Thread by @StormResist

Leaked emails show that
Maria Butina and Russian Central Bank Governor Alexander Torshin facilitated a NRA delegation to Moscow.

NRA officials believed they were meeting with Kremlin power players who could connect them to Putin./1

thedailybeast.com/nra-heavyweigh…

The organizer of the trip, Republican Paul Erickson, believed he was securing an interview with Putin and believed the trip could have “enormous diplomatic consequences.” The email, sent in Nov 2015 came just months before the Kremlin’s election meddling went into full gear./2

So let’s be clear. A powerful American company with a huge lobbying apparatus is apparently conspiring with an adversarial foreign government to influence our elections. I hope they kept some money back for the criminal defense fund. /3

David Clarke, the conspiratorial former Milwaukee County sheriff who once claimed Black Lives Matter would team up with ISIS, also went on the NRA trip, along with other influential NRA donors and board members.

I’m so sick of fake patriots selling out our country. /4

Federal prosecutors in Washington D.C. told (Butina’s boyfriend) Erickson’s attorney several months ago that they were considering charging him for illegally acting as a covert agent of a foreign government. /5

Butina is in jail awaiting sentencing and has agreed to cooperate. Meanwhile, the Senate intelligence committee is scrutinizing the NRA’s Russia connections as part of a bipartisan probe into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential elections./6

Alexander Torshin rings a bell, oh that’s right! He was invited to be an election observer in Tennessee! And has ties to @VoteMarsha.

Marsha, girl, you in danger too.
/end

amp.tennessean.com/amp/431448002