MS. SPEIER: Okay. What is the interest of Russia with the National Rifle Association?
MR. SIMPSON: I think that most of what we have found is pretty much out there now. You know, it's been said by others, but, you know, what eventually - it appears the Russians, you know, infiltrated the NRA And there is more than one explanation for why. But I would say broadly speaking, it appears that the Russian operation was designed to infiltrate conservative organizations. And they targeted various conservative organizations, religious and otherwise, and they seem to have made a very concerted effort to get in with the NRA. And so there is a Russian banker-slash-Duma member-slash-Mafia leader named Alexander Torshin who is a life member of the NRA. And we spent a lot of time investigating Mr. Torshin.And he is well known to Spanish law enforcement for money laundering activity, and you have probably seen the press articles. And I think the Spanish files on him should be available to you.And he, as you know, was supposed to have a meeting with President Trump after the inauguration. And somebody noticed that there had been some stories about him that weren't pretty good .
So he is one of the more important figures, but, you know, another woman with whom he was working, Maria Butina, also was a big Trump fan in Russia, and then suddenly showed up here and started hanging around the Trump transition after the election and rented an apartment and enrolled herself at AU,which I assume gets you a visa.