alexander torshin. she had served as his special assistant. he is a former russian senator and deputy head of russia s central bank who is very close to vladimir putin. he was sanctioned by the u.s. treasury department in april and has been accused of links to organized crime. prosecutors say an american political operative helped her develop relationships with people who could influence u.s. politics. that operative is not named but believed to be a republican party activist and nra member named paul ericson. his his help, she allegedly cozied up and tried to befriend american politicians. she attended several events hosted about i groups affiliated with republicans, including two national prayer breakfasts in 2016 and 2017. washington post and new york times report that she met
lobbyist, someone who was a republican donor, formed a registered corporation with him. it s not clear what they ever did with that business. what the indictment says is she developed a close relationship with some republican party officials and an entity referred to in the government papers here as a gun rights organization. but it s pretty clear that that s the nra. she was an nra life member. she promoted the russian federation. she was an advocate for gun rights, russian gun rights. she would attend nra meetings. she would attending fund-raisers. she attended prayer breakfasts. and what the indictment says here is that she was doing all this on behalf of a former russian legislator and russian businessman and doing so without being registered. that is the potential violation here. and the affidavit does state that she was doing so, it states, the allegation is for the purpose of advancing the interests of the russian
provocative foreign policy. for the administration, they re looking to have a more solid relationship with israel. and with netanyahu. at the same time, the cost of that is the palestinian response. it s not just about the protest, it s about the diplomacy. and they re really seeing the u.s. at this point as a partner that s not working in good faith and that s why the negotiations for peace have stalled. except president trump promised provocative foreign policy. he did not ever pledge to be a fair diplomatic guy, steve. well, i mean, we ve been seeing a lot of the personalities that donald trump has sort of danced withness administration, whether it s xi jinping or others. donald trump did take actions early on after one of the prayer breakfasts in washington to basically send a signal to netanyahu not to open more settlements at that time.
his whole life. and i think when it s so engrained i think it s a reflex. i don t think it s something he can change. i think at this point, look, i have pointed this out during the campaign. and it was distressing because you know, the president he was running for president and people would tell us oh, no, no, you shouldn t take him literally. but now he is president and when he institutes a ban, you know, against seven countries it is actually a literal ban. it s not a figure of speech when he says something. it s not something you can take it is who he is. and i think at least with the lighter moments maybe we should just give up. trump has his pathological problems. we shouldn t have pathological responses to trump s pathologies. selena, you re the literal you coined that. his brash style, is it translating to the oval office? it worked on the campaign trail. i mean, i thought today was funny. i ve been to plenty of prayer
you take over tv because you re such an expert in ratings. and i take over your job and then people can finally sleep comfortably again. hmm? wow. everybody s laughing. i mean, it is funny. that was a good zinger. so that happened. you ve been at prayer breakfasts before. was this a first? yes. okay. we ll be right back. no question. no question. i mean, where do we even start? it was obviously meant in jest. i mean, let s just it was meant as a joke. but it is definitely traditionally more of a sacred kind of event where you don t make jokes like that. it was in part because the executive producer, who is a very religious man, mark burnett, introduced him. the other part that i thought was maybe even more kind of jaw-dropping is when again he