rogozin
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</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">broke w/ glaz...</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">in line for putin job?!
</font><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 2015, a number of NRA officials attended Right to Bear Arms's annual gun conference in Russia. Among them were Keene, gun manufacturer and NRA first vice president </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Brownell" title="Pete Brownell" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 14px;">Pete Brownell</a><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span><sup id="cite_ref-39" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina#cite_note-39" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">[39]</a></sup><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> conservative American political operative </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erickson(activist)" title="Paul Erickson (activist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 14px;">Paul Erickson</a><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_County" class="mw-redirect" title="Milwaukee County" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 14px;">Milwaukee County</a><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> sheriff </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Clarke(sheriff)" title="David Clarke (sheriff)" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 14px;">David Clarke</a><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.<b> One of their hosts was Russian Deputy Prime Minister </b></span><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Rogozin" title="Dmitry Rogozin" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 14px;">Dmitry Rogozin</a><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, who in 2014 was </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis" title="International sanctions during the Ukrainian crisis" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 14px;">sanctioned by the White House</a><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> following </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation" title="Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 14px;">Russia's annexation of Crimea</a></b><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>. </b>Clarke's trip cost $40,000, with all expenses paid by the NRA, Pete Brownell (an NRA board member and CEO of a gun-parts supply company) and Right to Bear Arms.</span><sup id="cite_ref-GunsReligionRussiaWapo20170430_27-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina#cite_note-GunsReligionRussiaWapo20170430-27" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">[27]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-40" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina#cite_note-40" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">[40]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-Schecter_41-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina#cite_note-Schecter-41" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">[41]</a></sup><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> According to a disclosure Clarke filed, Right to Bear Arms paid $6,000 to cover his meals, lodging, transportation and other expenses.</span><sup id="cite_ref-time031017_21-3" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina#cite_note-time031017-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">[21]</a></sup><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> During the meeting, Clarke met the Russian foreign minister and attended a conference at which Torshin spoke.</span><sup id="cite_ref-GunsReligionRussiaWapo20170430_27-3" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina#cite_note-GunsReligionRussiaWapo20170430-27" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">[27]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-Schecter_41-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina#cite_note-Schecter-41" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">[41]</a></sup><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> In November 2016, Torshin </span><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> that he and Butina were lifetime NRA members.</span><sup id="cite_ref-mj1_36-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina#cite_note-mj1-36" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">[36]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-42" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina#cite_note-42" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">[42]</a></sup></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-requests-treasury-investigate-sanctioned-nra-linked-russian-arms-manufacturers" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-requests-treasury-investigate-sanctioned-nra-linked-russian-arms-manufacturers</font></a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">o<span style="text-transform: uppercase;">CTOBER 04,2019</span></font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div class="contactinfo" style="font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 class="presscontact" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.4; margin-top: 15px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Press Contact:</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 40px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 34px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ashley Schapitl/Keith Chu (202) 224-4515</font></span></p></div><h1 class="main_page_title" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 70px 0px 10px; line-height: 1.1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wyden Requests Treasury Investigate Sanctioned NRA-Linked Russian Arms Manufacturers</font></h1><p style="margin: 0px 0px 40px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 34px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Washington, D.C.</span> – Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today referred the findings of the report, <a href="https://www.finance.senate.gov/download/the-nra_russia---how-a-tax-exempt-organization-became-a-foreign-asset" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">The NRA and Russia: How a Tax-Exempt Organization Became a Foreign Asset</i></a> to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) and requested the agency review and <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">investigate state-linked Russian weapons manufacturers, including those visited by the NRA during a 2015 trip to Moscow.</span></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 40px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 34px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2018, Senator Wyden asked OFAC to investigate whether some of the Russian weapons manufacturers, including some the NRA delegation ultimately met with, have evaded U.S. sanctions by utilizing domestic shell companies. </span>The department failed to respond to his 2018 <a href="https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-questions-top-sanctions-enforcer-on-ties-between-us-russian-arms-manufacturers-and-russian-oligarchs" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">letter</a>. </font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 40px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 34px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wyden wrote, <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">“The report found that these Russian nationals <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">[Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin] working for the benefit of the Russian Federation enticed NRA officials and representatives to travel to Russia with offers of personally lucrative business deals with Russian arms manufacturers</span>, including entities that appear to be wholly or partially owned subsidiaries of entities your office has listed as Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDNs).</span></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 40px; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 34px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“In particular, the report documents meetings between NRA officials and SDNs, including </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Dmitry Rogozin </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">and Igor Shchyogolev.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> It further reports on the meetings of NRA officials with employees, officers and other representatives of certain designated entities or entities owned or controlled by SDNs, including Kalashnikov Concern, Molot-Oruzhie, and Tula Cartridge Works.” </span></font></span></span></p><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-eu-announce-sanctions-folllowing-vote-in-ukraine/2014/03/17/3223799c-add9-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-eu-announce-sanctions-folllowing-vote-in-ukraine/2014/03/17/3223799c-add9-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sections </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democracy Dies in Darkness</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">National Security</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Russia recognizes Crimea’s independence, defying new U.S. and E.U. sanctions</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Crimeans vote to join Russia<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View Photos<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Residents of the Ukrainian peninsula turned out in large numbers for the referendum.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Karen DeYoung and</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Griff WitteMarch 17, 2014</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The international crisis over Ukraine escalated sharply Monday as the United States and Europe imposed sanctions on senior Russian political and military figures, and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree recognizing the Ukrainian region of Crimea as an independent state.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Both actions were taken in response to Sunday’s referendum in Crimea, where a reported 97 percent of voters said they wanted to become part of Russia. The Obama administration said the vote was rigged and discounted it as illegal.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Putin’s decree, announced on the Kremlin Web site, was widely seen as a step toward the annexation of Crimea by Russia, a move that U.S. and European leaders have said would result in further punishment designed to cripple Russia’s economy.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What has become the most serious U.S.-Russia confrontation in decades showed no sign of abating Monday, and there was little indication that ongoing diplomatic efforts would succeed in finding a resolution.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beyond Crimea, Putin has defied Western demands that he stop military exercises on Ukraine’s eastern and southern borders, end what the West has called destabilizing actions by pro-Russian provocateurs in Ukrainian cities and open negotiations with Ukraine’s interim government.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Monday, the day after Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine, President Obama announced expanded sanctions on Russian officials in the White House briefing room. (The Associated Press)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The West increasingly thinks Putin’s actions in Crimea are part of a larger plan to impose his will on Ukraine, a former Soviet republic whose pro-Russian president fled the country last month in the wake of popular demonstrations in favor of joining the European Union.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Further provocations will achieve nothing except to further isolate Russia,” President Obama said in a Monday morning statement announcing sanctions against seven Russian and four Ukrainian officials. The U.S. goals, Obama said, are “to isolate Russia for its actions, and to reassure our allies and partners” of American support.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The U.S. sanctions include asset freezes and travel bans on some of Putin’s closest aides. The European Union separately announced sanctions on 21 individuals, including several Russian military commanders. The European list did not include Kremlin aides.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A senior administration official said the White House would not respond to Putin’s decree recognizing Crimea as independent from Ukraine. Putin has scheduled a speech to the Russian parliament Tuesday morning.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eastern European nations bordering Russia and Ukraine have been especially alarmed by the Russian moves. The United States has sent additional military assets to Poland and Lithuania, and Vice President Biden is being dispatched to those countries to offer further reassurance.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American measures</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. sanctions were imposed on the basis of an executive order Obama signed 11 days ago and a new order Monday that expanded the sanctions’ reach to Russian officials.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“These are by far the most comprehensive sanctions applied to Russia since the Cold War,” a second administration official said. “Far and away so.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The United States and the European Union announced sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian officials over Crimea's vote to break away from Ukraine. The Post's Douglas Jehl, Scott Wilson and Anne Gearan explain the implications. (Jonathan Elker, Jeff Simon and Kate M. Tobey/The Washington Post)</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The second order enables the administration to take additional action if Russia does not deescalate the situation, said this official and others who held a conference call for reporters. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the details of the measures.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Far beyond the situation in Crimea or even Ukraine, the sanctions order potentially includes anyone who is “a senior official” in the Russian government, who is involved in “the arms and related material sector in the Russian Federation,” or who has operated “for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly,” any of the above.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The seven Russians initially targeted</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> include top Putin aides Sergei Glazyev</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> and Vladislav Surkov, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, and leaders of parliament who have been outspoken in advocating Crimean annexation and belligerent policies toward Ukraine.</span></b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under the sanctions, one U.S. official said, “all assets are frozen; no U.S. person can do business with them. .?.?. If they want to transact in dollars, for example, they will be unable to do so. They will be unable to send any money through the United States.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“More broadly,” this official said, “the people we designate will tend to find great difficulty in accessing financial services elsewhere in the world, particularly in Europe and the gulf.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ukrainians designated under the original executive order include two Crimea-based separatist leaders and ousted president Viktor Yanukovych. Another senior U.S. official emphasized that the measures were designed to block the “personal assets and wealth” of Putin “cronies.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the U.S. announcement Monday, some of the targeted Russians mocked the move.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I quite like the company I have found myself in,” Andrei Klishas, chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s Constitutional Legislation Committee, told the Interfax news service.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leonid Slutsky, who heads a parliamentary committee on Eurasian integration, said, “I don’t have any accounts or real estate in the U.S., and as regard private visits, I’ll have to do without them.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Some Republican lawmakers criticized the administration’s measures as insufficient. Sen. John McCain (</b>Ariz.) called for “a far more significant response,” saying that sanctioning only seven Russians “is wholly inadequate at this stage.”<b> Sen. Ted Cruz</b> (Tex.) described U.S. policy toward Russia as “appeasement” and called for an expanded American military presence in Eastern Europe....</font></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">mcclatchy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Russia investigators likely got access to NRA's tax filings, secret donors</font></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BY GREG GORDON AND PETER STONE</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">JULY 02, 2018</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> 05:00 AM </span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WASHINGTON</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For months, the National Rifle Association has had a stock answer to queries about an investigation into whether Russian money was funneled to the gun rights group to aid Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The NRA, which spent $30 million-plus backing Trump’s bid,</b> has heard nothing from the FBI or any other law enforcement agency, spokesman Andrew Arulanandam reiterated in an email the other day.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Legal experts, though, say there’s an easy explanation for that. They say it would be routine for Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators, who are looking at the NRA’s funding as part of a broader inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections, to secretly gain access to the NRA’s tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>On the returns, the group was required to identify its so-called “dark money” donors -- companies and wealthy individuals who financed $21 million </b>of the group’s publicly disclosed pro-Trump spending, as well as its multimillion-dollar efforts to heighten voter turnout.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The NRA’s nonprofit status allows it to shield those donors’ names from the public, but not the IRS.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A central question for Mueller’s office is whether any of the confidential donors’ names hold clues that could enable investigators to trace a donation camouflaged to hide its Russian origins – such as a shell company that might be the end point in a chain of offshore transactions.</font></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is illegal for foreign funds to be spent to influence U.S. elections.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prosecutors’ requests to federal magistrates or judges for access to tax information are usually made “entirely in the background, with no notice to the subject of the investigation,” said David Axelrod, a Columbus, Ohio lawyer who previously prosecuted cases for the Justice Department’s Tax Division.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The main focus of Mueller’s inquiry, as McClatchy reported in January, has been whether Alexander Torshin, deputy governor of Russia’s central bank and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, arranged for Russian money to flow through the gun rights group to aid Trump, people familiar with the inquiry say.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Play Video</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Duration 4:22The Mueller investigation into possible Russia - Trump campaign connection</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Robert Mueller is special counsel for the Department of Justice. He oversees the investigation into Russia's possible connections to the 2016 election and Trump campaign. BY ALEXA ARD, MAUREEN CHOWDHURY, PATRICK GLEASON</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said in a statement to McClatchy that if investigators haven’t yet obtained a list of the NRA’s secret donors, it’s a vital step for determining if Russians “used shell companies as part of a scheme to influence the 2016 election.”</font></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Investigators must follow the money wherever it leads to understand the full story of Russia’s attack on our democracy,” said Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee that is examining Russia’s election interference.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded Russia’s intervention was aimed at helping Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton, whose outspoken advocacy for stricter gun control laws won the enmity of the NRA even as her criticism of Putin estranged the Kremlin.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NRA’s general counsel, John Frazer, said in a flurry of letters with Wyden earlier this year that the group’s donations from Russia during the 2016 election cycle totaled $2,500, but did not reveal the extent to which the group traces the true origins of its $350 million in annual funding.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A spokesman for Mueller’s office has declined to comment on the NRA inquiry, which the sources described on condition of anonymity because it is confidential.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still unclear is just how and why the nation’s leading gun rights lobby became entangled in Mueller’s sweeping investigation that has preoccupied the president and gripped the nation. The question is, did substantial Russian money find its way into the group’s coffers – and if so, to what extent were NRA officials or the group’s allies aware of it?</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Steve Hall, a former chief of the CIA’s Russia operations, suspects that NRA board members and current and former officers may have been duped over several years into playing a role in a Kremlin-directed intelligence operation that eventually offered the potential for both a communication line to Trump's team and a way to put money behind his campaign.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He said he suspects that current and former NRA leaders failed to recognize that the Kremlin saw their group as a tool for its “dangerous propaganda machine. … That’s the most innocent explanation: The NRA got snookered.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, said Hall, who retired from the agency in 2015, the NRA-Russian connection bears close examination by Mueller.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s just so insidious, and it sort of ticks all the boxes: connections to the current administration, major backer of then-candidate Trump, the Russians wanting to get in and manipulate our own political system.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Torshin has drawn scrutiny in part because Spanish prosecutors accused him of money-laundering and also because he cultivated relationships with the NRA that nearly earned him a meeting with Trump</b>.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He befriended then-NRA President David Keene beginning in 2011, became a lifetime member of the group and attended a string of NRA national conventions in the ensuing years. That led to Moscow visits by Keene and other NRA heavyweights in 2013 and 2015 to meet with a Russian gun rights group that Torshin was instrumental in forming and later with a deputy prime minister.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Spanish prosecutors, who have cooperated with the FBI for years, say Torshin has a dark side. They have accused him of laundering money for the Russian mob, an allegation Torshin has denied.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last month during a visit to Washington, chief Spanish prosecutor Jose Grinda spent several hours meeting with FBI officials, according to two people familiar with his itinerary. Both sources spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Grinda also met with journalists at the Hudson Institute, where he revealed that a few months ago he provided the FBI with 33 audio recordings of Torshin, including one in which a since-convicted Russian money launderer called him “godfather,” according to Yahoo News.</font></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On April 6, the Treasury Department included Torshin on a list of Russians sanctioned in response to the Kremlin-ordered invasion of Eastern Ukraine</b>, Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 elections and other aggressive actions. In light of all of the revelations about Torshin, the NRA reevaluated its relationship with him. His NRA membership is now “frozen,” spokesman Arulanandam said.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Hall, who worked earlier as the CIA’s Moscow station chief, believes that Torshin’s involvement with the NRA was no accident. Nor were meetings between NRA representatives and </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Rogozin</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> and even Sergei Rudov, manager of a far-right Russian religious foundation, he said.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It looks like the Kremlin was pulling the strings at every turn, in a country where that happens “to a degree that cannot even be dreamed of here,” Hall said. “Everybody knows the consequences of not doing what the Kremlin wants you to do.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John Aquilino, a former NRA spokesman, also is baffled by the NRA’s outreach to Torshin and Moscow.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The NRA has fallen into a public relations trap, and the Russians knew damn well what they were doing," Aquilino said in a phone interview. “The NRA was naive and got hoodwinked."</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The NRA and the gun control issue is a perfect example of an issue that would fire up the populace and sow discord,” Aquilino said. He pointed to the fact that a Russian troll farm bought dozens of Facebook ads on gun rights as part of a 2016 social media blitz aimed at dividing Americans and helping Trump.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Michael Carpenter, a senior Pentagon and National Security Council official specializing in Russia issues during the Obama administration, said a relationship between Russia and the NRA would be "mutually beneficial."</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Carpenter tweeted Monday that "NRA lawyers know how to use Google and were no doubt familiar with their contacts' links to the Kremlin and to organized crime."</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Carpenter</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@mikercarpenter</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I don't buy the theory that the NRA good hoodwinked by Russian intelligence. This was a mutually beneficial relationship. NRA lawyers know how to use Google and were no doubt familiar with their contacts' links to the Kremlin and to organized crime. https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article214075459.html …</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Russia investigators likely got access to NRA's tax filings, secret donors</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The National Rifle Association says it's had no contact from the FBI about an investigation into whether Russia funneled money to the gun group. Legal experts say it's likely that Special Counsel...</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mcclatchydc.com</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">464</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6:30 AM - Jul 2, 2018</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">213 people are talking about this</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NRA, a flashpoint for controversy given its opposition to gun control legislation, has been resolute about protecting the anonymity of most of its donors to its lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action. However, the institute has trumpeted pledges by some gun makers, such as Sturm, Ruger and Co.'s August 2016 commitment of $2 from each gun sale, with a goal to raise $4 million.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Where potential financial crimes are involved, neither the NRA nor any other group can protect the identities of large dark-money donors from investigators, even if the fortress-like IRS holds the records. Investigators need only show “a reasonable cause to believe” that the information sought is relevant to a federal crime – a lower threshold than that required for a search warrant.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FBI and IRS agents collaborating on follow-the-money investigations commonly use “secret subpoenas, tax orders and other investigative techniques to collect an extraordinary amount of financial information without their target even knowing that the investigation exists,” said one former senior federal prosecutor, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to sensitive relationships with investigators.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Zeldin, a former senior Justice Department official who oversaw money-laundering investigations, said that “it would be basic blocking and tackling for the prosecutors to seek all relevant tax returns."</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If the tax filings identified a donor as a shell company, he said, the next step would be to “determine how difficult it will be to trace” the true source of the money.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Torshin’s enthusiastic overtures to the NRA energized a number of the group's leaders to visit Russia. <b>During a</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>2013 trip, Torshin introduced Keene and conservative operative Paul Erickson to his group, the Right to Bear Arms, and Maria Butina,</b> a protégé who headed the group. Butina soon enrolled a graduate student in the United States, where she was awarded lifetime membership in the NRA and became a fixture at the group's meetings.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2015, the Russians lavishly wined and dined a second NRA delegation that included high-dollar NRA fundraiser, Joe Gregory, and Pete Brownell, the head of a major U.S. firearms firm who later became the NRA’s president.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A meeting between the second delegation and</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, who oversaw Russia’s defense and firearms industries, has drawn sharp criticism from Kremlin analysts because </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Rogozin had been placed under U.S. sanctions</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ex-CIA Russia specialist Hall said he cannot fathom what the NRA officials hoped to obtain from Russia; Putin opposes arming his citizenry with more than hunting rifles.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Russia, though, may have had an agenda for its gun makers.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NRA visit included a tour of the Russian firearms manufacturer Orsis, which also was placed under U.S. sanctions in 2014, perhaps to highlight Moscow’s hopes that victory by the right candidate could bring those curbs to an end.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Carpenter, the former Obama administration official, said Moscow had also sought to lift earlier limits on Russian gun imports from companies including the iconic Kalashnikov. But easing the restrictions “obviously wasn't in the interest of U.S. gun manufacturers,” he said.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“So Russia turned to the NRA and other gun enthusiasts to try to promote the issue,” he said. “At the time, <b>Dmitry Rogozin</b> was overseeing this effort.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Torshin-led mating dance between Moscow and the NRA culminated at the NRA’s convention in Louisville in late May 2016, when Trump received an early endorsement from the pro-gun goliath.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Torshin tried unsuccessfully that week to arrange a personal meeting with Trump, but he did cadge a short chat with Donald Trump Jr., an avid hunter. Trump Jr.’s lawyer told McClatchy it was mostly just “small talk” about guns.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During that same time span, Erickson and Torshin each floated proposals with Trump campaign officials for a pre-election meeting between Putin and Trump, an idea that did not gain traction.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the election, Torshin came to Washington in February 2017 to attend the annual National Prayer Breakfast, an event where he’d been a regular for more than a half dozen years, Erickson said.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Torshin also was feted at a four-hour Capitol Hill dinner organized by George O’Neill Jr. a Rockefeller heir. Attendees included Erickson and Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, considered by some analysts to be Putin’s best friend in Washington.</font></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rohrabacher, in a phone interview last year, said that conservative American gun rights groups no longer look at Russia with Cold War angst, but rather “in friendly terms.” He remembered meeting Torshin in Moscow a few years earlier, calling him a “mover and shaker.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Torshin’s 2017 visit to the U.S. would be his last for awhile. The sanctions bar him from entering the United States.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Stone is a McClatchy special correspondent</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Woodel contributed to this report</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Greg Gordon: 202-383-6152; @GregGordon2</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/maria-butina-pleads-guilty-agrees-to-cooperate-with-us" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.thedailybeast.com/maria-butina-pleads-guilty-agrees-to-cooperate-with-us</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RED HANDED</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>Maria Butina Agrees to Cooperate With U.S.</div><div>Butina has inked an agreement with prosecutors and becomes the first Russian since the 2016 election to confess to a crime connected to efforts to influence American politics.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Betsy Woodruff</div><div>12.10.18 6:10 PM ET</div><div>Trump Russia Probe</div><div>AP</div><div>Maria Butina, a Russian national who cultivated relationships with powerful American conservative activists, agreed Monday to plead guilty to conspiring to violate laws prohibiting covert foreign agents. As part of her agreement, which was reviewed by The Daily Beast, she has promised to cooperate with American law enforcement.</div><div>
</div><div><b>As a result of the deal, Butina will become the first Russian national since the 2016 election to plead guilty to a crime connected to efforts to influence American politics.</b> After running a gun rights organization in Russia, she moved to the United States, where she spent years building relationships with conservatives in hopes of influencing a future Republican presidential administration. During the campaign season, she questioned then-candidate Donald Trump about sanctions; built relationships in the upper echelons of the American gun rights community; arranged for NRA leaders to travel to Moscow; and bragged that she was a channel between Team Trump and the Kremlin, as The Daily Beast first revealed.</div><div>
</div><div>She also struck up a romance with Paul Erickson, a longtime Republican gadfly close to NRA leaders. He sang Disney songs with her on camera, called her his “Siberian princess” in emails reviewed by The Daily Beast, and—since her July arrest—has visited her regularly in jail.</div><div>
</div><div>In March 2015, according to the plea deal, Butina worked with an unnamed U.S. person—known to be Erickson—to draft a proposal for a diplomatic endeavor. Given the fraught relationships between the governments of Russia and the United States, she “cast herself as a possible unofficial transmitter of communications” between the two countries.</div><div>
</div><div>RED MENACE</div><div>Cyber, Seduction, and Bumbling: Maria Butina’s Spy Career</div><div>Adam Rawnsley</div><div>
</div><div>Noting that she had recently attended the conference of an unnamed gun rights group—known to be the NRA—she said she had “laid the groundwork for an unofficial channel of communication with the next U.S. administration,” which she predicted would be <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Republican. And she asked for a <b>Russian billionaire </b>to give her $125,000 to fund efforts to attend conferences and befriend political power-brokers. She sent the proposal to several people, including an official on the Russian central bank known to be Alexander Torshin. The central bank official told her the proposal “would be supported, at least in part.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>Butina helped arrange a trip to Moscow for NRA leaders in December 2015. She pushed for those Americans to visit with senior Russian politicians, according to the plea deal. The Americans on the trip met with Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s powerful minister of foreign affairs;<b> and Dmitry Rogozin, a deputy of Vladimir Putin and a subject of U.S. sanctions.</b></div><div>
</div><div>After the trip, Butina sent a message to the central bank official in Russian that has two translations in the plea agreement.</div><div>
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</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“We should let them express their gratitude now, we will put pressure on them quietly later,” reads the first translation.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“We should allow them to express their gratitude now, and then quietly press,” reads the second.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Butina also befriended a wealthy, well-connected American who invited her to a “friendship dinner” where he and his peers would discuss U.S.-Russia relations. The deal does not name that American. Before going to the dinner, she emailed its host to say Torshin “is very impressed by you and expresses his great appreciation for what you are doing to restore the relations between the two countries. He also wants you to know that Russians will support the efforts from our side.”</div><div>
</div><div>Butina attended several of these “friendship dinners,” according to the plea deal, where she built relationships with powerful Americans and honed her abilities to influence them.</div><div>
</div><div><b>She also helped arrange for a group of Russians to attend the National Prayer Breakfast</b>, which was held on Feb. 2, 2017, according to the plea deal. She emailed Erickson with a list of attendees and said they were coming to the breakfast “to establish a back channel of communication.” Erickson later emailed the list to another person. “Reaction to the delegation’s presence in America will be conveyed DIRECTLY” to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, he wrote. He cc’d Butina on that email.</div><div>
</div><div>During her time in the U.S., Butina updated Torshin on her meetings and conversations. At one point, she asked him whether the Russian “government” was ready to meet with certain, unnamed people. </div><div>...</div></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">==
</font><div><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/nra-maria-butina-spying-charges-trump-campaign/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/nra-maria-butina-spying-charges-trump-campaign/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="section-lead" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> For decades, the</span><span class="section-lead" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"> National Rifle Association</span> 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. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Butina and Torshin—who for years also traveled to America for NRA events and were among Russian officials <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0338" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">sanctioned</a> 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 <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/maria-butina-nra-putin-russian-oligarch/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">Russian oligarchs</a>. 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 <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/trump-russia-nra-connection-maria-butina-alexander-torshin-guns/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">several years’ worth of social-media posts previously documented</a> by <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Mother Jones</em>.</font></p><div id="InContent_Banner_1" data-adunit="InContent_Banner_1" data-size-mapping="InContent" class="dfw-unit display-none" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; text-align: center; position: relative; z-index: 2000; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The pair of Russians spent years building ties with the NRA, as we reported in our recent investigation. And according to a <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">New York Times</em> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/17/us/maria-butina-russian-agent-charges.html?hpw&rref=us&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">report</a> 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.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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 and<b> NRA member Paul Erickson.</b> 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 <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BlV1cmynyyc/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=5qzvd7ioijno" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">photos</a> 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.</font></p><figure id="attachment_620896" class="inline-image alignnone" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto 1.5rem; padding-top: 0.5rem; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); max-width: 630px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.3;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; display: inline; line-height: 1.3;"><span class="media-caption" style="box-sizing: inherit; padding-right: 5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Butina at an NRA shooting range in Fairfax, Virginia, posted to <a href="https://vk.com/albums31690263?z=photo31690263_328607862%2Fphotos31690263" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" font-weight="font-weight" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">her VK page</a> in May 2014<br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></span></p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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”—<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/trump-russia-nra-connection-maria-butina-alexander-torshin-guns/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">recorded a video address</a> talking up gun rights at Keene’s request, which Right to Bear Arms purportedly used to lobby the Russian legislature. (Private gun ownership is <a href="https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/russians-their-guns-and-the-state-52720" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">relatively minimal</a> in Russia.)</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The following January, Torshin published a gun appreciation piece in the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Washington Times</em>, where Keene was the op-ed editor at the time.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> 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.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then in late March 2015—two days before </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Butina emailed Erickson a plan for further building political connections</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">—she </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=796993867057048&set=t.100002393251827&type=3&theater" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">posted</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> 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. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to a report in Bloomberg, Torshin also met and <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/trump-russia-nra-connection-maria-butina-alexander-torshin-guns/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">had a “jovial exchange”</a> with Trump.</span></font></p><div id="InContent_Banner_2" data-adunit="InContent_Banner_2" data-size-mapping="InContent" class="dfw-unit display-none" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; text-align: center; position: relative; z-index: 2000; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><aside class="pullquote-left" style="box-sizing: inherit; position: relative; width: 275.391px; margin-top: 0.75rem; margin-bottom: 1.25rem; margin-left: 0px; padding: 1rem 0px 0px; float: left; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-top: 15px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.3; letter-spacing: -1px; margin-right: 2.5rem !important; left: 0px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.”</font></aside><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Three months later, in July 2015,<b> Butina went to Wisconsin to attend Walker’s presidential campaign launch</b>. 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.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“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.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“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. <b>“I don’t think you’d need the sanctions,” <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/trump-spoke-to-a-russian-activist-about-ending-sanctions-just-weeks-after-launching-his-campaign/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">Trump said.</a> </b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">When</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> senior Trump campaign aides later saw <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/trump-spoke-to-a-russian-activist-about-ending-sanctions-just-weeks-after-launching-his-campaign/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">video of the exchange</a> (first highlighted in the national media by our investigation published in March), they found it <a href="https://twitter.com/markfollman/status/1019001410128523264" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">strange and disconcerting.</a></span></font></p><h3 class="subheader" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.3; margin: 2rem 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NRA junket to Moscow</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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 <b>Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, one of the first Russians sanctioned by the Obama administration after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014.</b> The delegation dined on lavish meals and <a href="https://twitter.com/SheriffClarke/status/675442397044711424" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">visited a Russian gun manufacturer</a>. Butina and Torshin participated in and helped host the gathering.</font></p><div id="InContent_Banner_3" data-adunit="InContent_Banner_3" data-size-mapping="InContent" class="dfw-unit display-none" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; text-align: center; position: relative; z-index: 2000; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Sheriff Clarke</b>, who has served on NRA subcommittees and spoken at NRA political events dating back to 2014, filed an ethics <a href="http://county.milwaukee.gov/ImageLibrary/Groups/cntySheriff/documents/2016/2015SEI.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">report</a> 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. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The NRA has tried </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/27/politics/nra-documents-russian-banker/index.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">to downplay</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> the junket. This May, NRA national spokeswoman Dana Loesch, who </span><a href="https://home.nra.org/nra-announcement-about-dana-loesch/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">speaks directly</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> for the NRA leadership, commented on a story from my colleague David Corn about </span><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/05/the-pentagon-considers-this-russian-sniper-rifle-a-big-threat-to-us-soldiers-the-nra-helped-promote-it/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">a Russian sniper rifle that the NRA helped promote</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> by participating in a video recorded at the gun manufacturer during the Moscow trip.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Loesch asserted in a tweet that <a href="https://twitter.com/DLoesch/status/993899896041295877" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">“there was no NRA trip.”</a> 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,” </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">she </span><a href="https://twitter.com/DLoesch/status/1019009175152680961" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">tweeted</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> at me.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The gun manufacturer’s promotional <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zInAXfvdzSE&feature=youtu.be" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">video</a> 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.</font></p><figure id="attachment_621021" class="inline-image alignnone" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto 1.5rem; padding-top: 0.5rem; float: none; max-width: 672px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.3;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; display: inline; line-height: 1.3;"><span class="media-caption" style="box-sizing: inherit; padding-right: 5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Butina and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Clarke (right); screen shot from video recorded at the December 2015 gathering in Moscow</span></font></span></p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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 <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Mother Jones</em>. David Keene and Paul Erickson also did not respond to multiple separate requests for comment.</font></p><h3 class="subheader" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.3; margin: 2rem 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Targeting the 2016 election</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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 <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Washington Post</em> reported this week that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/maria-butina-russian-gun-rights-advocate-charged-in-us-with-acting-as-russian-federation-agent/2018/07/16/d1d4832a-8929-11e8-85ae-511bc1146b0b_story.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">Butina also met Don Jr.</a> briefly at the convention. </font></p><div id="InContent_Banner_4" data-adunit="InContent_Banner_4" data-size-mapping="InContent" class="dfw-unit display-none" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; text-align: center; position: relative; z-index: 2000; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Butina and Torshin are both <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/trump-russia-nra-connection-maria-butina-alexander-torshin-guns/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">“lifetime members” of the NRA</a>, according to Torshin, who <a href="https://twitter.com/torshin_ru/status/777309576341385216" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">posed</a> for photos in Louisville armed with a large rifle, an NRA “Ring of Freedom” </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">donor ID badge hanging around his neck.</span></font></p><figure id="attachment_583589" class="inline-image alignnone" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto 1.5rem; padding-top: 0.5rem; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); max-width: 990px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.3;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; display: inline; line-height: 1.3;"><span class="media-caption" style="box-sizing: inherit; padding-right: 5px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Torshin at the 2016 NRA annual convention in Louisville</font></span></p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That same month, as the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">New York Times</em> previously <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/07/17/629627064/new-charges-confirm-that-infiltration-was-an-aspect-of-russian-2016-attack" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">reported</a>, 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.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Three months earlier, Erickson and Butina had formed <b>Bridges LLC</b>; Erickson later <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article195231139.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">told <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">McClatchy</em></a> 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 <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">McClatchy</em> dryly noted. </font></p><aside class="pullquote-left" style="box-sizing: inherit; position: relative; width: 275.391px; margin-top: 0.75rem; margin-bottom: 1.25rem; margin-left: 0px; padding: 1rem 0px 0px; float: left; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-top: 15px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.3; letter-spacing: -1px; margin-right: 2.5rem !important; left: 0px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After Trump won, Butina contacted Torshin. “I am ready for further orders,” she told him.</font></aside><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/us/politics/maria-butina-russia-espionage.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">offered sex to another American</a>, whose identity is unknown, in “exchange for a position within a special interest organization.”</font></p><div id="InContent_Banner_5" data-adunit="InContent_Banner_5" data-size-mapping="InContent" class="dfw-unit display-none" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; text-align: center; position: relative; z-index: 2000; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to a <a href="https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article195231139.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">report</a> earlier this year from <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">McClatchy</em>, 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 <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Mother Jones.</em>)</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></p><figure id="attachment_620329" class="inline-image alignnone" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto 1.5rem; padding-top: 0.5rem; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); max-width: 990px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; display: inline; line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="media-caption" style="box-sizing: inherit; padding-right: 5px;">Butina in Moscow with former NRA President David Keene; posted November 2013</span></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font>
<span class="media-credit" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.3; letter-spacing: 0.3px;">Facebook</span></p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The NRA seemed emboldened by the 2016 election. Sheriff Clarke gave <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKUE6mZ0xU8" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">another speech</a> 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.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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 <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisCoxNRA/status/969393625611333632" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px">announced</a>, “POTUS & VPOTUS support the Second Amendment, support strong due process and don’t want gun control. #NRA #MAGA.” </font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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