Alexander Torshin

Aleksandr Porfiryevich Torshin (; born 27 November 1953) is a Russian politician. He has the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation. He served in the Federation Council of Russia, from 2001 to 2015. He was its acting Chairman for four months in 2011. As of July 2018, he is a deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia. Torshin is from the Mari El Republic, and has represented it in parliament.

Allegations have been made about his involvement with the Taganskaya Gang. According to the Spanish Civil Guard, Alexander Romanov is an intermediary between Torshin and Igor Zhirnokleev (also spelled Zhirnokleyev) who is the leader of the Taganskaya OPG.

Biography He graduated from the All-Union Legal Correspondence Institute with a degree in law in 1978. Torshin, originating from the Mari El Republic, a republic in Russia, is a leading figure in the ruling United Russia party.

There have also been accusations made that he is a leading figure within the Russian mafia.

Torshin is closely associated with Vyacheslav Vasilyevich Kalashnikov , who is president of the private military contractor (PMC) Moran Security Group (MSG), a colonel in the FSB reserve and an adviser to Russian Senator Torshin. In 2013, Vyacheslav Kalashnikov interviewed prospective candidates who formed the Slavonic Corps.

Career

Some time between 1995 and 1998, Torshin was State Secretary of the Central Bank of Russia. Torshin entered the Federation Council of Russia in 2001. He became the acting chairman for the succeeding Sergey Mironov on May 19, 2011, after Mironov was ousted by the majority United Russia in the Council. Torshin remained as acting chairman until the election of Valentina Matviyenko also from the United Russia Party. She assumed her responsibilities on September 21, 2011. He remained in the Federation Council until 2015. Torshin was appointed the deputy head of the Central Bank of Russia in 2015 and suddenly retired in 2018. According to Spanish police, he gave instructions to members of the Gang on laundering, through banks and real estate in Spain. They concluded that in the structure of the organized criminal group, Torshin "stood higher" than Romanov. As a result of wiretapping, which took place several months before the arrest of Romanov, Spanish intelligence agencies concluded that Romanov was following financial orders from Torshin, and that Torshin himself could be the manager of the assets of the gang.

Spanish police had planned to arrest Torshin in 2013 when he arrived in Mallorca for a friend's birthday party, but he did not arrive. Spanish police speculated he might have been tipped off by Russian authorities.

In 2018, wiretappings from the Spanish police were handed over to the FBI. When asked if this had any relationship with politics in the US, José Grinda, a Spanish prosecutor, replied "Mr. Trump's son should be concerned."

Involvement in U.S. politics

Between 2011 and 2018, Torshin and his assistant (sometimes described as his associate or representative) Maria Butina, established a cooperative relationship between the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) and the Russian-based "" which Butina founded in 2011. Torshin has been attending NRA annual meetings in the United States since at least 2011. Following the 2011 meeting, then NRA President David Keene expressed his support for Torshin's "endeavors" and extended an invitation to the 2012 meeting. Torshin attended every NRA annual meeting between 2012 and 2016, occasionally with Butina, and has met every NRA president since 2012. Torshin has tweeted that he and Butina are the only two Russians he knows of who are lifetime NRA members. Butina and Torshin attended the 2014 NRA annual meeting as special guests of former NRA president Keene.

Torshin has been a subject of an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. On May 16, 2018, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report stating it had obtained "a number of documents that suggest the Kremlin used the National Rifle Association as a means of accessing and assisting Mr. Trump and his campaign" through Torshin and Butina, and that "The Kremlin may also have used the NRA to secretly fund Mr. Trump's campaign." Most of that money was spent by an arm of the NRA that is not required to disclose its donors. In April 2018, the United States Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on 23 Russian nationals, including Torshin, whose assets in the United States were frozen and whose entry into the United States barred, besides being subject to other financial disabilities.

The New York Times reported on July 17, 2018 that Torshin was scheduled to visit the White House in 2017, but the meeting was canceled after a national security aide noted Torshin was under investigation by Spanish authorities for money laundering.

Political Positions Torshin was the author of a draft law granting the Constitutional Court of Russia the authority to block the enforcement of judgments issued by the European Court of Human Rights.

He has expressed support for introducing a system of private prisons in Russia, modeled on practices in the United States.

He has advocated for the legalization of civilian use of short-barreled firearms.

He has supported the transfer of orphans from the Far North and the Russian Far East to families in the Caucasus region.

Torshin has also called for stricter criminal penalties, including chemical castration for convicted pedophiles, classifying financial crimes on par with terrorism, and imposing life sentences for drug trafficking offenses.