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NRA Gathers Documents Amid Scrutiny Over Ties to Kremlin-Linked Banker

posted by janrinok on Saturday April 28 2018, @07:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the he-said-she-said dept.

aristarchus writes:

From CNN reporting:

The National Rifle Association is setting aside years of documents related to its interactions with a Kremlin-linked banker, as the gun-rights group appears to be bracing for a possible investigation, according to sources familiar with the situation.

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.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @08:28PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @08:28PM (#673113)

    I'm not sure if I'm fully understanding your statement. So Torshin is really a deep-state DNC operative trying to destroy the NRA so the government can finally take away everyone's guns? I'm adding some subtext, but I feel like I must be misreading your statement.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @08:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @08:32PM (#673116)

    He's just standing up for the Second Amendment rights of Russian citizens to arm and ride bears, and overthrow the government on any given October. That's all.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @09:11PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 28 2018, @09:11PM (#673127)

    I think Kilobyte means the "Magnitsky act":

    When the Kremlin Says ‘Adoptions,’ It Means ‘Sanctions’ [nytimes.com]

    • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Saturday April 28 2018, @09:36PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 28 2018, @09:36PM (#673137) Journal
      While the story is credible (holding adoptions hostage to lift economic sanctions is not beneath the current Russian leadership), it's strange how the writer just says shit. For example:

      Revoking the law became an important foreign policy priority for Mr. Putin’s government. And he identified adoptions as an area that seemed to offer a way to force the issue.

      In 2011, the year before the Magnitsky Act was passed, about 1,000 Russian children were adopted by American families, more than from any other foreign country. Many more adoptions were still pending, some for American parents who had already met the children they expected to take home. An adoption freeze would be a grievous loss for those families.

      The Russian government, sensing that those parents would be a vocal pressure group, proposed a law known as the “anti-Magnitsky law,” which would halt all adoptions of Russian children by Americans — including those that were already in process. The Kremlin cited the case of Dima Yakovlev, a Russian toddler who died after being adopted by American parents, as a pretext for the rule.

      But the government also made clear that the new law would be retaliation for the Magnitsky Act.

      That pressure failed to sway the American government, and the Magnitsky Act stayed in place despite pleas from anguished adoptive parents.

      But, for Moscow, the issues of adoption and sanctions became seen as linked and have remained that way — something that a Kremlin-connected lawyer like Ms. Veselnitskaya would surely have had in mind.

      [...]

      Michael McFaul, who was the United States ambassador to Russia when the Magnitsky Act was passed and is now a professor at Stanford, referred to Ms. Veselnitskaya as an “anti-Magnitsky lobbyist” in a tweet, saying that she could only have been raising the adoptions issue in the context of the Magnitsky sanctions.

      It couldn't have been hard to quote written sources or give examples of the tit for tat game going on, instead of just providing an opinion via a tweet.

  • (Score: 2) by KiloByte on Sunday April 29 2018, @12:02AM (1 child)

    by KiloByte (375) on Sunday April 29 2018, @12:02AM (#673177)

    My point is that, if person X promotes cause A, X having flaw B doesn't mean A and B are related.

    --
    Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Sunday April 29 2018, @05:50PM

      by HiThere (866) on Sunday April 29 2018, @05:50PM (#673435) Journal

      I actually agree with you. I don't think that the NRA officials were intentionally forwarding the Russian party line. I just thing that Putin looked over the situation and decided that strengthening the NRA was the best way to weaken the US government, or one of the best ways. And that this didn't require them to change any of their policies, merely to give them a bit more power, and point out ways they could use it.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @05:25AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @05:25AM (#673250)

    No, I'd say that's pretty accurate. School shootings also are being propagandized.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @07:49AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @07:49AM (#673294)

      And propaganda is being used to enable school shootings, and the Russians and the NRA and Trump are all to blame for that.