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Maria Butina: ties emerge between NRA, alleged spy and Russian billionaire

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posted on Aug, 8 2018 @ 02:53 AM
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originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: Cassi3l

Butoni was leading the charge in Russia to pass their own version of the 2nd Amendment. If anything, the NRA was trying to influence Russian policy.

I gotta say, considering the money flying around, I find it fascinating that the NRA is portrayed as such a monsterous lobbying group when the lobbying efforts of Planned Parenthood spend 9 times more than the NRA does, all going to Democrats. Seems disingenuous to paint the NRA as a threat while embracing that PP money.


The word you are looking for is....Projection.



posted on Aug, 8 2018 @ 10:11 AM
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originally posted by: Cassi3l


Seems disingenuous to paint the NRA as a threat while embracing that PP money.
a reply to: burdman30ott6

Without donations from the NRA
The GOP would probably have ceased to exist a long time ago...


Ah yes, another low information voter. Here are some facts for you:

Trump 2016 funds raised: 646 million
How much NRA spent in 2016 election: 55 million when combined with other gun rights groups.

Yep, Republicans would totally sink without that huge money flux!!

FYI Planned Parenthood spent 38 million on Democrats in the 2016 election, and they are taxpayer funded.



posted on Aug, 8 2018 @ 12:25 PM
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originally posted by: rollanotherone

originally posted by: Cassi3l


Seems disingenuous to paint the NRA as a threat while embracing that PP money.
a reply to: burdman30ott6

Without donations from the NRA
The GOP would probably have ceased to exist a long time ago...

Is that your wish? To end the 2nd? You can speak the truth here. I won't judge.

So end the 2nd.or regulate it too death.

Why are these the only two options?



posted on Aug, 9 2018 @ 12:43 PM
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To get back on topic ...

For the context



.....Butina began cultivating American contacts. In 2013, John Bolton, now Trump’s national security adviser, appeared in a Russian gun rights video that Right to Bear Arms used for pro-gun lobbying in Russia. Bolton was reportedly asked to appear in the video by David Keene, a recent president of the NRA, who had become acquainted with Torshin.


That'd be this one i guess





In April 2014, Butina flew to Indianapolis for the NRA convention. She posted photographs to the Russian social network VK showing that she mixed with Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s pugnacious vice-president, along with heavyweight Republicans including Bobby Jindal, then governor of Louisiana, and Rick Santorum, a former US senator and presidential candidate.


That September, Butina invited Paul Erickson, a conservative political operative and veteran NRA member based in South Dakota, to address her gun rights group in Moscow. Six months later, according to US officials, she emailed an American political operative who appears to be Erickson to set out what she called project “Diplomacy”. Erickson did not respond to messages this week.

The subject line of Butina’s email, sent on 24 March 2015, appeared to liken her to a notorious KGB propagandist during the cold war. In the text, she declared that the Republican party, in the prosecutors’ words, “would likely obtain control over the US government after the 2016 elections”.

The disclosure this week raised an obvious question: what, at a time when most national opinion polling indicated an advantage for Hillary Clinton over her potential Republican rivals, had convinced Butina that the GOP would be triumphant in an election still 20 months away?


The fix was already in place, way back in 2015 (!) and Butina was encouraged in her efforts as the 2016 campaign intensified as ...


...the likelihood of Trump’s Republican primary victory became clear, Butina began honing her activities and trying to gain access to the candidate and his circle, according to US officials.

During that election year, she obtained a student visa and enrolled in an international relations graduate program at American University in Washington. But her networking continued.

Butina told a second American associate, also unidentified in the charging documents, that a Kremlin official had endorsed her efforts to establish a back channel to US politicians. She wrote: “All we needed is from Putin’s side. The rest is easier.”

According to the FBI, when guns didn’t bring her to Trump, Butina tried again with God. An investigator described in court filings a series of contacts between Butina and an organiser for the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. Butina and Torshin attended in February 2016.

(Torshin and Butina came even closer to a meeting with the president at the following year’s Prayer Breakfast.
Shortly before the scheduled encounter, a White House aide flagged Torshin’s “baggage” and cancelled the meet and greets, Yahoo News reported)


Much more at the link

All in all, it seems  to demonstrate a sustained,  multifaceted (or to coin a phrase, "full Spectrum") Russian effort to sway the election using new fangled computer espionage, old-school personal overtures and reaching out to the gulible.

This effort was stopped, how many and which others, succeded ?



posted on Aug, 9 2018 @ 06:28 PM
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originally posted by: howtonhawky

originally posted by: rollanotherone

originally posted by: Cassi3l


Seems disingenuous to paint the NRA as a threat while embracing that PP money.
a reply to: burdman30ott6

Without donations from the NRA
The GOP would probably have ceased to exist a long time ago...

Is that your wish? To end the 2nd? You can speak the truth here. I won't judge.

So end the 2nd.or regulate it too death.

Why are these the only two options?

How about option three. Do nothing with the 2A.



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