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Everytown Statement on Report That Special Counsel Team Has “Expressed Interest in the Trump Campaign’s Relationship With the National Rifle Association During the 2016 Campaign”

1.22.2019

News that the Special Counsel Asked a Former Trump Aide about Trump Campaign Connections to NRA Comes One Month after Purported Lifetime NRA Member Maria Butina Pled Guilty to “Conspiracy to Act as an Agent of The Russian Federation within the United States Without Prior Notification to the Attorney General”

WASHINGTON ― Everytown for Gun Safety today responded to a report that “Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has expressed interest in the Trump campaign’s relationship with the National Rifle Association during the 2016 campaign.” According to CNN, former Trump campaign aide San Nunberg said, “When I was interviewed by the special counsel’s office, I was asked about the Trump campaign and our dealings with the NRA.”

STATEMENT FROM JOHN FEINBLATT, PRESIDENT OF EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY:

“It now appears we can add Robert Mueller to the growing list of Americans who want to know what exactly the NRA was up to in the months leading up to the 2016 election, when it spent a record sum to elect Donald Trump. Between the Mueller investigation and Maria Butina pleading guilty to conspiracy after using the NRA to advance the Kremlin’s agenda, we may finally start getting answers.”

CNN reports:

“The special counsel’s team was curious to learn more about how Donald Trump and his operatives first formed a relationship with the NRA and how Trump wound up speaking at the group’s annual meeting in 2015, just months before announcing his presidential bid, Nunberg said.

“Nunberg’s interview with Mueller’s team in February 2018 offers the first indication that the special counsel has been probing the Trump campaign’s ties to the powerful gun-rights group. As recently as about a month ago, Mueller’s investigators were still raising questions about the relationship between the campaign and the gun group, CNN has learned.

“A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.

“The NRA did not respond to a request for comment.”

The NRA reported spending a record $55 million on the 2016 elections, including $30 million to support Donald Trump – nearly triple what the group spent during the 2012 presidential race. Most of that money was spent by an arm of the NRA that is not required to disclose its donors, and according to a McClatchy report from January, NRA spending may have actually exceeded $70 million during the 2016 election.