The following article by Josh Israel was posted on the ThinkProgress website July 18, 2018:
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there is no international conspiracy at work…”
Maria Butina, the founder of the Russian equivalent of the National Rifle Association and a key ally of Vladimir Putin’s central bank deputy governor Alexander Torshin, was indicted on Tuesday on charges of conspiracyand for failure to registered as a foreign agent. According to the Department of Justice’s application for criminal complaint, Butina worked to “arrange introductions to U.S. persons having influence in American politics, including an organization promoting gun rights” and to “infiltrate those groups” to advance the Russian Federation’s agenda.
Nearly two years ago, ThinkProgress first reported on Butina and her group’s mysterious connections with the National Rifle Association and the 2016 elections. Experts at the time suggested that her connections with the Trump campaign and the gun-rights movement could be cover for a larger effort to undermine American sanctions against Russia. Among the connections noted were that Butina had somehow been able to ask Trump a question about trade with Russia at a Las Vegas campaign event and that her organization had helped pay to bring Trump surrogate and then-Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke to Moscow.
The arrangement caught the attention of federal prosecutors and Senate Democrats investigating the Putin regime’s meddling in the 2016 elections. The alleged ties were widely dismissed and mocked by conservatives.
View the complete article on the ThinkProgress website here.