In his interview with House investigators, Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson claimed Russian spies have infiltrated the National Rifle Association. Simpson did not elaborate on his bizarre claim, nor did members of the House Permanent Select Committee press the Fusion GPS founder for additional details.
Daily Caller reports:
Glenn Simpson, a founding partner of Fusion GPS, casually suggested in an interview with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the gun rights group had been breached, a source familiar with the matter told The Daily Caller.
[…]
TheDC’s source said that Simpson suggested the NRA-Russia connection in response to a line of questions from committee Democrats who asked whether any conservative groups have been infiltrated by Kremlin agents.
[…]
News articles attempting to link Russians to the NRA have appeared with increased frequency over the past year. The articles have keyed in on Aleksander Torshin and Maria Butina, two Russian nationals who have developed a close relationship to the pro-Second Amendment group.
The pair are lifetime members of the NRA and frequently attend the group’s events. In 2011, Butina founded a Russian gun rights group called The Right to Bear Arms. Some NRA officials have visited Russia to attend that group’s functions.
News of the claim comes amid reports that Fusion GPS’s bank records show Russia-related payments made by the firm behind the infamous ‘Trump dossier.’ “The document shows that the committee sought records related to “five Fusion payments to research and Russia expert [name redacted], and production of three additional payments, writes the Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross.
The records raise new questions as to who is the mysterious ‘Russia expert,’ that Fusion GPS made various payments to. At the very least, the involvement of the expert, with the firm demonstrates more cooperation between the Clinton-linked group and Russia.
