Editorials & Other Articles

american_ideals

(613 posts) Tue Apr 3, 2018, 09:21 PM Apr 2018

Inside the Decade-Long Russian Campaign to Infiltrate the NRA and Help Elect Trump

This is an major article. If half of what is in here is true (and it seems well-sourced), America has a major problem on its hands. Because if half of what is here is true, an enemy foreign power influenced our politics by exploiting a GOP identity-politics organization, the NRA.

And the root of this influence is money, and GOP donors. The gun corps that fund the NRA use the NRA to incite fear in rural areas, to sell more guns. And other NRA GOP donors (the Koches are big donors), use the NRA to incite fear in rural areas, to get votes for tax cuts for billionaires.

The NRA is a nexus between corporations seeking profit and GOP billionaires seeking to get votes to cut taxes on the rich. And the same two groups funded Cit U, and funded the federalist Society (who groomed Roberts and Alito and Gorsuch and Thomas) to vote in favor of Cit U. The goal with Cit U was to allow billionaires and corporations to have bigger influence on our politics. And Cit U is what also allowed the Russians to donate to the NRA, according to this article.

Just as Barack Obama said, Cit U (put in place by GOP billionaires through their influence on the courts) acted to allow foreign money into our politics.

Now this article documents the details.

As part of Putin's "active measures," Hall says, Russia has attempted to influence right-wing and populist factions abroad, preaching unity around social conservatism: "'We're both religious-based countries – we have the Orthodox Church that's a big deal for us.' " The Russians, Hall believes, "made a natural transition in the United States to the NRA"; over time Putin became determined to exploit the American gun lobby "and decided Mr. Torshin is going to be the guy to do it for him."

But Russia experts believe Torshin's interest in U.S. gun culture masked a dark, ulterior motive. "It's all a big charade, basically," Glenn Simpson, founder of the research firm behind the infamous Steele Dossier, testified to the House Intelligence Committee. Much of what passes for civil society in modern Russia is, in fact, controlled by Putin. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee published a January 2018 report on "Putin's Asymmetric Assault on Democracy," which describes how the Kremlin has "sought to co-opt civil society by 'devot[ing] massive resources to the creation and activities of state-sponsored and state-controlled NGOs."

Some of these faux grassroots groups buttress the Kremlin's domestic agenda. Others are projections of Putin's foreign policy. Sen. Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, says it is common for Russian groups that "appear to be independent" but are "really Putin groups" to build relationships with civic groups in Western democracies, like the NRA – "to have tentacles," Cardin says, "to try and influence public opinion here in the United States. It is certainly part of Putin's MO."

Hall agrees. "The idea of private gun ownership is anathema to Putin," he says. "So then the question is, 'Why?' " Why was a pro-gun campaign being hatched by a leader in Putin's own party? The answer, according to Hall, is that Putin was baiting a trap. "He's reaching out to attract the NRA, specifically, over to Russia."

...
The Russians, Hall believes, were seeking a "mechanism by which they can, sort of, control the NRA." They might start with the "friendly route," he says, "pulling the wool over the organization's eyes, getting them to buy into: 'Hey, we're both real conservatives at heart. Russia is actually a friend of the United States. Why can't we get past all of this ugliness?" The question is where the camaraderie ends. "Do they end up with a senior NRA guy who they formally recruited, who can now work clandestinely for them?"