When a delegation of high-profile donors, boosters and board members from the National Rifle Association traveled to Russia in 2015, they visited a gun factory in Moscow, took in a ballet and met with members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

But now the NRA is seeking to distance itself from the trip, after revelations that a Russian woman who helped arrange it, Maria Butina, was conspiring to infiltrate the organization.

The trip has been a subject of scrutiny in at least four inquiries into the NRA’s ties to Russia; questions about the NRA have also surfaced in the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. Newly empowered congressional Democrats are now stepping up efforts to uncover how much money the NRA received from Russia, and whether the group served as a conduit for Russian funds into the 2016 Trump campaign.

The NRA’s chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, forbade staff members to join the delegation that went to Russia, according to the organization’s outside counsel, William A. Brewer III — “Wayne was opposed to the trip,” he said. The NRA’s president at the time, Allan Cors, abandoned a plan to join the delegation, and the group refused to pay all the related travel expenses, though it did cover some of them.

“Wayne expressed concerns about this trip and suggested that I not participate,” Cors said in a statement released through the NRA. “Wayne did not want any misconception that this was an official trip. Frankly, I had similar concerns.”

Given LaPierre’s power within the organization, it is unclear how such a trip would have proceeded at all despite his opposition to it.

The trip was organized by David Keene, a former NRA president who was close to Butina, and who had his own interests in Russia. An email between a member of the delegation and Paul Erickson, a Republican operative who is Butina’s boyfriend, suggests that Keene, who was then the opinion editor of The Washington Times, hoped to secure an interview with Putin, according to people familiar with the email. Keene also later explored a deal to import Russian gas with Butina’s help, though it never appeared close to fruition.

Erickson’s lawyer, William H. Hurd, had no comment on the email, but noted that his client had not gone on the trip and said, “Anyone who thinks that a freedom-loving group like the NRA is going to get all cozy with Vladimir Putin is living in Fantasyland.” A woman answering the phone at Keene’s home referred calls to the NRA.

Also along for the Russia trip were Joseph R. Gregory, co-chairman of the NRA’s Golden Ring of Freedom, a group for donors of $1 million or more; and Pete Brownell, then the organization’s first vice president, who would later become president.

Congressional scrutiny of the NRA has intensified since Butina pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to act as a foreign agent, in a deal with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. She admitted to being part of a Russian-backed effort to use the NRA to influence American politics. Two Senate committees are also investigating the NRA’s ties to Russia, as is the House Intelligence Committee, and the Federal Election Commission initiated a preliminary inquiry last year. Three past NRA presidents — Keene, Cors and Brownell — have been asked for interviews in the inquiries.

A critical question for investigators is the extent of the NRA’s financial ties to Russia. While the NRA has turned over thousands of pages of records in the Senate inquiries, those documents do not include the organization’s closely held donor records; it is possible, however, that federal investigators have obtained the organization’s tax records from the Internal Revenue Service.

Responding to questions from the Senate Finance Committee, the NRA said last year that since 2015 it had brought in roughly $2,500 “from people associated with Russian addresses” or Russian nationals living in the United States. But that left open the question of money that may have come from shell companies or other less overt sources.

“The NRA should provide the financial documents and other records necessary to explain the scope of their activities,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the committee’s ranking member, said in a statement. “The prospect of NRA or NRA officials abusing nonprofit status to work with a hostile regime and undermine our democracy is central to my investigation.”

The NRA’s outside counsel, Brewer, said that after an internal review, the group “believes that no foreign money made its way into the organization for use in the 2016 presidential election.” Any suggestion that the group took in Russian money, he said, “fails to appreciate the steps the NRA takes to guard against such an unwanted event.”

With Democrats now controlling the House, an inquiry led by the House Intelligence Committee has new life.

“We had begun to pursue this investigative thread at least a year ago, and were stymied by the then-majority,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., who now leads the committee. “We were really not able to determine how the Russians used the NRA as a back channel or look into allegations that the Russians may have funneled money through the NRA to influence the election. Those issues remain of deep interest to us.”

Keene spent several years building ties with Russia. He befriended Alexander P. Torshin, a Russian politician close to Putin who worked closely with Butina. The trip was ostensibly an effort by Keene and Butina to link efforts to advance gun rights in Russia and the United States, and was partly funded by Right to Bear Arms, an organization Butina founded.

Members of the NRA met with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, as well as Dmitry Rogozin, who at the time was Russia’s deputy prime minister and was under sanction by the Obama administration for his role in the Russian occupation of Crimea. A number of photos were taken along the way, at locales that included a Moscow hunting club, and posted on social media.

Like Keene, some others on the trip had an interest in Russia beyond the NRA. Jim Liberatore, chief executive of Outdoor Sportsman Group, which operates the Outdoor Channel and has financial ties to the NRA, had an idea for a reality show starring Putin. After meeting Butina on the trip, he hired her as a $5,000-a-month consultant to help pursue the show, though he gave up on it a few months later.

Brownell had expanded his family-owned gun accessory retailer, Brownells, into Russia in 2015, before the trip, licensing its name to a local company and collecting a percentage of sales. Brownells has similar deals in more than a dozen other countries, a company spokesman said.

After the NRA declined to pay some of the trip’s costs, Brownell covered nearly $14,000 in travel expenses for another participant, former Milwaukee Sheriff David A. Clarke, Jr., public records show.

The trip has not been the only recent subject of controversy for the NRA. There have been signs of financial strain, including reports that the organization cut perks like free coffee. Gun control groups outspent the NRA in the 2018 election cycle, upending what had become the typical political order. The group is also locked in a legal battle with New York state, which barred it from offering insurance to gun owners involved in shootings, an important source of revenue for the organization.

Brownell abruptly stepped down as president last year, halfway through the traditional tenure served by his predecessors, catching the organization off guard. Even his successor, Oliver North, could not hide his surprise.

“I did not expect that this was going to be happening,” North told NRATV, the group’s online video channel.

Brownell, for his part, said, “The position demands full-time attention today, where in the past it was honorific in nature.” He added, “I wanted to devote more attention to my family and to my growing business.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.