Try as they might to screw on the silencer, more troubling links are surfacing between Russia and the National Rifle Association, which poured more than $400 million into the 2016 elections, including spending more than $30 million on the campaign of one Donald Trump.
As McClatchy reported Monday, several high-profile Russians wined and dined NRA officials in Moscow throughout 2016. They include a former deputy prime minister of defense and a head of one of Russia’s largest philanthropies, founded by an ultra-nationalist comrade-in-arms of Vladimir Putin.
Add that to the ongoing federal probe into whether a Russian banker used the association to illegally channel millions into 2016 campaigns.
In response to that claim, the NRA has adopted an ever-changing line. First, it identified one lone Russian who gave about $1,000. Under prodding from congressional Democrats, the story changed to a few dozen contributors having given not much more than $2,500 apiece.
When questions turned to the role of non-reportable “dark money,” the NRA clammed up.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because it mirrors the line of Trump associates, who have downplayed or lied about their contacts with Russian operatives during and after the election.
If the pen is mightier than the sword, hope the truth is mightier than the gun.
