Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. Many months later, thats after the inauguration, after the election, when fbi director james comey went down to the hill, where he was testifying and said, yes, there was an open probe. By that time, the fbi had also initiated a separate but related investigation and that has now been broken much into public view, much more, because the break came with this very curious indictment of a woman named maria butina. Now, she was suspected as an unregistered agent of the russian government. That she was trying to mount this covert influence operation through a conservative group, a Gun Rights Group in the u. S. Tonight, the same reporter who had the Breakthrough Scoop about the Steele Dossier has a new and obviously provocative question. Did alleged russian spy, maria butina, cause a Leadership Shake up at the nra . The backstory here is an fbi dive, prior to the fact of trump becoming president , into russian attempts to inf
Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. By the letters, chs. Confidential human source. Now, the trove of documents detail reports of payments to steele, mostly redacted. You can see there, thats a lot of white space. There are two exceptions. The final page is information from a document, from february 2016. Of course, thats long before the russia probe began. It says steele was, quote, verbally admonished by the fbi and that steele acknowledged the admonishment and even signed a document noting it. Now, from this excerpt, which obviously is tantalizing, we dont have the wider context of why. The other item comes from page two of these new documents. It concerns the fbis decision to terminate its relationship with steele. Guess when . Just days before the 2016 election. Now, this document says steele had confirmed his relationship with the fbi to an outside party. And that he was a source for a, quote, online article. In addition to revealing his relationshi
moscow to build closer ties and afterwards sent torsion a measure, we will put pressure on them quietly later. she attended the nra s 2015 meeting, meeting wisconsin governor scott at the 2016 nra meeting, butina and ericson tried to lay the groundwork for a meeting between donald trump and russian president vladimir putin. their efforts fell short. ericson s role in aiding butina has been a focus of the investigation but so far, he has not been charged with any crimes. now despite the russian government s claim that butina is being tortured while in custody, her lawyer told the court today that she is doing well, mentally. thank you very much, sara murray. just ahead, china detains a canadian businessman who boasts about his ties to kim jong-un after arranging dennis rodman s trip to north korea. we re following this intensifying diplomatic dispute.
this is their second visit. they go to russia. butina facilitating a meeting with a ceo of a private russian gun manufacturer, which produces a sniper rifle identified by the pentagon not for domestic use or hunting, but actually as a threat to american soldiers. the nra leader is treated to a tour of that facility and a chance to shoot some guns on site. the nra reportedly spent $30 million to support trump in 2016. and on the one hand, they do typically support republican nominees. but here s what you need to know. that was triple the amount they spent on behalf of mitt romney just four years prior. and then in january, you get this report in mcclatchy, the fbi investigating whether the russia used this relationship with the nra to illegally funnel foreign cash into the gun rights organization as part of an effort to support trump. so ever since maria butina was arrested and charged with her conspiracy on behalf of russia, the nra has consistently declined to comment to all kinds of
going to be happening at this annual meeting, but as soon as i get everything in order in my family, because this was very sudden, i ll be back to take that gavel. those kind of on-camera interviews are useful. may have sounded like a basic question, but we learned from oliver north s own mouth, this was unexpected. this was sudden. he was getting ready to adjust at the last minute. and then you have a true state secret that was unknown, at least to the public at that time. two weeks earlier in april, fbi agents clad in their tactical gear were raiding butina s apartment where they arrested her. now, we know that from these reports. and corn asks, did that fbi investigation of butina lead to nra president peter brownwell s decision in the words of oliver north to suddenly step down? he had, of course, interacted with butina in moscow three years earlier, and the nra could shed light on this. we would love to bring you their side of the story. any comment, with anything vague, anythin