According to the New York Times, Mariia Butina, Chairman of the Right to Bear Arms, the Russian counterpart of to the NRA, was charged on Monday by the Department of Justice, “accused of carrying out a secret Russian effort to influence American politics.”
Butina tried to broker two secret meetings between then-candidate Donald Trump and the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, during the 2016 presidential campaign. Click here for the full Department of Justice press release.
In summary, the DOJ stated that Mariia Butina worked to establish “back channel” lines of communication with American politicians. “These lines could be used by the Russian Federation to penetrate the U.S. national decision-making apparatus to advance the agenda of the Russian Federation.”
Trump was not named in the charges but they make clear that her actions were part of a Russian intelligence operation.
CNN reports that Butina, according to the DOJ,”worked at the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government.” They also report that, “The official was not formally named in the indictment but appears to be Alexander Torshin, who was previously a member of the Russian legislature and was later a top official at the Central Bank of Russia.”
Here’s where it gets interesting: Torshin fostered ties with gun-rights groups in the US and tried to use his contacts to arrange a meeting with Donald Trump during his 2016 election campaign. There has been no evidence so far that Torshin ever met with Trump Sr., but he crossed paths with Donald Trump Jr., who testified to lawmakers last year that he briefly met Torshin at a dinner with a few dozen representatives from the NRA. Trump Jr. denied any discussion about colluding with the Russian government and said they spoke for only “a few minutes”.
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