The National Rifle Association was a "foreign asset" for Russia as the 2016 presidential election neared — and the gun-rights group underwrote political access for convicted spy Maria Butina and others despite knowing their Kremlin ties, according to a Senate Democratic report Friday.
"NRA officers' apparent use of the NRA for personal gain fits a larger pattern of reported self-dealing and raises serious questions about whether the NRA broke U.S. tax laws," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, the Senate Finance Committee's ranking Democrat, said on Twitter.
The 18-month probe found that Butina and Alexander Torshin, a former Russian banker now sanctioned by the U.S. government, worked to bring top NRA officials to the Kremlin in 2015 and dangled a possible meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
"The NRA delegation 'may be privileged to enjoy an audience with Russia's leader,'" Paul Erickson, a longtime Republican fundraiser and NRA supporter, said in a November 2015 email to then-NRA Vice President Pete Brownell.
"No guarantees, but given the source of the news, it is now VERY likely that up to seven (7) members of the NRA delegation will be granted a private meeting … in Moscow, but only if the delegation is led by the NRA president (or future president)," said the email, which is cited in the report.
Brownell, who became NRA president in May 2017, was lured to Russia under the promise of personal business opportunities, according to the report, and Erickson was Butina's boyfriend.
The NRA delegation visited Russia in December 2015. The group paid part of the trip's costs.
The Democratic report comes amid a deepening leadership and spending crisis at the NRA, with key resignations spurred in April by the ouster of President Oliver North.
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