaign, a slate of five candidates campaigning for spots on the Harvard Board of Overseers, the governing board of Harvard University. The slate included himself, journalist Stuart Taylor Jr., physicist Stephen Hsu, consumer advocate Ralph Nader, and lawyer Lee C. Cheng. The campaign sought for tuition fees at Harvard to be abolished and for greater transparency in the admissions process.[30][31][32] None of the five candidates were elected to the 30-person board.[33][34]

Unz campaigned on a Republican ticket in California in the 2016 primaries for election to the US Senate intending to succeed Democrat Barbara Boxer.[35] Having previously supported immigration, he now proposed it "should be sharply reduced, probably by 50% or more."[36] Though not hoping to win the nomination, he put himself forward in an attempt to challenge the then proposed repeal of Proposition 227.[35] He was endorsed by former U.S. Representative Ron Paul.[37] In the final result, he gained 64,698 votes (1.3%).[38]

Writing and publishing

The American Conservative and the "Asian quota" controversy

[(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ron_Unz&action=edit&section=4 "Edit section: The American Conservative and the "Asian quota" controversy")]

An investor in The American Conservative, he was its publisher from 2007 to 2013.[39] He also contributed opinion articles on topics such as immigration, the minimum wage, and urban crime.[18] In an email leaked to National Review magazine, editor Daniel McCarthy wrote that Unz was acting as if he were the editor of The American Conservative and threatened to resign if the publication's board did not support him over Unz.[40]

In 2012 Unz published an article in The American Conservative entitled "The Myth of American Meritocracy". He argued Ivy League universities held an unspoken Asian quota limiting spots granted to Asian students similar to earlier Jewish quotas, and that Jewish students are over-represented than merit would suggest, which he claimed was caused by unconscious Jewish bias among administrators.[41][42][43] The article said that the "massive apparent bias" could be attributed to Jewish administrators at those universities.[44][45] His argument for existence of Asian race-based quota was reproduced in a subsequent New York Times special debate feature, "Fears of an Asian Quota in the Ivy League".[46][47] Unz's admissions analysis was contested by academics at Yale, who showed that his data "grossly underestimates the proportion of Asian-Americans".[48] Unz's writings on Ivy League admissions were praised by white supremacist David Duke who said it confirmed Harvard was "now under powerful Jewish influence". The noted antisemite Kevin B. MacDonald said it was similar to his own view that Jews are "at odds with the values of the great majority of non-Jewish White Americans."[42][45]

The Unz Archive

Unz also compiled the Unz Archive (UNZ.org), a searchable online collection of periodicals, books, and video, that by 2012 held around 25,000 issues of over 120 publications, including The American Mercury, The Literary Digest, Inquiry, Collier's, Marxism Today, New Politics, and various pulp fiction and romance magazines.[49][50][51] Nick Gillespie of Reason called it "one of the Web's great archive projects".[50]

The Unz Review

Main article: The Unz Review

In November 2013, Unz launched the website The Unz Review for which he serves as editor-in-chief and publisher.[42]

The Unz Review describes itself as presenting "controversial perspectives largely excluded from the American mainstream media."[2] Unz says he mostly posts articles that have already been published, and "I don't even read most of the articles I publish, and I certainly don't edit them. I'm busy."[45] It has been described by the Associated Press as "a hodgepodge of views from corners of both the left and right"[52] and by the New York Times as "far right".[53] According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in 2014, the webzine is an "outlet for certain writers to attack Israel and Jews".[42] The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled it a white nationalist publication.[4] In 2016, a research fellow at the ADL said "I haven't seen Ron Unz write anything anti-Semitic himself, but he really gives a platform to anti-Semites."[45]

Relation to anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, homosexuality research, etc.

The ADL and others criticized Unz for a $600,000 grant for research in evolutionary biology to Gregory Cochran, a professor who argued that homosexuality may be caused by a "gay germ".[45] Ralph Nader, while running with Unz for Harvard Board of Overseers called him "a very nuanced guy. He should not be stereotyped as a lot of the world of identity politics does."[32]

The Unz Foundation, of which he is president, has donated to individuals and organizations which are alleged by the ADL to have published or expressed opinions that are antisemitic or anti-Israel. In 2009, 2010 and 2011, it gave $108,000 to Paul Craig Roberts, $74,000 to Philip Giraldi, $75,000 Norman Finkelstein, $80,000 to CounterPunch and $60,000 to Philip Weiss, co-editor of the Mondoweiss website.[42][54] In addition, the Unz Foundation has given grants to Alison Weir, founder of If Americans Knew.[42] He has donated tens of thousands of dollars to VDARE, which he admits is a "quasi-white nationalist" website, but has said "they write interesting things".[55][5][56]

Since their 2014 article, the ADL commented in October 2018 that Unz "has embraced hardcore anti-Semitism", "denied the Holocaust", and "endorsed the claim that Jews consume the blood of non-Jews", referring to blood libel.[3] In July 2018, in articles for The Unz Review, he wrote about the claims in the Czarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Henry Ford's The International Jew. Ford's work, a series of antisemitic pamphlets published in the 1920s, appeared to Unz to be "quite plausible and factually-oriented, even sometimes overly cautious in their presentation".[3] He partly accepted the standard consensus on the Protocols but believes they were assembled by "someone who was generally familiar with the secretive machinations of elite international Jews against the existing governments... who drafted the document to outline his view of their strategic plans."[3]

In August 2018, Unz made use of Holocaust denial arguments and wrote, "I think it far more likely than not that the standard Holocaust narrative is at least substantially false, and quite possibly, almost entirely so."[3] That same year, The Unz Review published material written by Holocaust denier Kevin Barrett,[57][39][58][59] while Unz himself defended David Irving, who lost his libel case against Deborah Lipstadt. Unz also implied that Mossad was involved in the murders of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert.[39] Writing about the 2001 September 11 attacks in a September 2018 article for his Review, Unz stated: "the vast weight of the evidence clearly points in a single direction, implicating Israel and its Mossad intelligence service, with the case being overwhelmingly strong in motive, means, and opportunity."[60]

Collection of essays

In 2016, Unz self-published The Myth of American Meritocracy and Other Essays, a hardcover collection of most of his writings, including nearly all of his print articles.[56]

References...

blk 7/18

o'neill rec on russia

O’Neill, for good measure, has also been outspoken in publicly pushing conservatives to support Russia. In The American Conservative last year, O’Neill wrote that he supports using conservatives’ efforts to build a “good relationship” with Russia. Among the voices O’Neill recommended listening to: Stephen Cohen, who is now writing for Russian propaganda channel RT; Pat Buchanan, who has written that Putin has God on his “side”; and writers for anti-Semitic sites like Russia Insider and Unz Review.

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ggl 2 25

[### Ron Unz Archive

The Unz Review

https://www.unz.com › author › ron-unz](https://www.unz.com/author/ron-unz/)

Although Google Analytics and other standard third-party utilities show how much traffic my own articles on The Unz Review regularly receive, ...

Holocaust · ‎American Pravda · ‎Israel/Palestine · ‎World War II

[### Ron Unz

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Ron_Unz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Unz)

Ronald Keeva Unz is an American technology entrepreneur, political activist, writer, and publisher. A former businessman, Unz became a financial software ...

[### Ron Unz - Think Tank: Biography

PBS

https://www.pbs.org › thinktank › bio_1737](https://www.pbs.org/thinktank/bio_1737.html)

Ron Unz, architect of California's Proposition 227, the “English for the Children” initiative, and author of a recent piece in Commentary magazine.

[### The Myth of American Meritocracy and Other Essays

Amazon.com

https://www.amazon.com › Myth-American-Meritocrac...](https://www.amazon.com/Myth-American-Meritocracy-Other-Essays/dp/0997210109)

This used book, while missing its dust cover, is in good condition with no highlights or notes—perfect for those who value a clean read ...

$23.99

[### The Unz Review • An Alternative Media Selection - The Unz ...

The Unz Review

https://www.unz.com](https://www.unz.com/)

Is It Foreign Aid or Covert Action? Trump continues to cut back on multi-purpose overseas programs. Philip Giraldi • February 21, 2025. • 1,900 Words • ...

[### Ron Unz

New America

http://newamerica.org › our-people › ron-unz](http://newamerica.org/our-people/ron-unz/)

Ron Unz. Recent Publications. Nov. 15th, 2012. Raising American Wages...by Raising American Wages. Summary goes here. By: Ron Unz. Economic Growth Policy Paper ...

[### Ron Unz: Controversial Writer and Funder of Anti-israel ...

ADL

https://www.adl.org › resources › news › ron-unz-contr...](https://www.adl.org/resources/news/ron-unz-controversial-writer-and-funder-anti-israel-activists)

Jan 23, 2014 — Conservative businessman Ron Unz has stirred controversy over the last year by publicizing ideas that appeal to anti-Semites.

[### Ron Unz

Hoover Institution

https://www.hoover.org › profiles › ron-unz](https://www.hoover.org/profiles/ron-unz)

With its eminent scholars and world-renowned library and archives, the Hoover Institution seeks to improve the human condition by advancing ideas.

[### 18 Ron Unz Nixon Facts: Unveiling The Truth

Mississippi College

https://judicial.mc.edu › Hms](https://judicial.mc.edu/18-ron-unz-nixon-facts-unveiling-the-truth)

Feb 11, 2025 — Explore the life of 18 Ron Unz Nixon with 18 fascinating facts. Delve into his political journey, uncover hidden truths, and discover the ...

[### Ron Unz

Open to Debate

https://opentodebate.org › Speaker](https://opentodebate.org/debaters/ron-unz/)

Ron Unz, the publisher of “The Unz Review”, is the former publisher of The American Conservative, a small opinion magazine, and is the founder and chairman of ...

===

not sure why this is here

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/nra-maria-butina-spying-charges-trump-campaign/

 For decades, the National Rifle Association has promoted its hardline 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 Putin’s 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 Torshin—who for years also traveled to America for NRA events and were among Russian officials sanctioned by the Treasury Department in April—worked together in attempts to cultivate Republican politicians and eventually Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Under Torshin’s 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 Butina’s 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.”

Beginning back in 2013, Butina developed a relationship with an unnamed “American political operative” described in the court documents, who has been identified in media reports as GOP activist andNRA member Paul Erickson. In her private communications with Erickson, Butina spoke of the key influence of the NRA on the Republican Party, noting that the gun group is “the largest sponsor of the elections to the US congress.” Through Erickson and her connections with the NRA, Butina sought to establish “‘back channel’ lines of communication” to influential political figures. In photos that she posted to her Facebook page, she posed with Republican politicians, including former presidential candidates Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal, and former US Sen. Rick Santorum.

:{Butina at an NRA shooting range in Fairfax, Virginia, posted to her VK page in May 2014

}:

As the putative founder of a Russian group called The Right to Bear Arms, Butina forged connections with NRA executives, including former NRA President David Keene, whom she was in extensive contact with over several years. Keene traveled to Moscow in November 2013 at the invitation of Butina and Torshin to attend a Right to Bear Arms event. That same month, future Trump national security adviser John Bolton—then a member of the NRA’s “international affairs subcommittee”—recorded a video address talking up gun rights at Keene’s request, which Right to Bear Arms purportedly used to lobby the Russian legislature. (Private gun ownership is relatively minimal in Russia.)

The following January, Torshin published a gun appreciation piece in the Washington Times, where Keene was the op-ed editor at the time. That April, Torshin and Butina attended the NRA convention in Indianapolis, where Butina joined Keene for meetings. In the fall of 2014, Erickson traveled to Moscow to attend a Right to Bear Arms meeting with Butina.

Then in late March 2015—two days before Butina emailed Erickson a plan for further building political connections—she posted on Facebook that she was again headed for the NRA annual convention. Butina and Torshin both traveled to Nashville for the event that April, one of multiple NRA annual conventions that the pair of Russians attended between 2012 and 2016. There, Butina and Torshin met Scott Walker. According to a report in Bloomberg, Torshin also met and had a “jovial exchange” with Trump.

Butina’s American contact noted that the “international reach of the NRA placed me in a position a couple of years ago to slowly begin cultivating a back-channel to President Putin’s Kremlin.”

Three months later, in July 2015,Butina went to Wisconsin to attend Walker’s presidential campaign launch. The Wisconsin trip came just two days after Butina had traveled to Las Vegas for FreedomFest, an annual conservative event where Trump was speaking. Trump, who had announced his White House run in June, fielded questions from the audience. Butina took a turn at the microphone: “I am visiting from Russia,” she said.

“Ahhhhh, Putin!” Trump interjected, prompting laughter from the crowd as he added a mocking riff about the current president: “Good friend of Obama, Putin. He likes Obama a lot. Go ahead.”

“My question will be about foreign politics,” Butina said, and then asked Trump if he would continue “damaging” economic sanctions against Russia as president. Trump appeared not to know who Butina was. After going off on Obama and digressing into trade talk, he responded that he would “get along very nicely” with Putin. “I don’t think you’d need the sanctions,” Trump said.

When senior Trump campaign aides later saw video of the exchange (first highlighted in the national media by our investigation published in March), they found it strange and disconcerting.

The NRA junket to Moscow

In December 2015, an NRA delegation including Erickson, Keene, NRA Vice President Pete Brownell, major NRA donor Joe Gregory, and Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke traveled to Moscow, where they met with Kremlin officials—including Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, one of the first Russians sanctioned by the Obama administration after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014. The delegation dined on lavish meals and visited a Russian gun manufacturer. Butina and Torshin participated in and helped host the gathering.

Sheriff Clarke, who has served on NRA subcommittees and spoken at NRA political events dating back to 2014, filed an ethics report showing that The Right to Bear Arms, Butina’s group, had paid $6,000 for his trip expenses. The report also noted that Brownell, who became NRA president in 2017, personally paid nearly $14,000 for Clarke’s airfare and visa expenses for the Russia trip.

The NRA has tried to downplay the junket. This May, NRA national spokeswoman Dana Loesch, who speaks directly for the NRA leadership, commented on a story from my colleague David Corn about a Russian sniper rifle that the NRA helped promote by participating in a video recorded at the gun manufacturer during the Moscow trip.Loesch asserted in a tweet that “there was no NRA trip.” But when I raised that exchange again after the news of Butina’s arrest this week, Loesch confirmed the NRA delegation’s visit to Moscow—though she now claimed it was an unofficial one. “I said it wasn’t an official trip,” she tweeted at me.

The gun manufacturer’s promotionalvideo opens with a title card reading, “The delegation of National Rifle Association of America (NRA), headed by the first vice-president of the association Pete Brownell, visited the Moscow firearms factory ORSIS on December 11, 2015.” The video shows the NRA leaders and representatives in talks with the Russians, touring the premises, and enthusiastically firing various weapons. In one segment, Butina can be seen sitting just behind Clarke.

Butina and Clarke (right); screen shot from video recorded at the December 2015 gathering in Moscow

The NRA has not commented publicly so far about the federal case against Butina. Two NRA spokespersons declined to respond to a detailed inquiry from Mother Jones. David Keene and Paul Erickson also did not respond to multiple separate requests for comment.

Targeting the 2016 election

When the NRA annual convention kicked off in May 2016 in Louisville, Kentucky, Torshin met Donald Trump Jr. during a private dinner the night before his father gave a much anticipated speech. (“The only way to save our Second Amendment,” his father told the crowd the next day, “is to vote for a person that you all know named Donald Trump.”) A lawyer for Don Jr. later said the exchange between his client and Torshin at the dinner “was all gun-related small talk.” The Washington Post reported this week that Butina also met Don Jr. briefly at the convention.

Butina and Torshin are both “lifetime members” of the NRA, according to Torshin, who posed for photos in Louisville armed with a large rifle, an NRA “Ring of Freedom” donor ID badge hanging around his neck.

Torshin at the 2016 NRA annual convention in Louisville

That same month, as the New York Times previously reported, Erickson emailed a high-level Trump campaign official with the message that “Russia is quietly but actively seeking a dialogue.” He noted that the “international reach of the NRA placed me in a position a couple of years ago to slowly begin cultivating a back-channel to President Putin’s Kremlin.”

Three months earlier, Erickson and Butina had formed Bridges LLC; Erickson later told *McClatchy* that they created the South Dakota-based company for Butina to get financial assistance for her graduate studies—“an unusual way to use a LLC,” as McClatchy dryly noted.

After Trump won, Butina contacted Torshin. “I am ready for further orders,” she told him.

After Trump won the presidential election, according to the court documents made public this week, Butina contacted Torshin. “I am ready for further orders,” she told him.

A lawyer for Butina has denied the federal charges, calling them “overblown.” Butina appeared at a hearing in federal court on Wednesday in Washington, where her lawyer said she had cooperated with an FEC inquiry in March regarding contributions to a political committee (no further details of which were specified at the hearing). The latest court filing from prosecutors on Wednesday alleged that Butina offered sex to another American, whose identity is unknown, in “exchange for a position within a special interest organization.”

According to a report earlier this year from McClatchy, the FBI has been investigating whether Torshin illegally funneled money to the Trump campaign through the NRA. (The FBI would “neither confirm nor deny” the investigation to Mother Jones.)

The Butina case is being prosecuted by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the National Security Division of the Justice Department; it is unclear to what degree the case may relate to the ongoing investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. But a near certainty is that additional significant details from the case will emerge.

Butina in Moscow with former NRA President David Keene; posted November 2013

Facebook

The NRA seemed emboldened by the 2016 election. Sheriff Clarke gaveanother speech for the political arm of the organization at the 2017 annual convention in Atlanta, where he boasted, “You know I worked hard to get Donald Trump elected president of the United States.” As the crowd applauded, he added, “You see, these rat bastards on the left never give up. For them, election defeats don’t matter. It’s simply a time to regroup and continue their assault on our constitution, the rule of law, liberty, and American exceptionalism.”

Two weeks after the high school massacre this February in Parkland, Florida, NRA Executive Director Chris Cox met privately in the Oval Office with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, and then announced, “POTUS & VPOTUS support the Second Amendment, support strong due process and don’t want gun control. #NRA #MAGA.”

Yet, as the federal government prosecutes an alleged Russian spy whose mission flourished thanks to her deep ties with the NRA, the gun group may no longer be able to so easily declare itself a patriotic defender of America.

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