nra version: The NRA had previously objected to U.S. sanctions that blocked the import of Russian-made guns, but David Keene — the former NRA president and current board member — insisted those sanctions never came up during the trip to Moscow.
democrat version: “Russia is not America’s friend. And it’s stunning to hear that while they were attacking our democracy, one of the largest organizations supporting Trump was cozying up with a sanctioned Russian in Moscow,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell, who is the top Democrat
Most surprising to me is that Sheriff Clark below appears african american, an rkba supporter, & maybe enjoys going to russia? I'd'a never thunk it. My bet is he takes his vodka dole & makes black russians (ha):
The delegates mostly refused to tell The Daily Beast who paid for their trip, but one of them — Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a Fox News favorite and Trump supporter — was required to file public disclosure forms for his visit to Russia.
Clarke’s disclosure forms reported the Dec 2015 trip — which coincided with an anniversary event for RT attended by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein — was partially paid for by a Russian group called The Right To Bear Arms.
Well, I don't see anything really incriminating above, at least not yet.
this one is a bit more intriguing:
March 2014, US govt sanctioned Dmitry Rogozin—a hardline deputy to Vladimir Putin —in retaliation for the invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Eighteen months later, the NRA, Donald Trump’s most powerful outside ally during the 2016 election, sent a delegation to Moscow that met with him.
The meeting, which hasn’t been previously reported in the American press, is one strand in a web of connections between the Russian government and Team Trump:
Which raises the question: Why was the NRA meeting with Putin’s deputy in the first place? The NRA had previously objected to the parts of the U.S. sanctions regime that blocked Russian-made guns from import into the United States. But curiously, David Keene, the former NRA president and current board member who was on the Moscow trip, insisted the meeting with the high-ranking member of the Kremlin government had nothing whatsoever to do with geopolitics.
..trip was sponsored at least in part by the organization, The Right to Bear Arms, a firearms advocacy organization founded by Russian national Maria Butina .. who now lives in Washington, D.C., and serves as a link between Russian political circles and the American capital’s conservative elite.
“A delegation of the world’s largest gun rights civic organization—the National Rifle Association of the US (the NRA) visited Moscow on an official trip and met with supporters of the Right to Bear Arms movement,” wrote Butina in Russian in December 2015..
= new reply since forum marked as read
