The reason officials at the NRA would want to “influence” Putin is likewise revealed in Erickson’s emails: the GOP operative’s plan, apparently embraced by the NRA brass with whom he spoke, was to “creat[e] a way for the Kremlin to connect with a future Republican president.”170 Because U.S. presidents ordinarily can call other world leaders at will, the implication in the Erickson-NRA effort is that the channel they wish to create to the Kremlin is a covert back channel—an ambition that carries with it the desire to hide GOP-Kremlin contacts from the American public, U.S. media, the U.S.
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