Roger Sollenberger for the Daily Beast:

A gun control nonprofit founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) sued the National Rifle Association on Tuesday, filing a federal lawsuit alleging that the gun rights group carried out an illegal, multimillion-dollar political coordination scheme that went on for years to the benefit of Donald Trump and other Republicans.

It could also be a landmark case for U.S. election law.

Giffords’ nonprofit—also called Giffords—had previously targeted the NRA in a number of complaints to the Federal Election Commission. Those complaints, first filed in 2018, went unanswered by the agency for so long that on Monday a federal judge granted Giffords the right to sue the NRA itself—opening a door that campaign finance reform advocates say had been locked for too long.

But it did not take Giffords long to act. One day later, the nonpartisan watchdog Campaign Legal Center Action, which has been working with the nonprofit, filed the new lawsuit in D.C. District Court.

The lawsuit centers around the allegation that the NRA skirted campaign finance laws—contribution limits and disclosure requirements—by using a network of shell companies to funnel money to Trump and other GOP candidates. The lawsuit also alleges that the NRA-affiliated shell companies illegally coordinated with Republican campaigns by using the same vendors and personnel to run ads for these candidates.

The lawsuit claims these vendors, which had different names when working for campaigns and when they were working for private companies, were “functionally indistinguishable.”

“They are led by the same people, located at the same address, and have no internal separation or firewall between the staff who work for each entity,” the lawsuit said.