More Putin bigs are tied to NRA

WASHINGTON — Several prominent Russians, some in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, now have been identified as having contact with National Rifle Association officials during the 2016 election campaign, according to photographs and an NRA source.

The contacts have emerged amid a deepening Justice Department investigation into whether Russian banker and lifetime NRA member Alexander Torshin illegally channeled money through the gun rights group to add financial firepower to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential bid.

Other influential Russians who met with NRA representatives during the campaign include Dmitry Rogozin, who until last month served as a deputy prime minister overseeing Russia’s defense industry, and Sergei Rudov, head of one of Russia’s largest philanthropies, the St. Basil the Great Charitable Foundation. The foundation was launched by an ultranationalist ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russians talked and dined with NRA representatives, mainly in Moscow, as presidential candidates vied for the White House. Now federal investigators want to know if relationships between the Russian leaders and the nation’s largest gun rights group went beyond vodka toasts and gun factory tours, evolving into another facet of the Kremlin’s broad election-interference operation.

Even as the contacts took place, Kremlin cyber-operatives were secretly hacking top Democrats’ emails and barraging Americans’ social media accounts with fake news stories aimed at damaging the image of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton and boosting the prospects of Republican Donald Trump. It is a crime, potentially punishable with prison time, to donate or use foreign money in U.S. election campaigns.

McClatchy in January disclosed that special counsel Robert Mueller was investigating whether Torshin or others engineered the flow of Russian monies to the NRA. The Senate Intelligence Committee is also looking into the matter, sources familiar with the probe have said.

NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said that the FBI has not contacted the group.

Of the $30 million the NRA reported spending to support Trump, more than $21 million was spent by its lobbying arm, whose donors are not publicly reported.