Moscow Cozies Up To The Right

THE WARMING OF OLD COLD WARRIORS.

- Alex Altman And Elizabeth Dias

BISTRO BIS, A SWANKY FRENCH JOINT ON Capitol Hill, is a Washington institution that has hosted all sorts of political summits over the years. But the group that piled into the restaurant’s Leaders Room on the night of Feb. 1 was among the more unusual. For four hours, current and former Russian officials dined with two Republican Congressmen, a conservative magazine publisher, a longtime GOP consultant and a close friend of top White House strategist Steve Bannon.

As the murky ties between Moscow and members of Donald Trump’s campaign consumed the city outside, the group dining inside the George Hotel explored ways to strengthen the bonds between the two countries. “We have so many people who are trying to destroy the relationship between Russia and the United States,” says Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, who attended the dinner and has visited Russia at least a half-dozen times over the past five years. “I’m trying my best to expand the amount of personal contacts we have with people who are engaged in government in Russia.”

Russia is equally keen on cultivating links to Republicans. Some of the officials who attended the dinner—including a deputy central banker and former Russian senator named Alexander Torshin, and his protégée, a young gun-rights activist named Maria Butina—have been part of a years-long campaign to build connections between Russia’s leaders and American conservatives. The crusade, which predates the rise of Trump, has garnered scant attention but achieved significant success, sparking new alliances with leading U.S. evangelicals, lawmakers and powerful interest groups like the NRA.