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That's according to a new Senate investigation spearheaded by Democrat Ron Wyden from Oregon. An 18-month probe by the Democratic staff of the Finance Committee, where he's ranking member, found that "the NRA underwrote political access for Russian nationals Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin more than previously known—even though the two had declared their ties to the Kremlin."
The NRA knew that Butina and Torshin were Kremlin operatives, and jumped in with both feet. NRA leadership traveled to Moscow in 2015, and when then-NRA Vice President Pete Brownell went to Russia on what was supposedly a private, personal visit to explore business opportunities, the NRA covered some of the costs. The report shows, using contemporaneous emails and interviews, that the NRA was knowingly and purposefully building ties with Russia and with the Kremlin.
While Wyden's focus was the NRA and proving it has been violating its tax-exempt status, the flip side is that Russia used the NRA as another means to infiltrate American politics, specifically the Republican party.
And few Republicans have been more of a friend to the NRA than Moscow Mitch. His career has been built in large part by the $1.3 million he's received from the NRA. It's a symbiotic relationship—together they team up to intimidate Republicans into doing nothing to end the epidemic of gun violence in America.
It's the stuff of wild conspiracy theory fiction, but it's all very real and happening out in the open. And it all goes back to Putin. All the way from the White House to an NRA-friendly Supreme Court and the one figure tying it all together—Mitch McConnell. He's not even trying to disguise the fact that he's in a relationship with Moscow, from guns to election security to selling out his home state's industries. Wyden's investigation illuminates just one more rotten part of his corruption.
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