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This article and others mention that Democrat members of the Senate Judiciary Committee says Russia funded the Trump election campaign via the NRA.

Assuming that this is true, what consequences does this imply for the NRA?

user4012
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Mawg says reinstate Monica
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  • Political consequences or legal consequences? – user4012 May 17 '18 at 14:49
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    I've voted to close this as too broad, because answering it requires extensive speculation upon an already rocky premise. – Drunk Cynic May 17 '18 at 15:53
  • @user4012 mainly political, although legal consequences could have political ramifications – Mawg says reinstate Monica May 17 '18 at 18:14
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    @drunk what's rocky? Don't you trust the Senate Judiciary Committee? And, whether you do or not, is not their verdict generally considered to be fact? – Mawg says reinstate Monica May 17 '18 at 18:16
  • There does not appear to be any article at that link, just a bunch of headline links - one about a pig taking selfies! – jamesqf May 17 '18 at 18:28
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    Try another browser. The link is fine for me, and presumably for others, since no one else has your problem :-) – Mawg says reinstate Monica May 17 '18 at 18:32
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    Two upvotes? Can you cite something on that? I will grant that articles say "democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee", but that sounds like it *is* the Senate Judiciary Committee. Can you cite something to show that it was not the Senate Judiciary Committee as you state? – Mawg says reinstate Monica May 18 '18 at 06:20
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    Why does this question have close votes? While the claim is an investigation, not confirmed, foreign money in US elections is clearly a political topic and the NRA is highly political as well. A straight forward answer on foreign donations to a politician through a US non profits seems straight up within the guidelines of poli-stack exchange questions. It may be a subject that most people don't know the details, but that makes it a good question when most people don't know the answer. I don't see how this is "too broad" at all. It's about a specific charge. – userLTK May 23 '18 at 01:58

3 Answers3

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So first off, the NRA is a non-profit organization that is funded largely through donations from people who agree with them. A quick read from google has found that it is fine for foreign nationals to donate to U.S. Charities, but such donations may not be tax deductible depending on a load of factors on the donor's side (usually). This happens all the time and the advice is that the Non-profit does need to identify an Alien Donation as they should re-frame from sending a thank you note suggesting that the donation is tax deductible because it's such a hot mess.

Per the article read, the NRA maintains that the sum was $2,500 and that they did not use that money for anything related to the 2016 campaign cycle. This suggests that they were aware of the foreign nature of the donation and decided to keep it separate from the donations of U.S. Citizens.

Unless there is proof that these Russians were acting on orders from the Russian Government, were asked for the money from Trump or an agent acting on his orders, and/or the NRA knew about their acting as a middle man, there is nothing criminal.

At best, the NRA will likely get an audit from the IRS and possible FBI Forensics Audit to determine how likely they gave the same money to the Trump Campaign. If there is a mistake there will likely be a fine against the NRA for the mismanaged money. It would still be difficult to prove the donation was willingly put into campaign funds to transfer to Trump and Trump arranged this laundering of funds.

hszmv
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    The NRA gets half their funding from gun manufacturers, so I wouldn't say "largely people who agree with them", though I suppose people with corporate interests are still people, but I think it's better to specify when money comes from businesses and not individuals. – userLTK May 21 '18 at 02:28
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    And, sorry to give you a hard time, but the word charity doesn't belong anywhere in this answer. Non profit doesn't imply charity. Charity implies non profit, but it doesn't go both ways. – userLTK May 21 '18 at 02:40
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    @userLTK: I think this is largely semantics. – hszmv May 21 '18 at 20:04
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    The NRA is not a charity. Period. In the US, sports organizations can get tax exempt status, but they're no more a charity than the NFL. They're also a politically active organization that juggles numerous incorporated entities. I don't believe you've answered the question well. If they did funnel money to the Trump campaign there could be charges. – userLTK May 21 '18 at 23:33
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    @userLTK: Unless there is proof that they willingly partook in a money laundering scheme, there is little chance that this will hurt Trump. The kind of money we're discussing is peanuts when compared to other violations which were in the millions of dollars and recieved fines, and they showed where the money the Russian did donate went, and it was not to any political campaign donation. If you have evidence to demonstrate this is not the case, cite your source. – hszmv May 22 '18 at 20:01
  • I don't think you understand. You haven't fixed the charity reference and you said flat out. "The worst that can happen is a fine". Neither is accurate. The worst that can happen is somebody goes to jail and others are exposed. Obviously evidence is needed but that's not the point. The question asks the possible ramifications and your fail to answer that. At least say "unlikely" or "needs proof", but the way you answered this question is clearly in error. – userLTK May 23 '18 at 01:32
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    @userLTK: https://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/obama-2008-campaign-fined-375000-085784 This was one of the biggest penalties levied against a campaign for violation of fincancing... this was for $1.8 million in unreported donations over $1,000... or a little less than 1,000 times what is being accused here. In addition, my use of U.S. Charities was describing the rules as I found them, which were not easy for a simple google search, to find. – hszmv May 24 '18 at 16:54
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    @userLTK: The NRA is a 501(c)(4) organization which means they are allowed to participate in political spending so long as they spend no more than 50% of their income on politic spending. For tax purposes, they have to keep track of where there money comes from and how it is spent (per wikipedia on 501(c)(4)), and they have stated the money in question did not go to political funds. I'll respectfully refuse to change my answer unless you can provide non-partisan sources that punishment for offenses is jail time. – hszmv May 24 '18 at 17:01
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I wasn't able to access that linked article.

However, doing a quick Google search finds the NRA reported receiving a grand total of $2,512.85 from "people associated with Russian addresses” or known Russian nationals living in the United States".

Trump is reported to have spent $957.6 million on the campaign. In that context, "funded" seems the wrong word to use for a paltry $2.5K, which the NRA says it didn't spend on election-related activities.

Alexei
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jamesqf
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    There's definitely an article at that link. Something must be wrong on your end. Here's a screenshot: https://i.stack.imgur.com/mcORN.jpg – Batman May 17 '18 at 18:51
  • @Alexander O'Mara: If there is an article, it must be written in some non-standard format. – jamesqf May 18 '18 at 17:28
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    $2,500 is the NRA's claim, but the actual number might be much higher: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/11/nra-russia-money-guns-516804 – userLTK May 21 '18 at 02:34
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    @userLTK: So they're saying it might (not that they have proof, just that it might) be as much as $30 million. So what is that in the context of over $900 million? – jamesqf May 22 '18 at 04:56
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    @jamesqf I think the point is that by accepting that money, the NRA may have broken the law. Even if it was 1 million out of 900, I don't want a special interest funneling money from Russian special interests to a US election campaign. That's not something anybody should want and the special interests participation is probably illegal. The NRA can give their own money to pacs to elect trump. They can't funnel money from foreign nations. Republicans had puppies when some Chinese businessmen made legal $10,000 donations to Bill Clinton's campaign. This was more money and more hidden. – userLTK May 22 '18 at 08:12
  • @userLTK: AFAIK, the money was not from foreign nations or "special interests", but from individuals. Just as a practical matter, if some person with Russian citizenship spends time in the US, has a US checking account, and sends a contribution to the NRA (or the SPCA, Planned Parenthood, or whatever), how is that group supposed to know where the money came from? Are they supposed to spend hundreds of dollars to do a background check on everyone who makes a small contribution? – jamesqf May 23 '18 at 08:07
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    @jamesqf You don't know where the money is from. That's why there's an ongoing investigation. And donating money to political campaigns has different laws that donating to organizations or charities. A person can give a million dollars to planned parenthood (or whatever), but a person is limited to a $10,000 donation to a politician election campaign. The question here is whether the NRA illegally funneled money to the Trump campaign and whether any charges will be made against Russian individuals or organizations that donated that money through improper channels. – userLTK May 23 '18 at 09:43
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    @jamesqf If i was a small contribution that would be probably be no big deal. The article suggests the NRA set up a specific LLC for these transactions. That suggests more than a "small contribution". As to "how is that group supposed to know where the money is coming from" - if money is donated without strings, then fine. If money is donated to be funneled to a specific election, that's very likely a violation of election law and the $10,000 limit, not to mention, perhaps some other laws. That's why there's an effort to investigate. – userLTK May 23 '18 at 09:46
  • @jamesqf like the trial of Al Capone. Get the accountant(s) on the stand and follow the money. See where it leads. If the NRA is honest, they'll open their books to the Feds. As it is, this is an uphill battle for the democrats, because the Republicans control congress. – userLTK May 23 '18 at 09:49
  • @userLTK: True, I don't know where the money came from. I strongly suspect that you don't either :-) What I do know is that politicians of a certain stripe like to demonize the NRA, and this has all the hallmarks of yet another attempt. As far as I can tell, the NRA seems to have bent over backwards to cooperate with the investigation, at least until it became clear that the point was not investigation, but just placing a burden - copies of every single document for the last several years - not just on the NRA, but on the environment. – jamesqf May 24 '18 at 17:33
  • @jamesqf True. I don't know where the money came from, or how much. I'm more skeptical than you on the NRA "bending over backwards" to cooperate, but it's silly to have conversations on what we think. One person says one thing, the other says another thing. I'm suspicious about the $2,500 figure the NRA gave and I posted a link to that effect above. I hate the NRA, but I also hate bogus investigations. I just hope the investigation is allowed to finish and that the truth, whoever wins, comes out. The minority party is often at a disadvantage for congressional investigations. – userLTK May 24 '18 at 19:55
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The accusation itself is obviously a lunacy. The NRA is a target of so much legal scrutiny that they have sufficient protections in place to make sure that they don't step outside the law. The most basic evidence for it is that they continue to survive despite the ire they face.

If the Democrat members of the committee did indeed sign off on that report, it means the NRA now has a new venue for advertising against those Democrats. They can accuse them of libel. Of course, they can't be sued for libel because, as members of Congress, they have immunity to libel for anything they say as part of their congressional duties. But this immunity is precisely why the NRA can make the accusation without having to prove it in court.

grovkin
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