Meanwhile a Russian spy is in court today for using the NRA to get close to Republican politicians. She was in bed.....literally.... with a long term Republican Swamp creature

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/18/630094267/maria-butina-was-in-contact-with-russian-intelligence-feds-say-in-new-documents

In 2016 the Swamp Creature told the Trump team he had a back channel to Putin they could use. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/03/us/politics/trump-putin-russia-nra-campaign.html

WASHINGTON — A conservative operative trumpeting his close ties to the National Rifle Association and Russia told a Trump campaign adviser last year that he could arrange a back-channel meeting between Donald J. Trump and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, according to an email sent to the Trump campaign.

A May 2016 email to the campaign adviser, Rick Dearborn, bore the subject line “Kremlin Connection.” In it, the N.R.A. member said he wanted the advice of Mr. Dearborn and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, then a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trump and Mr. Dearborn’s longtime boss, about how to proceed in connecting the two leaders.

Russia, he wrote, was “quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the U.S.” and would attempt to use the N.R.A.’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky., to make “ ‘first contact.’ ” The email, which was among a trove of campaign-related documents turned over to investigators on Capitol Hill, was described in detail to The New York Times.