Thoughts And Prayers: The NRA, Russia And Trump... Bonus Track: Ollie North vs Wayne LaPierre

This morning, NPR reporter Tim Zak noted that on the same day Russian spy/saboteur Maria Butina, who has admitted to infiltrating the NRA on behalf of the Kremlin, was sentenced to 18 months in prison, Señor Trumpanzee, on whose behalf the Kremlin sent Butina to work on the NRA, spoke at the NRA convention in Indianapolis.

That the Butina/NRA case is redacted from the Mueller report indicates that the evidence she provided the FBI-- so that her sentence was 18 months rather than 18 years-- is part of the on-going investigation into the NRA. The Kremlin's goal was to exert influence on Trump and the Republican Party through the NRA and a US Attorney for the District of Columbia filing for her sentencing noted that her activities had "tremendous intelligence value" for the Russians along with the potential for "harm to the integrity of the United States’ political processes and internal government dealings, as well as to US foreign policy interests and national security."

The public document-- there is also a sealed one for the judge to see-- states that from 2015 to 2017 Butina was was a Russian agent working with Alexander Torshin, a Russian senator and Putin operative. "Under his direction," the document states, "the defendant provided key information about Americans who were in a position to influence United States politics and took steps to establish an unofficial line of communication between Russia and these Americans."

Butina and Torshin "sought to establish unofficial lines of communication between Russia and Americans having power and influence over U.S. politics and to use those lines of communication for the benefit of the Russian Federation." In April 2015, Butina and Torshin traveled to the U.S. to attend the annual NRA convention where she highlighted her experience as a gun-rights advocate in Russia and was introduced to influential members of the Republican Party, "one of whom [Trump? Scott Walker?] announced his Presidential campaign shortly thereafter." In her report, "she emphasized the fact that she was introduced to one of that candidate’s three advisors for matters concerning international politics."

By the end of the year she brought NRA officials to Moscow "as part of the conspiracy’s plan to establish the unofficial channel of communication... [T]he types of services the defendant provided to the Russian Federation are specifically of the type that that Russia would seek to use against the United States, and the United States is a primary target of these types of Russian operations. Such operations can cause great damage to our national security by giving covert agents access to our country and powerful individuals who can influence its direction."

Butina had access to high-level donors to the NRA, to advisors to candidates "and sometimes to candidates themselves." Her work "involved building a rolodex of and information about powerful people who had, or were likely to get, access to and influence over the next presidential administration." According to the memo, Butina told Torshin that she was using her contacts in Trump's circle to help vet his secretary of state pick, that she "provided [Torshin] with the name of an individual she claimed was being considered for secretary of state... asked [him] to seek the input of the Russian government on the name she provided and told him, 'our opinion will be taken into consideration' in the United States." And Trump's choice for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, just happened to be... Putin's first choice as well. What a coinky-dink!



Last night, Mark Maremont, writing for the Wall Street Journal, didn't have anything to say about the Russian infiltration of the NRA but instead reported on petty NRA internal politics and leaders stealing petty cash from the organization. Wayne LaPierre is now at war with Oliver North. LaPierre told the NRA's board of directors he's "being extorted and pressured to resign by the organization’s president, Oliver North, over allegations of financial improprieties," not over the NRA's massive money laundering operation for the Kremlin on behalf of the Trump campaign but over LaPierre's spiffy $200,000 wardrobe.

In a letter sent to NRA board members late Thursday afternoon, Mr. LaPierre, the group’s CEO and executive vice president, said he refused the demand. Instead he called on board members to “see this for what it is: a threat meant to intimidate and divide us.”

...The behind-the-scenes brawl is taking place amid the gun-rights group’s big annual meeting, at which President Trump spoke Friday.

Insiders say matters will come to a head by Monday, when the NRA’s full 76-member board is set to meet.

...The dispute pits two high-profile conservative figures against each other. Mr. LaPierre has headed the NRA for close to 30 years. During his tenure, the group shifted from being a grass-roots organization to a nationally powerful advocacy organization with strong political sway when it comes to its core gun-rights message.

Mr. North is a conservative folk hero from his tenure in the 1980s on the National Security Council and his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. He became NRA president a year ago as the group searched for a higher-profile figure as its finances sagged after Mr. Trump’s election eased concerns about more gun regulations under another Democratic administration.

The NRA president must stand for reelection every year, but in recent years most presidents have served for two years. Mr. North’s first term is scheduled to end Monday.

I was hoping that on Monday we would find out all about what LaPierre was talking about when he wrote "a devastating account of our financial status, sexual harassment charges against a staff member, accusations of wardrobe expenses and excessive staff travel expenses." LaPierre also claimed that North was extorting him into resigning but that if he continues to support North's own tenure as NRA president, "North stated he could negotiate an 'excellent retirement' package for the NRA chief." Instead, just moments ago, a bitter and angry Oliver North announced-- via letter read to the assembled NRA members-- that LaPierre had won and that he (North) is not being renominated president.

Benedict Trump? Individual 1

What's crazier-- Trump's furious twitter stream howling at the moon about his legal jeopardy (above)-- much of which was certainly written by his current lawyer-- or the very timely Trump Code of Dishonor (below). Yesterday, tacitly admitting he directed Michael Cohen to pay off the hookers Trump feared would derail his presidential bid, Individual 1 claimed he did not direct Cohen to break the law while making the payoffs. Trumpanzee tweet: "I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law." At his sentencing session, Cohen attributed his offenses to his "duty to cover up [Trump's] dirty deeds."

Salon published an essay by Lucian Truscott, Maria Butina’s plea is the worst news ever for Trump and Trump is yet to make up what cockamamie story he wants his moron, primarily lo-education white evangelical followers to repeat to each other. The Russian spy plead guilty to engaging in a conspiracy against the U.S. The conspiracy, she admitted, was acting as an illegal foreign agent. Spies gotta spy.

She admitted to acting under the direction of Putin crony Alexander Torshin (who seems to have disappeared a couple of days ago). And here's the bad news for Trump and the Republican Party and the now bankrupt NRA: "She agreed to turn over any evidence of crimes she is aware of, submit a full accounting of her financial assets, sit for interviews with law enforcement (and waive right to counsel during those interviews) and testify before grand juries or in trials in Washington or elsewhere." Presumably she will have the goods on how the Russians laundered tens of millions of dollars into the Trump campaign through the NRA.



Back to Truscott who makes the point that this is the worst news Señor Trumpanzee has faced in months. Before she appeared and 'fessed up Thursday morning, Truscott wrote that she would "admit to conspiring with a Russian official believed to be Alexander Torshin 'to establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over U.S. politics . . . for the benefit of the Russian Federation' (Torshin recently retired from being a deputy director of the Russian central bank). She will also admit to attempting to influence the National Rifle Association and 'Political Party 1,' believed to be the Republican Party. Butina will admit to setting up a meeting between senior officials of the NRA and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in December 2015, in the early months of the Trump campaign. She later reported to Torshin, 'We should let them express their gratitude now, we will put pressure on them quietly later.'

Butina has been indicted by the U.S. Attorney of the District of Columbia, whose investigation was separate from that of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, so you would think that would come as good news to Trump. But Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was also charged by the D.C. U.S. attorney and the U.S.attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia as well, and it is known that Mueller has been cooperating with the U.S. attorneys for D.C., Eastern Virginia, and the Southern District of New York as well. So the fact that Butina is pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate means that Mueller will be a beneficiary of what she knows about Russian influence in the election of 2016. But even that isn’t the worst news Trump got this week.

No, what Trump should really be worrying about is what Butina’s guilty plea says about his friend Vladimir Putin in Russia. Butina was obviously operating as an intelligence agent of the Russian state, and she wouldn’t be agreeing to plead guilty and cooperate with investigators for Mueller or anyone else if she hadn’t been given the go-ahead by her bosses back in Moscow. Butina faces a sentence of zero to six months under the federal statute she was charged with, and even if she ends up serving time, she will be deported immediately upon her release from prison.

Marina Butina wouldn’t have anyplace to go in Russia if her handlers at the Kremlin hadn’t told her it was okay to tell U.S. prosecutors everything she knows about how her attempt to influence American politics worked from 2015 through 2016. If Putin has decided to cut Butina loose, he’s cutting Trump loose as well.

...With all of the guilty pleas and sentencings in court this week, speculation has been flying that Special Counsel Mueller is reaching the end of his investigation. Don’t believe it. The Washington Post reported this week that 14 Trump friends, associates, and campaign and transition officials had contacts with Russians during the 18 months of his campaign.

Note: Congressman Lieu, a former Air Force JAG officer, serves on the House Judiciary Committee

Every single one of them lied about Russia. They started out by flatly denying they had any contacts at all with any Russians. Then they admitted they had a few, but the contacts were innocuous. When numerous meetings with Russians came to light, they said the contacts didn’t amount to anything. When it turned out the contacts were serious, they began denying there had been any “collusion” with the Russians. Trump made it a refrain, that there had been “no collusion” with Russians during the many times he now had to admit his people had met with them.

Robert Mueller, who has indicted and/or taken guilty pleas from 33 individuals and at least three companies, is turning from indictments of Russians to indictments of their American counterparts. He is focusing his investigation not on “collusion,” but on conspiracy to defraud the United States of America. That’s what he indicted 13 Russians who worked for the Russian troll factory, the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg: conspiracy “to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016.”

Mueller indicted 12 Russian military intelligence agents for “Conspiracy to Commit an Offense against the United States” by hacking into Democratic Party emails and to “stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.” He accused the Russians of using false identities and making false statements to hide their connections to “Russia and the Russian government.”

Mueller has been after a conspiracy between Trump and the Trump campaign and the Russian government all along. And he’s using fraud and conspiracy statutes under the U.S. Code to do it.

Mueller is going to connect Donald Trump and his campaign directly to the government of Vladimir Putin. This week, with the guilty plea of his agent Maria Butina, Putin appears ready to help him.

Robert Mueller has never cared about “collusion.” All he has cared about is breaking the law, which Donald Trump has done plenty of. Trump can tweet all he wants, but he can’t stop the big truck coming straight at him driven by Robert Mueller.

The Illegitimate President-- "A Mistake We Should All Regret"

Donald Trump, Jr by Nancy Ohanian

It's been clear for over a year now that Putin crony and deputy governor of Russia’s Central Bank, Alexander Torshin, was funneling Kremlin money into the Trump campaign through the NRA. I've been looking forward to Mueller laying out all the evidence on that one in precise detail when his investigation of how Putin stole the 2016 presidential election is completed. Now Michael Isikoff is reporting that the FBI has obtained secret wiretaps collected by Spanish police of conversations implications Trump Jr and Torshin.

José Grinda, who has spearheaded investigations into Spanish organized crime, said that bureau officials in recent months requested and were provided transcripts of wiretapped conversations between Torshin and Alexander Romanov, a convicted Russian money launderer. On the wiretaps, Romanov refers to Torshin as “El Padrino,” the godfather.

“Just a few months ago, the wiretaps of these telephone conversations were given to the FBI,” Grinda said in response to a question from Yahoo News during a talk he gave at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. Asked if he was concerned about Torshin’s meetings with Donald Trump Jr. and other American political figures, Grinda replied: “Mr. Trump’s son should be concerned.”

The comments by Grinda were the first clear sign that the FBI may be investigating Torshin, possibly as a part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Torshin-- a close political ally of Vladimir Putin-- had multiple contacts with conservative activists in the United States during the election, seeking to set up a summit between the Russian president and then candidate Trump. Although the summit never transpired, Torshin did meet briefly with the president’s son at a private dinner in Louisville during the May 2016 annual convention of the NRA. A member of the NRA since 2012, Torshin has been a regular attendee of the group’s conventions in recent years and hosted senior members of the group in Moscow.

Grinda said that the FBI, in its request for the evidence to the Guardia Civil, the Spanish National Police, provided no explanation as to why it was interested in the material and he didn’t ask for one. “I don’t have to ask them why they want this information,” he said. But Grinda added that if Mueller or any other U.S. prosecutor seeks to use the material as part of a court case, they would have to make a second, more formal request to do so to the Spanish government.

...Despite the suspicions about his ties to Russian money laundering, Torshin continued to travel frequently to the United States and even showed up as part of a Russian delegation in February 2017 to the National Prayer Breakfast, where he was at one point scheduled to meet with President Trump. (The meeting was canceled the night before, after National Security Council officials raised concerns about it.) More recently, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden sent multiple letters to the NRA asking about its ties to Torshin and other Russian figures, questioning whether Russian money was funneled to the NRA to help pay for the more than $30 million the group spent on political ads and get out the vote efforts during the 2016 election.

Benjamin Lamdy, writing for Vanity Fair, raised a silly question yesterday: Is Don Jr. A Criminal Or An Idiot? He knows the answer; everyone knows the answer. Meanwhile former FBI director, James Comey, fired by Trump in a major obstruction of justice move, was on Conor O'Brien Friday night. Comey asserted that Trump was making up his spy gate nonsense. Watch:

How Closely Together Did The Kremlin And The NRA Work To Saddle America With Trump? Follow The Money

As we've reported for months, the Kremlin operations to saddle America with the most incompetent president in history included money laundering millions of dollars into his campaign through the NRA. The mainstream media is starting to sniff around a story that's been out there for quite some time-- the Putin-Torshin-NRA-Trumpanzee connection. CNN took a look on Friday evening, reporting that the NRA is collecting internal documents related to its role in Putin-Gate, at the request of congressional investigators, certainly pointing to the fact that Mueller has already been there.

The NRA has faced fresh scrutiny from congressional investigators about its finances and ties to Alexander Torshin, one of the 17 prominent Russian government officials the US Treasury Department recently slapped with sanctions. The gun-rights group has said it is reexamining its relationship with Torshin, who is a lifetime NRA member, in the wake of the sanctions.

The renewed attention has highlighted the close-knit if sometimes uneasy alliance between top NRA officials and Torshin-- a relationship that ensnared members of Trump's team during the presidential campaign, inviting further congressional scrutiny.

Those inquiries could shed light on the tightly held fundraising practices and political activities of the NRA. The political powerhouse shelled out more than $30 million in 2016 to back Donald Trump's candidacy-- more than it spent on 2008 and 2012 political races combined, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Vice President Mike Pence is slated to speak at the National Rifle Association's annual convention in Dallas next Friday, an official told CNN.

The NRA recently found itself facing allegations that the FBI was investigating whether Torshin illegally funneled money through the group to bolster Trump, according to a McClatchy report. The NRA has publicly denied any contact from the FBI and insisted it hasn't accepted illegal donations.

Despite the public denials, officials at the gun-rights group have been anxiously preparing as if they were already under investigation, sources said. Some employees have been tasked with preserving years of documents mentioning Torshin or his associate, Maria Butina, who runs a pro-guns group in Russia, a source familiar with the situation said. Privately, some officials have expressed anxiety about a potential investigation and the group's Russian ties.

The NRA's precautions could be little more than due diligence as the group faces inquiries from congressional investigators and the media about its relationship with Torshin. But the feeling among some officials internally is that the group appears to be readying for an investigation.

"True believers to the cause are getting very antsy," said a person privy to the NRA's internal deliberations. "They were definitely preparing, they were bracing themselves."

The NRA declined to comment.

Torshin, the deputy head of Russia's central bank who served for years as a senator in the Russian parliament, began making inroads into the NRA with the help of Tennessee lawyer G. Kline Preston. Preston, who said he has known Torshin for about a decade, said the Russian wanted to meet the leadership of the NRA, so Preston cold-called then-NRA President David Keene. In other media interviews, Preston said that call took place around 2011.

"I can certainly say without any reservation that Torshin's intent was purely about helping with the expansion of gun rights," Preston said. "Infiltrating to influence the NRA politically is a red herring."

But even some within the NRA viewed the partnership warily.

When Donald Trump Jr. arrived for a dinner on the sidelines of the NRA's 2016 annual meeting in Louisville, some attendees-- including NRA officials-- were startled to discover Torshin and Butina already present at the restaurant where the reception was being held, according to sources familiar with the event. Torshin and Butina weren't invited to the dinner, but they were asked to stay and speak anyway.

"Donald J. Trump Jr. was attending an NRA convention and having dinner when an acquaintance asked him to say hello to Torshin and made an introduction," said Alan Futerfas, an attorney for Trump Jr. "They made small talk for a few minutes and went back to their separate meals. That is the extent of their communication or contact."

The seemingly impromptu encounter left some officials at the gun-rights group wondering whether it was a setup by the Russians, sources said.

Throughout the campaign, a number of people made overtures to Trump campaign aides on Torshin's behalf. Those emissaries sometimes touted their NRA connections as they aimed to helped Torshin quietly facilitate a relationship between then-presidential candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In one such email, a conservative activist reached out on Torshin's behalf to say his goal was "cultivating a back-channel to President Putin's Kremlin."

The activist added, "Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump," according to the House Intelligence Committee reports.

The outreach efforts reached Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, campaign manager Paul Manafort, his deputy Rick Gates, then-campaign adviser Rick Dearborn and Jeff Sessions, then a foreign policy adviser and now the attorney general, according to emails reviewed by the House Intelligence Committee.

In at least some of the cases their overtures were rebuffed. Torshin was unable to schedule a meeting with candidate Trump at the 2016 NRA meeting, but ultimately managed to meet Trump Jr.

Trump Jr. told congressional investigators he didn't speak to Torshin about the upcoming presidential election, according to the House Intelligence Committee's Russia report.

In an interview with Bloomberg News nearly a year after the event, Torshin touted his dinner with Trump Jr. at the NRA meeting and claimed he had known Trump for nearly five years.

It's unclear whether the outreach to Trump aides attracted the attention of special counsel Robert Mueller. But he and his team have been delving into the possibility that Russians may have injected foreign money into the 2016 race to influence the election.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Trump campaign declined to comment.

The skepticism among some NRA officials about the pair of gun-loving Russians may have been well-founded.

Torshin's years-long involvement with the NRA had all the hallmarks of a Russian influence operation, Russia experts said. Russian operatives often look to build relationships with polarizing groups -- on either end of the political spectrum-- to breed division and advance the Russian agenda.

"We could give them the benefit of the doubt and say this is just a natural interest and affinity; this guy Torshin and this woman Butina are just gun aficionados," said Alina Polyakova, a Russia expert and foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution.

But given Torshin's stature-- a former Russian senator and now a deputy head at the Russian central bank-- that is exceedingly unlikely, experts said.

"To me this seems like part and parcel of an influence operation," Polyakova said.

Torshin did not respond to requests for comment.

Prolific on Twitter, he has tweeted that the report of an FBI investigation was little more than a rumor. Preston, the Tennessee lawyer, said Torshin was similarly dismissive of those reports when the two men saw one another on Preston's recent trip to Moscow.

"A lot of it, I think, he sees as comical," Preston said of Torshin's reaction. "It's absurd."

If some NRA officials were surprised to encounter Butina and Torshin awaiting Trump Jr. at that private event in 2016, one prominent NRA official was not: David Keene.

Keene, now an NRA board member, said there was a small birthday dinner for him that evening, which Torshin and Butina attended. It happened to take place at the same restaurant as the NRA gathering, he said, and someone brought Trump Jr. by to say hello.

Keene played a central role in fostering the relationship between Torshin and the NRA.

In 2015, Keene brought a delegation of NRA backers to Moscow for a flurry of events with Torshin and Butina, who had founded her own version of the NRA-- Right to Bear Arms-- in Moscow.

The group went sightseeing, toured a Russian gun manufacturer and met with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin -- one of the first Russians the Obama administration slapped with sanctions after Russia annexed Crimea. One of the members of the tour group, former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, rose to become a prominent Trump surrogate during the campaign. In an ethics filing, he disclosed that the Russian Right to Bear Arms group shelled out $6,000 for his meals, lodging and excursions on the trip.

Butina shared a photo of the group of Facebook, which described the excursion as an official visit from an NRA delegation.

That's exactly what the NRA's leadership was hoping to avoid.

Ahead of the trip, top NRA officials had expressed concern that the Moscow visit could invite political backlash, according to sources familiar with their thinking. They pulled the NRA president at the time from the trip, which he was slated to attend, and encouraged Keene to treat it as an independent excursion.

Keene declined to comment on the Moscow trip.

In a recent letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is examining the NRA's finances, the NRA once again downplayed its association with the 2015 Moscow junket. It insisted one of the attendees-- a top NRA donor-- traveled to Russia "in his personal capacity," rather than as a representative of the organization. The GOP-controlled committees have shown little interest in investigating the NRA, but some Democrats are clamoring for additional information.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee "refused to investigate whether Russian-linked intermediaries used the NRA to illegally funnel money to the Trump Campaign, to open lines of communication with or approaches to Trump or his associates, and how those approaches may have informed," Russian interference in the 2016 election, Democrats on the committee wrote in their rebuttal to their GOP colleagues' assessment that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Meanwhile, Russia experts said the Russian gun-rights group appears to mainly be a facade to build ties with the NRA. It has little influence in Russia, which has strict gun laws and little public support for loosening them.

"It doesn't exist really in Russia," Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and an expert on economic policy in countries including Russia, said of the group. "This is the old Soviet fashion of operating through front organizations. The purpose is to infiltrate the NRA and, probably, also transfer money."

By 2016, both Torshin and Butina had become fixtures at the NRA's high-dollar donor events, according to attendees.



The pair has popped up at the Golden Ring of Freedom Dinner, an exclusive event for donors who have given $1 million or more, and hospitality suites for lifetime members. Butina has also attended the women's luncheon hosted by the wife of Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president. Tickets start at $250 a head, according to sources familiar with the event.

Sometimes the Russians attended as guests of other members or alongside corporate sponsors.

As for Keene, he said he was not aware of any donations to the NRA from either Torshin or Butina. He said he has not been contacted by the FBI.

The NRA has said that Torshin paid membership dues but said he has not made any additional contributions.

The NRA has also acknowledged that it accepts donations from foreign donors and entities, which it is legally allowed to do. The group would only run afoul of US law if it used foreign donations for certain election-related purposes. In the letter to Wyden, the NRA said it found "no foreign donations in connection with a United States election, either directly or through a conduit."

The NRA's general counsel also said no Russian nationals have ever been members of the Golden Ring of Freedom program for million-dollar donors, according to the letter to Wyden.

Wyden appeared unconvinced, peppering the group with an additional round of questions.

In its latest response, the NRA said it no longer plans to cooperate with Wyden's inquiries.

Was there ever a CSpan White House Correspondents' Dinner like this before Putin put Trump into the White House? This was last night... and pretty amazing and unique. Just watch it.

Money Laundering: Putin To Torshin To The NRA To Señor Trumpanzee

How much did the NRA spend on electing Señor T? $20 million? 30 million? It's hard to unravel the numbers; I guess they make it hard. But one thing's for sure... it's more than the NRA ever spent on any candidate in history. Trump. A guy who wasn't likely to win-- and who had a mixed, spotty record on NRA issues. And where did they get that kind of money to throw away like that? Ever hear of Alexander Torshin? He was a Russian senator from 2001 to 2015, a close Putin ally who helps run his United Russia party and the Russian Mafia and the deputy head of the Central Bank of Russia. And the founder of the Russian version of the NRA and an honorary lifetime member of the American NRA.

Tim Mak covered the emerging story for NPR this week and you can listen to it below. The report is rather ominous and he's taking about Torshin, a prolific tweeter, here: "A prominent Kremlin-linked Russian politician has methodically cultivated ties with leaders of the National Rifle Association, and documented efforts in real time over six years to leverage those connections and gain access deeper into American politics, NPR has learned. The revelations, wrote Mak, "come amid news that the FBI is investigating whether Torshin, the deputy governor of the Bank of Russia, illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to assist the Trump campaign in 2016, McClatchy reported in January."

Investigations by Congress and the Department of Justice have revealed that the Russian government has sought to sharpen political divisions among American citizens by amplifying controversial social issues. Investigators have expressed concern about Russian links to the NRA, one of the most politically polarizing organizations in the U.S.

Americans who have been left behind as the U.S. turned towards-- full speed-ahead-- plutocracy in the decades since Reagan was elected, are angry. That's why so many of them voted for a clownish bore like Trump in 2016. They're not going to necessarily go on the attack with torches, their pitchforks and hunting rifles, but they do seem prepared to shred the country entirely... which is precisely what Trump is doing for them... and precisely what Putin was willing to spend some loose change on. Does it feel like the country is falling apart? It isn't a coincidence.

Torshin's use of NRA connections to open doors, and his 2015 claim to know Trump through the organization, raise new questions about the group's connections with Russian officials-- at a time when the organization is being roundly criticized by its opponents, and at times the president himself, for opposition to gun control.

The president has also defended the group in recent days as the gun debate has reemerged in the wake of a Florida school shooting, including a tweet calling the group's leaders "Great American Patriots."

The NRA has been a key part of Trump's conservative base. After a meeting with lawmakers in which Trump angered many conservatives for entertaining proposals for gun control, the president tweeted that he had another meeting with NRA leaders in the Oval Office on Thursday night.

On his verified Twitter account, Torshin talked about how he knew Donald Trump through the NRA, citing a connection at the group's 2015 convention. Responding to a tweet about comedian Larry David accusing Trump of being a racist, Torshin said he knew the businessman through the NRA, and defended him.

"I saw him in Nashville" in April 2015, Torshin added later, the date and site of the NRA's 2015 convention. Trump gave a speech at that convention, the outlines of which would become familiar as his stump speech throughout the 2016 presidential campaign. The White House did not respond to repeated requests for comment by NPR, but denied Trump has ever met Torshin to Bloomberg News in 2017.

Among his tens of thousands of tweets, Torshin also documented his attendance at every NRA convention between 2012 and 2016, only some of which have been previously reported.

Torshin's attendance at the NRA convention in 2016 is where he reportedly met with Donald Trump, Jr.

Torshin had made repeated attempts to meet with Donald Trump himself at that convention during the presidential election year, but there is no evidence of this occurring. A conservative activist with ties to Torshin aide Maria Butina reached out to the Trump campaign in 2016, saying that Russia was "quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the U.S." and would try to use the NRA convention to make "first contact," the New York Times reported.

"Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump," the activist, Paul Erickson wrote. "He wants to extend an invitation to Mr. Trump to visit him in the Kremlin before the election." Erickson has business ties to Butina, having started an LLC with her in South Dakota.

Torshin has used his repeated trips to NRA conventions to cultivate relationships with top NRA officials. And his Twitter account documents that he has personally met with every person who has been president of the NRA since 2012.

On Twitter, Torshin portrayed these meetings as more than merely casual encounters. In 2017, he tweeted that he was bringing a gift to then-NRA President Allan Cors, and suggested he was familiar with Cors' hobbies.

...In a public DropBox album that Torshin linked to from his Twitter account, he's seen meeting with former NRA president Jim Porter, as well as former NRA president David Keene.

His tweets suggest a longtime relationship with Keene, who repeatedly appears in photos as Torshin documents his visits, suggesting that their meeting was not merely coincidental. Keene did not respond to a request for comment.

Torshin has also met the current president of the NRA, Pete Brownell. Brownell was part of an NRA delegation that visited Moscow in 2015.

These relationships that he cultivated appeared to open another door. Torshin came to the United States in 2012 as an international election observer, and watched as ballots were cast during the Obama-Romney presidential contest in Tennessee. This was possible, he wrote, due to his NRA links.

"Tennessee resident Kline Preston requested Mr. Torshin to be an international observer in November 2012," Adam Ghassemi, a spokesman for the Tennessee Secretary of State, told NPR. The Washington Post reported last year that Preston, a Tennessee lawyer, was the one who originally introduced Torshin to former NRA president David Keene back in 2011.

...Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of research firm Fusion GPS, alluded to Torshin and the NRA during his closed-door testimony before the House intelligence committee in November.

"It appears the Russians, you know, infiltrated the NRA. And there is more than one explanation for why," Simpson told lawmakers. "But I would say broadly speaking, it appears that the Russian operation was designed to infiltrate conservative organizations. And they targeted various conservative organizations, religious and otherwise, and they seem to have made a very concerted effort to get in with the NRA."

Not only are congressional investigators interested in the NRA's relationship with Russia, but this inquiry comes as the NRA is receiving additional pressure from groups hoping to pass additional gun restrictions into law, and as dozens of American companies have cut ties with the NRA in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., shooting last month.

"These revelations suggest that for years the NRA courted a top Putin ally who is now reportedly attracting scrutiny from the FBI," John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, told NPR. "NRA leaders still haven't explained their close relationship with Russian officials in Putin's orbit. Until they do, people will continue to wonder what the NRA is hiding."