The NRA should disclose any Russian connections

This is excerpted from an editorial by Bloomberg View.

The National Rifle Association has long offered its expertise in politics and public relations to gun groups in Australia, Brazil, Canada and elsewhere.

The question now is whether during the 2016 presidential campaign the NRA embraced a very different sort of international mission: serving as a conduit to Donald Trump’s campaign for Russian interests.

The FBI reportedly is investigating whether the NRA helped funnel money from Russians into the election in violation of U.S. election law prohibiting use of foreign money. The NRA has relationships with several well-connected Russians, including Alexander Torshin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin who is deputy governor of the Russian central bank.

Torshin, who has been implicated in money laundering by Spanish authorities, is also an NRA member. In 2016 he is reported to have met with Donald Trump Jr. at the NRA’S annual meeting in Kentucky, and in 2015 NRA leaders met with Torshin in Moscow.

The NRA has said that the FBI has not contacted it about Russian funds. Curiously, however, the gun group has so far failed to take the simple step of denying that it accepted Russian money at all. The NRA reported spent $30 million on Trump, more than the organization has spent on any candidate in its history.

The public has the right to know if the NRA served as a backdoor for Putin’s sabotage of the election — especially given the NRA’S role in lobbying Congress and state governments, and funding political campaigns.

It should be easy enough for the NRA to show that it played no role in that assault. So far, it hasn’t taken the opportunity to do so.