CLAIM: Kremlin Used NRA to Help Trump in 2016, Senate Report Says.
The NRA spent a record $30 million on Trump and the FBI is reportedly investigating whether any of the money came from Russia. U.S. law prohibits foreign money to be spent on elections.
Two Russian nationals figure prominently in the alleged scheme: Alexander Torshin, deputy governor of the Kremlin’s central bank, and his then-deputy Maria Butina.
Torshin met Donald Trump Jr. at the NRA’s 2016 convention in Kentucky and hosted an NRA delegation in Moscow in 2015. Torshin was previously accused by Spanish investigators of laundering money for Russian mobsters, an allegation he denied. (Last month he was sanctioned by the U.S.)
Well, that’s certainly no way to treat someone who supposedly helped get you into the Oval Office.
Plus:
In May 2016, the same month Torshin met Trump Jr. at the NRA convention, Erickson emailed a Trump advisor about setting up a meeting between the candidate and Putin.
“Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump,” he wrote, according to the New York Times. “He wants to extend an invitation to Mr. Trump to visit him in the Kremlin before the election.”
How’d that work out for him?