https://www.thedailybeast.com/russians-used-greed-to-capture-nra-senator-ron-wyden-alleges-in-new-report?ref=home&fbclid=IwAR3Ld7v9gYyvW1swLho3G_1DU8XGZ4K7hD0GnOU9GUPfyN7QuTbvsqNyhfQ
"More than 4,000 pages of NRA records provided to Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the finance committee, documented deep connections between the beleaguered gun group and Maria Butina, who in December pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as a Russian agent without registering with the Justice Department. Wyden’s report, released Friday and undertaken without the cooperation of committee Republicans, indicates that greed motivated some NRA officials to engage in the outreach. Butina also made clear to NRA officials long before their controversial Butina-facilitated December 2015 trip to Moscow that Alexander Torshin, her patron and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was a man with mysterious pull in the Kremlin. She emailed former NRA president David Keene in January 2015 that Torshin’s appointment to the Russian central bank was “the result of a ‘big game’ in which he has a very important role. All the details we can discuss with you only in person.” “During the 2016 election, Russian nationals effectively used the promise of lucrative personal business opportunities to capture the NRA and gain access to the American political system,” Wyden said. Representatives for the NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In addition to scrutinizing the December 2015 NRA trip, Wyden found that the NRA hosted former Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak for a three-hour tour of its headquarters in August 2015. Kislyak was a key figure in Russia’s 2016 election interference before former national security adviser Mike Flynn pleaded guilty to misrepresenting his conversations with him to the FBI. An NRA calendar entry provided to Wyden suggests that NRA leaders took Kislyak hunting at the Grand National Waterfowl Hunt weeks before the Moscow trip. Wyden’s report shows the NRA officials, donors, and supporters meeting with Russian officials under U.S. sanctions during the Moscow trip, something previously reported."
