Senate Democrats want the IRS to investigate the National Rifle Association to determine if the gun group deserves its tax-exempt status as a social welfare organization.

In a letter Wednesday to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) the ranking member of the Finance Committee, and Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic Leader, cited the NRA’s effort to “curry favor” with Russian leaders in the run-up to the 2016 election, reports NBC News.

“In light of the continued efforts of Russia to undermine American Democracy, IRS must use its full authority to prevent foreign adversaries from again exploiting tax-exempt organizations to undermine American interests,” the senators wrote.

“It is incumbent on the IRS to fully investigate the organization’s activities to determine whether the NRA’s tax exemption should be disallowed.”

ABSOLUTELY revoke their tax-exempt status. They're also costing us common-sense gun reform, 40,000 lives a year, & a quarter of a trillion dollars in negative economic impact. No way should taxpayers be shouldering that.https://t.co/17q6o5RQjF

— Carolyn B. Maloney (@CarolynBMaloney) October 2, 2019

Democrats on the Finance Committee released a 76-page report last week on their own investigation of the NRA-Russia connection. It concluded that the NRA had become “a foreign asset” for Russia before the 2016 election.

Republicans on the committee refused to take part in that investigation, and the NRA dismissed the report, calling it politically motivated.

Along with “multiple meetings” between NRA officials and Russians in the U.S., the Schumer-Wyden letter says, NRA representatives and donors “met with a number of Russian companies, government officials and oligarchs closely connected to the Kremlin” during a 2015 trip to Moscow.

Maria Butina, a Russian the NRA met with in the U.S., was subsequently “sentenced to prison for failing to register as a foreign agent and plotting to infiltrate the NRA and conservative U.S. political groups,” notes the Washington Times.