Ohioans For Concealed Carry Discussion Forums

MS. SPEIER: Okay. What is the interest of Russia with the National Rifle Association?

MR. SIMPSON: I think that most of what we have found is pretty much out there now. You know, it's been said by others, but, you know, what eventually - it appears the Russians, you know, infiltrated the NRA And there is more than one explanation for why. But I would say broadly speaking, it appears that the Russian operation was designed to infiltrate conservative organizations. And they targeted various conservative organizations, religious and otherwise, and they seem to have made a very concerted effort to get in with the NRA.
And so there is a Russian banker-slash-Duma member-slash-Mafia leader named Alexander Torshin who is a life member of the NRA. And we spent a lot of time investigating Mr. Torshin. And he is well known to Spanish law enforcement for money laundering activity, and you have probably seen the press articles. And I think the Spanish files on him should be available to you.And he, as you know, was supposed to have a meeting with President Trump after the inauguration. And Somebody noticed that there had been some stories about him that weren't pretty good.
So he is one of the more important figures, but, you know, another woman with whom he was working, Maria Butina, also was a big Trump fan in Russia, and then suddenly showed up here and started hanging around the Trump transition after the election and rented an apartment and enrolled herself at AU, which I assume gets you a visa.

UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

Whirlwind06 wrote:Yeah, it's not saying the he is an employee or has done some work fir the NRA.

Federal prosecutors are backtracking on their allegation that a Russian woman accused of working as a secret agent offered to trade sex for access, according to a Justice Department court filing.

Prosecutors had earlier accused Maria Butina, a gun rights activist in U.S. custody on charges she worked as a covert agent and tried to establish back-channel lines of communication to the Kremlin, of offering to exchange sex for a position with a special interest organization.

The salacious allegation, which immediately escalated the public interest in the case, was based on a series of text messages to and from Butina and other information that prosecutors say they had obtained.

But in a new court filing, prosecutors said they misinterpreted the messages.

'The impact of this inflammatory allegation, which painted Ms. Butina as some type of Kremlin-trained seductress, or spy-novel honeypot character, trading sex for access and power, cannot be overstated,' Driscoll said.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, Driscoll said, 'I'm happy the government walked back their false allegation.'

Butina, 29, has pleaded not guilty to the charges of conspiracy and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Russia.