In September of 2004, armed terrorists took 1,100 hostages in a school in Beslan, Russia. After three days, Russian security forces stormed the building using tanks, rockets and other heavy weapons. The siege ended with the death of at least 385 people.
#TrumpRussia thread 👇
#TrumpRussia thread 👇
The incident sparked bitter controversy over the competence of the security forces and shook confidence in the Kremlin. To end the controversy, Putin assigned a parliamentary commission to investigate the incident, and put this man in charge of it: Aleksander Porfiryevich Torshin 
Torshin's report, made public in 2005, absolved the national security forces and blamed the local authorities in Beslan for not having done enough to contain the tragedy. Afterwards, Putin did not forget Torshin and rewarded him for his loyalty with political and financial power
By 2011 Torshin was vice speaker of the Federation Council, a leading figure in Putin's party and a controversial lobbyist. But, he was also becoming one of the key figures in the Kremlin’s outreach to the conservative movement in the United States.
That year, 2011, a conservative Nashville lawyer named G. Kline Preston IV, who had done business in Russia for years, introduced Torshin to David Keene, then the NRA’s president.
Torshin and his aide Maria Butina, a photogenic activist originally from Siberia, began building a gun rights movement in Russia. Butina founded a group called the 'Right to Bear Arms', while Torshin announced plans to introduce a law expanding access to handguns.
Torshin was invited to attend his first NRA annual meeting in Houston, Texas in May 2013 and Butina and Torshin invited Keene and other U.S. gun advocates to their annual meeting in Moscow.
Alan Gottlieb (middle👇) of the Second Amendment Foundation, recalled that Torshin and Butina took him and his wife out for dinner and gave them gifts that displayed research into their interests. “They wanted to keep communications open and form friendships,” Gottlieb said. 👀
While Torshin is obtaining close access to NRA officials, Spanish national police starts an investigation into a Russian organized crime syndicate known as the 'Taganskaya'.
Spanish investigators recorded 33 phone conversations between Torshin and Moscow mob boss Romanov, in which Romanov referred to Torshin as “el padrino”. (godfather). Torshin had engaged in money laundering for the Taganskaya, channeling funds through banks and properties in Spain
Torshin was planning to attend Romanov’s birthday party in 2013. The Spanisg national police prepared to arrest the banker, deploying a dozen officers at the airport. But a Russian official in the Ministry of Interior at the Russian Embassy in Madrid had tipped Torshin off.
So instead of spending his time in Spanish prison, Torshin still got to visit his beloved NRA meetings. In 2015 Putin appointed him to be deputy head of Central Bank of Russia. He selected Maria Butina as his special assistant.
In April 2015, Torshin and Butina traveled to Tennessee to attend a fundraiser for a political group backing the presidential campaign of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, then viewed as a leading contender for the GOP nomination.
Here's where it gets interesting. On that same trip, Alexander Torshin, apparently met Trump in Nashville in 2015 👇Translation: "D. Trump supporter of traditional family values. A Member Of The NRA. Saw him in Nashville (April of this year)"*
In June 2015 Butina wrote this column in the National Interest, a magazine published by the same think tank that hosted Trump's foreign policy speech in April 2016, where he met Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. nationalinterest.org/feature/the-be…
In July 2015 Butina flew to Las Vegas for one of Trump's first campaign events and gets to ask him whether he would end the "damaging" U.S. government sanctions on Russia. "I know Putin, and I'll tell you what, we'll get along with Putin."
At the end of 2015, Torshin and Butina welcomed a delegation to Moscow that included Keene, top NRA donors and Sheriff David Clarke. The group met with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who was among the officials sanctioned following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
According to the Milwaukee County ethics disclosure form David Clarke filled out, Butina's 'The Right To Bear Arms' paid $6,000 for his trip to Moscow.
In February 2016 Torshin tweets this. Translation: "Maria Butina now in the United States. He writes me that d. Trump (member of the NRA) really for cooperation with Russia."
On May 20, 2016, the NRA endorsed Donald Trump for president of the United States at their annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. Torshin is there. Ultimately the NRA would spend more than $30 million to elect Trump — more than Trump’s top super PAC.
Torshin was seated with Donald Trump Jr., during a private dinner on the sidelines of the May 2016 NRA event in Louisville. Torshin had been trying to set up a meeting with Donald Trump but ended up being introduced to Trump's son.
After the election, Butina and Torshin began expanding their Washington profile, until his mob ties were discovered. Torshin and Butina returned to the US with a delegation of prominent Russians to attend the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington in February 2017.
Torshin, accompanied by 15 Russian church and government officials, requested to meet Trump before he spoke at the event. However, the White House abruptly canceled the planned meeting after reports surfaced that Torshin led an organized crime and money-laundering operation.
That night, Torshin gathered for a festive dinner at the Bistro Bis dinner in DC, with two Republicans who supported warmer ties with Russia; Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48) and Rep. Thomas Massie (KY-04). nytimes.com/2017/11/21/us/…
Torshin, and his protégée Maria Butina have been part of a years-long campaign to build connections between Russia's leaders and American conservatives. I wouldn't be surprised if they were financed by both the Kremlin and the NRA.
OK, sorry for this extremely long thread. I'm almost done, but here's a little bonus that blew my mind, because once you start digging, e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g seems to be connected. Here's Torshin again, with a woman named Yulya Alferova.
Alferova is a Russian businesswoman with links to the Kremlin. She is married to Artem Klyushin, a rich politician. Emin and Aras Agalarov, who helped arrange the Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer Veselnitskyaka, hired her to organize the Miss Universe 2013 social media.
Here she is with Rob Goldstone, the music publicist who contacted Donald Trump Jr. and helped set up the 2016 Trump Tower meeting,
Alferova promised Trump support from Russia back in 2014 (!)
Alferova seems to have spent a good deal of time with Trump in Moscow in 2013.
Yulya Alferova posted this on the day the alleged Trump 'pee pee tape' would have been recorded. Apparently Trump couldn't stop talking about Obama. Ok, tell me more.. 👀
How many Russians have selfies with both Trump and Putin on their timeline?
And of course she's met Steven Seagal, who seems to know every Russian of interest personally. I did a whole thread on him here:
Wow. I guess this thread was a little too close for comfort? Aleksander Torshin blocked me..
Anyway, back to Yulya Alferova and her husband Artem Klyushin, pictured here with Trump. Klyushin is close friends with one of the leading pro-Kremlin bloggers in Russia; Konstantin Rykov, the man behind the Russian pro-Trump website trump2016.ru
In March of 2016 Klyushin posts a tweet describing a "secret meeting" he had with Konstantin Rykov.
Shortly after Trump won the election in November 2016, pro-Kremlin blogger and former lawmaker Konstantin Rykov posted these two posts on Facebook, detailing a four year effort to elect Trump. 👀
