richard painter is the former chief white house ethics lawyer under president george w. bush. he is also now running for the united states senate in minnesota as a democrat after being a life-long member of the gop. richard, good to see you. i really want to hone in on this. you have articulated this better than most. the nra doesn t simply support you if you support their view on guns and the world. but they threaten you if you tor loosen or add any nuance to your support. absolutely they do. the nra makes it very clear to members of congress that they have to toe the line 100% of the nra agenda. if they do not, they will face a primary challenger. particularly in the republican party. they will face a primary challenger who will attack them from the right with enormous amounts of nra money and other money from extreme right wing
despite it all, the national rifle association isn t budging on gun safety measures and continues to pump money into political campaigns. i want to take a look at the data from a watch dog group, the nonpartisan independent non-profit center for responsive politics that tallies how much support members of congress get from the nra. the nra has spent more than $7.7 million on arizona senator john mccain throughout his career. that s more than on any other legislator. that money includes campaign funding and attack ads on opponents. a lot of this has to do with the amount of time john mccain has been in office. people who have been in for a long time tend to have gotten more money from the nra. the next closest are richard burr, just shy of $7 million. missouri senator roy blunt at $4.5 million. and north carolina s other senator thom tillis has received $4.4 million. colorado s cory gardner has pulled in $3.8 million.
there may be more to examine here. all the money pales in compareton to how much more money it spends trying to intervene in campaigns to elect or defeat candidates. the center for responsive politics broke down the numbers on nra spending. they found the biggest chunk of the spending, the yellow, was spent on independent expenditures. going after candidates not nra friendly. the second largest chunk was on lobbying. while the nra spends a lot on supporting candidates, it spends a lot more on stopping candidates who don t follow its agenda. my next guest has labeled the nra a protection racket. this isn t something he s only starting to say now. richard painter has been saying this for years. this op ed on your screen he wrote for the new york times back in december of gent 12, less than a week after the shooting at sandy hook elementary school.
about. you re going to see excuse me. you did not know anything about the payments? you take a look at what i said. you go back and take a look. you ll see what i said. okay. we went back and found the tape of you last month aboard air force one, and this is what you said about that payment to stormy daniels. did you know about the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels? then why did michael cohen make this if there was no truth to the allegations? you have to ask michael cohen. michael is my attorney. you ll have to ask michael. do you know where he got the money to make that payment? no, i don t know. doesn t know why the payment was made or where the money came from. rudy giuliani has tried to help set the record straight issuing this three-part statement clarifying everything he s said during the publicity tour on the stormy daniels payment, the timing of it and firing of james
russian entities. it s illegal to use sources from foreign sources in an election. the money came from 23 individuals living in russia. most of the money came from dues and magazine subscriptions but two people made donations toe s totalling more than $500. the nra denies ghef money was used on campaigns. but there are serious questions around wealthy russians and their involvement in the nra. oregon senator ron widyden is looking into the money relating to this man, alexander torshin. he s an ally of vladimir putin and an nra member. the nra says torshin paid membership dues in the past but hasn t given donations to the group despite close ties. torshin is also on the list of individuals sanctioned by the u.s. government in response to russia s interference in the 2016 elections.