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Quote:FBI looking at potential transfers from Russian banker to NRA
The FBI’s Russia investigation has new targets in its sights, a Moscow banker and his friends at the NRA, according to a report.
Investigators are looking into whether Alexander Torshin, a deputy at Russia’s central bank, illegally sent money to the National Rifle Association to support the election of President Trump, McClatchy reported on Thursday.
Federal Election Commission regulations and federal law prohibit foreign nationals from giving to election efforts, including “directly or indirectly participating in the decision-making process” or bodies such as labor unions or corporations.
The U.S. intelligence community has said that the Kremlin officials all the way up to Vladimir Putin, seen as close to Torshin, conducted a campaign to tilt the election towards the Republican.
Much of that alleged effort was centered around the hacking of Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign aide emails, though investigators have also been looking at potential financial ties.
The NRA endorsed Trump’s outsider candidacy as he was wrapping up the Republican nomination in spring 2016, and spent $30 million to support his campaign as part of a more than $50 million total election effort.
Torshin is a longtime NRA member and has attended multiple conventions put on by the group, including its 2016 meeting where he met with Donald Trump Jr. and reportedly tried to set up a meeting with Trump himself.
He also has his own Russian gun rights group and met with a delegation from the pro-gun lobbying group to Russia in late 2015, a party that included Trump-supporting sheriff David Clarke.
