The New York Attorney General moves to dissolve NRA after fraud investigation
The New York Attorney General took action today to dissolve the National Rifle Association after an 18-month investigation that found the powerful gun rights group "fraught with fraud and abuse."
Attorney General Letitia James claimed in a lawsuit filed Thursday that she found financial misconduct in millions of dollars and that it contributed to more than $ 64 million in damages over a three-year period.
The suit alleges that top NRA officials misuse charitable money for personal gain, awarded contracts to friends and family members, and provided contracts to former employees to ensure loyalty.
Seeking to dissolve the NRA is the most aggressive approval James could have sought against a non-profit organization over which James has jurisdiction because it is registered in New York. James has a wide range of authorities related to nonprofits in the state, including the right of organizations to halt or dissolve operations. The NRA is sure to fight it all.
NPR has reached out to the NRA for comment, but has not received a response.
"The NRA's influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets," James said in a statement. "The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law."
James' complaint names the National Rifle Association as a whole, but also names four current and former NRA executives: Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, general counsel John Frazer, former CFO Woody Phillips, and former chief of staff Joshua Powell.
It lists dozens of examples of alleged financial malfeasance, including the use of NRA funds for vacations, private jets, and expensive meals. In a statement, her office said that the charitable organization's executives "instituted a culture of self-dealing, mismanagement and negligent oversight" that contributed to "the waste and loss of millions in assets."
The troubles, which James said were long cloaked by loyal lieutenants and a pass-through payment arrangement with a vendor, started to come to light as the NRA’s deficit piled up and it struggled to find its footing after a spate of mass shootings eroded support for its pro-gun agenda. The organization went from a nearly $28 million surplus in 2015 to a $36 million deficit in 2018.
The lawsuit seeks to dissolve the NRA in its entirety and asks the court to order LaPierre and other current and former officials to pay illegal benefits. It also seeks to remove LaPierre and Frazer from the leadership of the organization and prevent four named individuals serving on the board of a charity in New York.
James, a Democrat, argued that the organization’s prominence and cozy political relationships had pulled it into a sense of invincibility and enabled a culture where non-profit rules were routinely flouted and state and federal laws were violated. Even the NRA’s own bylaws and employee handbook were ignored, she said.
Charges against CEO Wayne LaPierre
LaPierre, who also serves as CEO, has occupied the top position in the organization for nearly 30 years. The attorney general's lawsuit accuses him of using charitable funds for personal gain, including an employment-contract of more than $ 17 million that was not approved by the NRA's board of directors.
The lawsuit also claimed that LaPierre received more than $ 1.2 million in expense reimbursement over four years, including gifts for friends, travel expenses, and membership in golf clubs and hotels.
And it alleges that he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on private plane trips, including for extended family when he was not present; traveled to Africa with his wife on a safari gifted by an NRA vendor, and spent more than $3.6 million on luxury black car services and travel consultants in the last two years.
Those that attempted to blow the whistle on this behavior, the suit claims, were retaliate against by LaPierre.
