THREAD: Today we learned that the FBI is investigating connections between the NRA, Russia, and the Trump campaign. For folks paying attention, it’s been clear since 2016 that something was a bit off.
In honor of #tbt, let’s take a look back:
In honor of #tbt, let’s take a look back:
In August of 2016, Trump’s rhetoric & behavior caused reliable GOP donors to abandon his campaign, but the NRA *increased* their investment, dropping $3 million on a pro-Trump ad buy.
In fact, the NRA spent more on Trump’s 2016 campaign than Trump’s own super PACs. It was the most the NRA has ever spent in an election cycle.
And the $30 million that the NRA spent on Trump might only be the tip of the iceberg -- reporting from @McClatchyDC suggests the NRA may have spent as much as $70 million to elect Trump and NRA allies, and some of it might have come from Russia. amp.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-wo…
The money isn’t the only peculiarity. Trump tried to hire David Clarke, an NRA spokesperson who had traveled to Russia on a trip partially paid for by an NRA executive and a Russian pro-gun group.
And Jared Kushner failed to disclose a proposed meeting from lifetime NRA member, Alexander Torshin. Torshin chose the NRA convention to try to orchestrate a face to face meeting with candidate Trump in order to facilitate a meeting between Trump & Putin.
To top it all off, when the media started to report on connections between Trump and Russia, the NRA bizarrely jumped into the conversation and went on the defensive.
There are a lot of open questions about the relationship between the NRA, the Trump campaign, and Russia, but one thing is clear: It’s time for the @NRA to come clean.
