Want Another Quid Pro Quo About Arms? Try Trump And The NRA.
Last week the White House announced that it was going to
release details of a new gun bill ‘very soon.’ Instead, we now learn that Trump
had a meeting
with Wayne-o and asked him for support against a possible impeachment in return
for not pushing any new legislation about guns. Isn’t this kind of quid-pro-quo
exactly what Trump did with the President of Ukraine? After all, Trump tried to
extort a promise from Zelensky to dig up dirt on Biden in exchange for a
shipment of guns.
The White House, of course, denied that any such discussion
between Trump and the NRA took place. But this report was filed by
Maggie Haberman and she has never been accused of writing a story which turned
out not to be true.
It’s one thing, however, to try and enlist the head of another nation-state to help your political campaign. It’s another to ask a tin-horn nobody like Wayne Lapierre to save the ship of state. After all, if the NRA is keeping itself afloat by borrowing against the life-insurance policies of its executive staff, how much clout does America’s ‘first civil rights organization’ wield these days?
Which brings us to the report just issued by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) on the NRA and the Russian ‘spy’ affair. I am still convinced, and I have seen nothing to convince me otherwise, that the Russian ‘spy’ in this case, Maria Butina, was just a dopey kid running around on behalf of the Russian company, Izhmash, which makes the original AK-47 and has been trying to get a toe-hold into the American gun market for the last ten years. The American gun market is worth millions because the gun is the non plus ultra assault rifle of all time.
Wyden’s report, however, covers new territory and contains
information which, if true, could really put the final ka-bosh on Wayne-o and
the NRA. The 77-page report goes into great detail about a 2015 trip to
Russia by several NRA Board members, including Pete Brownell, whose
company makes and sells all kinds of accessories for small-arms, although the
outfit does not, as has been alleged at various times, actually manufacture
guns. Nevertheless, where there’s a civilian gun market, there’s a demand for
gun parts, accessories and all kinds of other gun-related junk, and during the
Russian trip Brownell evidently had meetings with various Russian businessmen
to discuss possible commercial relationships between Russia and the USA.
Here’s what the Wyden report is all about: “The minority staff investigation
confirms that members of the NRA delegation participated in the Moscow
trip primarily or solely for the purpose of advancing personal business
interests, rather than advancing the NRA’s tax-exempt purpose.” The
whole point of holding a tax-exempt status requires the tax-exempt organization
(read: NRA) to refrain from engaging in the sort of business activities
which might result in personal gain for a company owned or operated by a member
of the tax-exempt organization’s Board. Brownell was Vice President of the NRA
when he went to Russia in 2015 (he has subsequently resigned.) Several other NRA
members were specifically designated as representing the NRA on this
trip, and they also met with Russian business counterparts involved in the
manufacture and sale of small arms.
I think the Wyden report is much ado about nothing and is only getting some traction because it’s easy right now to dump on the NRA. Many non-profit organizations have business big-shots on their Boards and many of these big shots find it convenient, from a business perspective, to promote their own business interests while, at the same time, helping the non-profit achieve its organizational goals. The report could not cite a single instance in which any blabbing between NRA officials and anyone in Russia resulted in an exchange of money, goods or anything else.
But we’re not talking about
just any non-profit, we’re talking about the organization whose support of
Donald Trump is considered by many to have been what allowed El Shlump-o to grab
the 2016 brass ring. Now that it’s pay-back time in DC, what otherwise might
have simply been seen as ‘boys being boys’ could turn into the issue which
brings the NRA curtain down.
Thanks to Tom Johnson
for tipping us off about the Wyden report.
