Questions About Robert Mueller, Russia and the NRA

Until now, the Russian infiltration of the National Rifle Association has looked like a sidecar to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 election.

The prosecution of Maria Butina, the lifetime NRA member who in December pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges of seeking to act as a foreign agent, was handled outside the Special Counsel’s office, by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia — giving the impression that Mueller had bigger fish to fry.

But Mueller may have had the NRA in his sights all along. Citing an unnamed source, CNN is reporting that Mueller’s team has been “raising questions about the relationship between the campaign and the gun group” in recent weeks. The report’s corroborating source is Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign aide. Nunberg was interviewed by Mueller’s team nearly a year ago, in February 2018, but revealed to CNN in recent days that: “I was asked about the Trump campaign and our dealings with the NRA.”

Nunberg is a famously problematic source. He worked with Roger Stone to turn “Build the Wall” into a central focus of then-candidate Trump’s campaign speeches. (“We thought it was fucking genius,” Nunberg told Rolling Stone in August 2017, “It’s marketing, it’s branding. Mexico would pay for it, it’s licensing. It’s what he does. It’s Trump!”) He initially vowed he’d rather go to jail than sit for questioning by the special counsel. And it’s never quite clear where his loyalties lie vis-a-vis the president. As CNN itself has reported elsewhere: “He’s a man who Trump has hired, fired, rehired, refired and then sued for $10 million.” (Nunberg’s publicist did not respond to Rolling Stone’s interview request concerning this matter.)

It’s curious that Nunberg sat on this information for nearly a year. But if he is now shooting straight, and if CNN is accurate in reporting that Mueller remains interested in the NRA now, this could be very big news indeed — it means Mueller may get to the bottom of the many open questions swirling around the gun group including:

Did anyone inside the NRA knowingly participate in the conspiracy for which Butina is now jailed and her handler, Alexander Torshin, was hit with U.S. sanctions?

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mueller-russia-nra-trump-784002/