ALJACOBSLADDER.COM 

THE NRA TRIALS TODAY

This following format is not the usual pages i create, these are my collective notes, many bits and pieces,  from many sources, sometimes duplicated,  in straight composition I used for research and reference about the corrupted false business the NRA engaged inmost currently including bankrupsty and their most recent departures as the rats see the ship sinking —

We also are interested in the lack of enforcement to stop their grifting, and corruption, actions unchallenged  by the government due to the fact our congress is heavily bribed to protect the NRA by our senators an Congressmen and Women — and four years of T-rump only added to the lies and cheating — he is involved — just follow the money — 

We also hope when the real investigation of their enterprise by the other courts and Department of Justice gets going many of the corrupt, go down in flames, hanged, removed or slaughtered by a crazed NRA member for stealing his money.

And a special thanks to all those who contributed commentary and information during the ongoing investigations due to occur shortly — 

The New York City  Attorney’s  General Investigation Of The NRAra And Charges  Pending That Forced The NRA To Leave New York,  To Avoid Prosecution And Try A Bankruptcy In  Texas — A Friendlier State For Guns  — It Failed Horribly — The Judge In Texas Called It Evasion — 

When Is A TAX EXEMPT Charity Not A Charity?  When It’s Not  —  9/2022- In the London Review of Books,  [Google It ]  Deborah Friedell traces the past, present, and potential future of the National Rifle Association, America’s foremost pro-gun membership, political-pressure, and lobbying group. Launched by Union Army veterans after the Civil War to promote marksmanship, the group didn’t take on the political bent for which it’s now known until President Lyndon Johnson sought a national gun registry and other controls, which the group opposed. 

The T-RUMP era, ironically, has hurt the group’s bottom line, Friedell writes, as “ Members became complacent with an ally ( Fellow scumbag)  in the White House.”  The NRA has given multiple millions to keep T-RUMP around.  As The Daily Beast reported in 2018, the group reported a big decline in revenue from membership dues in 2017. 

Underpinning Friedell’s outline is the notion that the NRA does well when people feel threatened that their guns will be taken away.  To that end, Friedell writes, the group is gearing up for a fight with New York Attorney General Letitia James over executives’ use of funds, which could energize supporters.  Is the Charitable NO.  Fraud YES,  finally an accounting —

They are amongst the major donors to the goose stepping Senate and House Members of Republican Party for bribes to sustain the profitability of their fraud, based on lies and mis-directions for an elite Board of  eighteen with financial interests in the industry,  raking in millions from simple minded members who fall for their lies  and bullsh*t  — 

Little or non is spent on supporting compassion, human aid, the environment, wildlife, sportsmanship, competition, teaching and coaching, and during the crisis of COVID did little or nothing to help the benevolent charities, trying to halt the deaths of one million Americans in addition to helping stop the increase in gun crime and mass murders.  

Just enough toys, propoganda magazines, retail sale and selling events to make you think they are real,  They really are advertising support for the retailers selling the goods from some of these eighteen board or director members.  Thats how their game works.

These two characters are nothing but living greed personified led by a really sick individual, Wayne LaPiere, supported by the other sick individual Donald J “ The Corrupt King” T-RUMP who keeps and makes millions for these Board Members. They are nothing but a slush fund for the gun industry raking in millions with lies and self sustaining wealth.   

 

TWENTY YEARS AGO - SOME STORIES TAKE TIME —   I wrote MANY OF THESE POINTS AND STORIES  about the corruption on the news for decades about what I thought was the wrongdoing by the NRA.  They are a powerful lobby, we got nowhere.   I have friends and relatives working the case, for the courts and so I was privy to some info, but not allowed to share.  Sources are gold but some not to be shared. The NY Attorney general won’t get laughed off and dismissed as I did.  

For many years when younger I was a strong supporter of the NRA.  It supported hunting and the great outdoors.   Then for many years I watched an organization I believed in go to the dark side, something that I promoted and spoke nice about.  At rallies and gatherings, I solicited for those to take on membership and responsibilities and protect those rights in our Constitution, mainly the Second Amendment.

I humbly apologize, to those who signed up.  This is not the NRA I joined; this is a corrupt scam.  And with a few players you might know, great supporters of lies.  How could you leave out Donald T-RUMP, Charlton Heston holding up his flintlock looking not like Moses, more like the Pharaoh's son.   

I loved him as an actor, but when it came to truth, he was just as guilty as Wayne LaPierre.  Age and slight dementia might have had something to do with his endorsement, heck it was an acting job.   All the NRA leaders are actors.    Oliver North saw the light and bailed out — it and bailed out but thats another story —  he saw the dishonesty and so did many Board members when the ship was going down —  

The second biggest mistake I made was voting Republican and I for 48 years supported the party… Again I apologize for believing in something and promoting it —  And for the same reasons, being lied to, being corrupt and now it’s obvious the NRA,  Donald T-RUMP the fake President  and the GOP are connected.  I left both and hate the third for what he is — they are polluted, dirty and reek from cronyism, and as an investigative writer, sportsman and gun lover, the truths must come out.

An upgrade was needed, as the two came together as to the NRA becoming the lobbyist for the Gun Industry.  The truth must be brought forth and the scam exposed.  I’m still working at investigating putting updates to the truth into what I wrote in the past, frankly because nothing changed what i exposed then is true today — 

The membership is nothing, but a cash cow driven by lies, falsehoods, lies and scammers and supported by ignorance of their believers. Their dues and donations are feeding the lifestyles of eighteen boars members called Directors in violation of Charitable Rules and Regulations. I have met crackheads more honest than him. 

Last Thought — Al Capone reminds me of Lapierre and T-RUMP.  Capone thought he was untouchable till he met Elliot Ness, and it was the Internal Revenue Service,  and tax evasion that shut him down.  He died from cardiac arrest, after his transfer to Alcatraz prison, his mental and physical condition deteriorated from paresis, a late stage of syphilis, he had contacted while working in the sex trade.   He led an isolated life, in part because of dementia, he was prone to talking to people he’d ordered murdered and spilling organized crime secrets.  Today scumbags like Capone kill with lies,  insinuations, and  conspiracy and should be treated as such — Just cut their tongues out —  

1980’S — I DID NOT LIKE THIS MAN —  CEO — Wayne LaPierre —  NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne Lapierre voiced his lies again at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC  Lapierre made the following heartwarming statements.  “ Can we protect so much with armed security, while we drop our kids off at school, that are so-called gun-free zones, that are wide-open targets for any crazy madman bent on evil to come there first?  

In every community, PTAs, teachers’ unions, local law enforcement, Moms, and Dads – they all must come together to implement the very best strategy to harden their schools, including effective trained, armed security that will absolutely protect every innocent child in this country. 

That must happen now.  Evil walks among us, and God help us if we do not harden our schools and protect our kids.
"I refuse to leave this stage until I say one more time that we must immediately harden our schools. Every day— every day, young children are being dropped off at schools that are virtually wide open, soft targets for anyone bent on mass murder.

It should not be easier for a madman to shoot up a school than a bank or a jewelry store or some Hollywood gala. Schools must be the most hardened targets in this country.”

DRAFT DODGER AND NERVOUS DISORDER —  It was originally organized in 1871 to “ promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis” in the United States, and it seems to have succeeded; generations later, the National Rifle Association has become the United States’ most high-profile gun rights lobbying group, raking in millions for the political right wing.

The organization’s executive president and CEO is Wayne R. LaPierre, an outspoken lying devious scumbag defender of the Second Amendment and critic of all but the most minimal gun control policies is a lying bastard and Draft Dodger.    As one who served my country those folks who cheated the system with false Dr reports  like T-RUMP and LaPierre they were the lowest from of scum, many of my friends never came home —  

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 which resulted in the deaths of more than two dozen children and adults, LaPierre famously suggested that a “ National Database of Lunatics” would do more to solve the nation’s gun violence problem than banning the assault-style weapons so often used in such crimes.

LaPierre’s repeated assertions linking gun violence with mental illness, assertions vigorously challenged by mental health professionals as a “nervous disorder”  appear to have backfired on him.

The list he talked about should of had his name at the top, at least on the Internet, supplying fodder for rumors and memes promoting the claim that he obtained a medical (4-F) draft deferment during the Vietnam War by reason of a nervous condition.  

NOTE:   One doctor made it clear to me most variants state or imply the condition: “ Nervous Disorder”  known on the street as  “ PURE F*CKING COWARDICE  is similar  to T-RUMPS the who also excelled in  Cowardice Disorder.  Grandpa  Fredrick TRUMP dodged the Austrian Army,  Donald the other Coward of the Vietnam era - With Bone spurs—   “ Nervous disorders” are not allowed under the law to be able to own a gun.   Legally he cannot own a gun. But he does, have many of them.  Many NRA members never served, draft dodgers, and most of the staff at  FOX news.  Why have they not been taken away or him being arrrested.  Well some Judges are on the take too — as you will find out —  

THE NRA’S FOUR BIGGEST LIES 

ONE - THE JACK-BOOTED FOREIGN SOLDIERS ON OUR SOIL — We have all witnessed or listened to their convoluted redundant rhetoric time after time.  The claims of jackbooted foreign soldiers on American Soil getting ready to take over the country.  We need more guns to defend ourselves against foreign troops

TRUTH:  More like the South American and European regular troops the Army is training in counter insurgency and drug dealing the US provides that training at what is called the School of the America’s at Fort Benning, GA and has for as long as I can remember.   I have attended many functions there. I have stayed in those barracks and attended many of the classes with these trainers from friendly services for my work in South America.  These are loyal anti-drug fighters and I got to know a few and that representation LaPierre made is just another one of his biggest hate filled  lies.

TWO - THE SO-CALLED THE NEW WORLD ORDER — Make believe conspiracy order framed up by Wayne La Pierre similar to the visions Donald T-RUMP gets.  Nothing but dreams, wet at best.  Had nothing to do with taking over the world by secret forces.  It has been used and around for years.  Ignorant people believe the lies and thats the real problem.  You can’t shoot people because they are naive and dumb.  

TRUTH — The term “New World Order (NWO)”  in conspiracy theories is the hypothesis of a secretly emerging totalitarian world government. The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government—which will replace sovereign nation-states—and an all-encompassing propaganda whose ideology hails the establishment of the New World Order as the culmination of history’s progress. 

TRUTH — Actually it stems from ancient times Which had nothing to do with guns, it involved financial worldly growth of the new players in commerce and finance like the BRIC countries which are Brazil, Russia, India and China, nothing more.  been used for years corrupted only by Wayne La Pierre --

THREE — THOSE ANNOYING BLACK HELICOPTERS —  And more claims of spotting  Black Helicopters.  Only T-RUMP had one, Playboy did have a DC-9 called the Playboy Mansion before T-Rump outdid him with a 757 — And now trump is claiming he’s going to get a 747 Jumbo get --   How do you fit one in a jail cell-- ?

TRUTH:  There were no black helicopters swooping down on your back forty other than mosquito control boys which will be in abundance this year because of the ZIKA bug.  And they are not all black some are white, some red, some yellow…rumors and lies from the NRA.  

THE ONLY BLACK HELICOPTERS I EVER SAW:  One was a toy Black Bunny copter owned by Hugh Hefner and the Playboy corporation, Black with a white bunny logo.   The other was owned by an idiot — The third one was owned by the DEA – the fourth was private and he had it repainted when he moved his operation to Florida – Heat kills very expensive instruments.  Who in their right mind wants a helicopter sitting on the Tarmac cooking away, and if you went down at night dusk or dawn, they would never find you — 

FOUR — THOSE THREATS THEY’LL TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY —  The  Second Amendment Lies And Damn Truth For a Change. There is no assault on the second amendment. The unsubstantiated rhetoric “Soon they’ll be taking your guns away”.   The NRA cries that no matter what’s going on in the political world, it portends an imminent massive gun confiscation with President Obama wanting more background checks?   

This claim — prominent among gun-rights advocates — implies that the Second Amendment establishes not just a right to own guns, but a right that the government cannot legally limit.   None of our Amendment rights work this way.    "The Supreme Court has said repeatedly that no right under the Constitution is absolute," says Adam Winkler, a law professor at UCLA and the author of "Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America. “In general, where the government has very strong reasons to restrict a right, it can.”  You cannot have a Nuclear Missile in your backyard, fire RPGs at noisy neighbors, all fear tactics by LaPierre and his Wehrmacht Army of collaborators and stooges.

TELL THAT TO THE 59 DEAD, 527 WOUNDED AT LAS VEGAS - BUMP STOCKS  —  The Supreme Court declined to review local laws that prohibit certain kinds of weapons like semiautomatic guns.  “We see a lot more absolutist rhetoric today than we did in the past,” Winkler says, "partly because we have over the last 40 years seen the rise of a rather extreme pro-gun movement, led by the NRA.” 

And the excuse about 2nd amendment rights and denial of service for those on federal lists such as no-fly and terrorist who might be denied a weapon or concealed carry permit don’t carry easily with me.  We can afford to affront someone occasionally, but we can’t afford another San Bernardino.  That’s a weak excuse and it’s about time a few in Congress step up since their party is turning in a bad direction anyway. 

Strange today with fewer Americans living in rural areas and hunting no longer as popular a recreational activity as it once was, far fewer Americans own sporting guns today than a generation or two ago according to data from the General Social Survey. And their numbers tell the story of a gun culture, for hunting purpose often a rifle and a shotgun has changed to a culture of mostly handguns and assault weapons. 

Less than one week ago South Dakota passed a bill allowing teachers in both primary and secondary grades to be armed with guns. The proposal for such a measure started shortly after Sandy Hook and marketing toward this goal stated popping up on various NRA supported sites.   

The good news is that there appears to be a grassroots movement against this “grassroots movement” that is now funded by the weapons industry. The NRA is growing increasingly out of touch with its original goals and even with its own membership.   It is estimated that as many as 83% of NRA members are okay with background checks at a time when the organization is trying to remove all barriers. You see, members also have family they would like to keep safe. 

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF   —  Murrah Building Bombing — On April 19, 1995, just six days after LaPierre sent out his NRA fundraising letter, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City was destroyed by a bomb, killing 168 people.

It was later discovered that the conspirators behind the Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, were also angry over gun control laws and the federal government’s involvement in the Ruby Ridge and Waco tragedies.  Gun control advocates suggested that the inflammatory rhetoric in LaPierre’s letter had encouraged the bombing. 

HITLER PROPAGANDA TACTICS — LISTENING —   to Wayne LaPierre is like listening to Adolf Hitler on steroids,  all the conversation is about the evil ones, the soft targets, the gun free zones, and it’s never about the 331 million people here and the 350 million guns presently reportable, and we don’t know how many illegal guns and users are in that mix.  

Hours later, Trump was at the White House talking about school safety after last week's mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school. Notice, T-RUMP used some of the same talking points, key words, and phrases as LaPierre used. T-RUMP one who does not use a prompter - he read its off a 65 inch TV screen.

LAPIERRE AND T-RUMP —  “ We have to harden our schools, not soften them. A gun-free zone to a killer or somebody who wants to be a killer, that's like going in for the ice cream. 

That's like 'here I am, take me.' We must get smart on gun-free zones. When they see 'this is a gun-free zone,' that means that nobody has a gun except them, nobody's going to be shooting bullets in the other direction. And they see that, it's such a beautiful target. They live for gun-free zones.

“Now what I'd recommend doing is the people that do carry, we give them a bonus, we give them a little bit of a bonus, because frankly they'd feel more comfortable having the gun anyway, you give them a little bit of a bonus, so practically for free you've now made the school into a hardened target, same sh*t LaPierre used.

THE NRA DOGMA — Wayne LaPierre, regularly describes America as a kind of place where only the armed can survive. As he wrote in a 2013 article, “Hurricanes, Tornados. Riots, Terrorists, Gangs, Lone Criminals.  You need a gun”.  The NRA and the gun manufacturers are in a symbiotic relationship, where they both benefit whenever guns become a political issue.  He has created the maniacal enterprise of fear, retribution, a touch of insanity and the weak in our society have succumbed.  Four of the last shooters were not sane enough to be near a firearm.

 For the NRA, it’s about members and money. Follow the money, for the gun manufacturers, it’s about sales and protection from legal liability.  

And if gun owners are kept agitated, angry, and afraid, they both win.  Many will believe anything; other than true sportsman they qualify in lower educated and just like joining stupid clubs as justification for their weaknesses. Weak-minders flourish when amongst other weak-minders. 

They are praised as Patriots by some and dangerous loose cannons or gun nuts by others and when the weak-minded find because we will have people killing each other.  It has already happened.   In the US, there are now somewhere around 400 million guns, according to the Pew Research Center.  That’s almost more guns than people.  

Judges and legislators across the political spectrum recognize the constitutional right to bear arms but not bear murders.   And gun and ammunition sales to private citizens are a significant part of a roughly $15 billion industry that’s seeing plenty of growth. So money changes hands if you get my grift

What makes the gun industry so controversial, of course, is the ever-shifting debate about how to reconcile gun rights and public safety.  Last year in this country 31,000 people were killed by firearms, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated — since not all get recorded or found, roughly 85 people per day. The US has one of the highest rates of civilian gun ownership and one of the highest rates of firearm-related deaths per capita across developed countries around the world. 

 

THE CASH COWS  —  The NRA is not the NRA of the members, those folks’ people are cash cows for the good old boys. The NRA is not the NRA of the Gun owners, Sportsmen, Competitors, Collectors nor Enthusiasts, It is nothing but a lobbyist for the gun manufacturers.  And your dues and membership money, promotional choices and programming will not go where they could do some good.   

It is not the NRA I joined decades ago; it went political because there is tons of money in political. When the truth gets exposed eighteen members of their Board bilked the member ship of as much as 65 million dollars.   Keep laughing, that’s where your money went to bribe the gun lobby and themselves living like kings. If you really want to look stupid — you should buy a bigger mirror —  

The NRA is also the NRA of the gun manufacturers, it is a lobbyist organization supposed charitable enterprise. 

FRAUD GANG, YOUR MONEY GOES TO THEIR BOARD MEMBERS AND DEALS JUST LIKE FAKE PASTORS - NOT A CHARITY — Failure for an elected official to support the NRA will result in the NRA supporting the opposition when it’s time for re-election.  There is more, lots more and it’s all surfacing — 

For the uninformed and ignorant, the NRA gets tens of millions of dollars from gun manufacturers, through a variety of channels, not just checks but advertising in NRA publications and special promotions the manufacturers run. For instance, every time someone buys a Ruger, the company donates $2 to the NRA. Buy one from Taurus, and they’ll pay for a year’s membership in the NRA.

Violence Manifests Itself —  What’s more, a growing body of research suggests that simply owning a gun is correlated with an increased likelihood that you’ll be a victim of violence. A study published in 2014 in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that people who live in homes with firearms are over three times as likely to die from suicide and two times as likely to be a victim of homicide as those who don’t have access to firearms. 

🎼 WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE — LONG TIME PASSING —  A former pro football player who serves on the National Rifle Association board was paid $400,000 by the group in recent years for public outreach and firearms training.   Another board member, a writer in New Mexico, collected more than $28,000 for articles in NRA publications.  

Yet another board member sold ammunition from his private company to the NRA for an undisclosed sum. 

The NRA, which has been rocked by allegations of exorbitant spending by top executives, also directed money in recent years that went to board members — the very people tasked with overseeing the organization’s finances.

In all, 18 members of the NRA’s 76-member board, who are not paid as directors, collected money from the group during the past three years, according to tax filings, state charitable reports and NRA correspondence reviewed by The Washington Post.

The payments received by about one-quarter of board members, the extent of which has not previously been reported, deepen questions about the rigor of the board’s oversight as it steered the country’s largest and most powerful gun rights group, according to tax experts and some longtime members.  Million upon millions of dollars.

 WHERE IS THE NRA I KNEW?  — Years ago, I forget exactly, maybe mid-late 80’s at an NRA rally in Tampa, I was a member and believer in the NRA and asked to and addressed with several other speakers, the mostly adult crowd at the Tampa police Range, now closed, some in semi military uniforms with cute children in matching camos and cowboy boots.  This is the South, and dress for success has some strange codes.  

The occasion was representative of the paranoia and fear when some restrictions on firearms (big magazines and auto firearms) were being discussed in Congress.  The crowd was well charged up.  My turn to speak and I defended our rights to bear arms and added “Within Reason” under the second amendment and basic Republican Principles, I promoted the NRA,  and then:

 

WHOM DO YOU BLAME? THEY ARE CROOKS — BREAKING NEWS —  We learned the NRA has secretly mishandled sixty-five million dollars of your dues, never went to where they told you disguised in covert felt to their members only of the board, that went to the Eighteen Board Members of the Club which is fraud since the NRA declares as a charity.  They themselves as a charity are limited to the money not used as a charity.

$5,900,000 Given to Republicans in 2016 election cycle,  $106,000 given to Democrats in 2016 election cycle. Meanwhile T-RUMP and his campaign received 75 million for NRA sources. Some think this is the collusion contact for Russian money laundering as much of the money cannot be explained — Putin buys T-RUMP —

The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan think tank that tracks money in politics, found that in 2016 more than half of the members of the House of Representatives — or 232 of the 435 — received money from gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America. That money went disproportionately to Republicans. Only nine Democrats received campaign contributions from these groups

It's simple, the NRA lobbyist group exists because our congressmen take their bribes.  And refuse to discuss gun control or create false narratives claiming it is not the time.  Blaming it on anything they can other than truth, mental health, climate change, the Russian hoax, ingrown toenails, and bone spurs, alone kept these celebrity hair-do’s out of the military and many of them are into pubic service instead of public service.

FINALLY NEW YORK CHARGES BROUGHT FORTH  -  The Attorney General of New York is the chief legal officer of the US State, New York and head of the Department of Law of the state government. The office has been in existence in some form since 1626, under the Dutch colonial government of New York.  Democrat Letitia James currently serves as Attorney General, in office since January 1, 2019.

In 2015, NRA contributions totaled $95 million. In that year — Wayne LaPierre received a $3.7 million deferred compensation distribution from his “Employee funded deferred compensation plan”, which was required by federal law, and according to the NRA raised his total annual compensation to $5,110,985

In 2016 the NRA raised a record $366 million and spent $412 million for political activities.

All told, the Attorney General James accused the NRA leaders of wasteful, unchecked spending that helped lead the organization to turn a $27.8 million surplus in 2015 to a $36.3 million net deficit in 2018.

At a Manhattan news conference, James said the NRA has operated as “breeding ground for greed, abuse and brazen illegality.”  “Today we send a strong and loud message: No one is above the law, not even the NRA, one of the most powerful organizations in this country,” she said.

Among the allegations laid out in the suit:  LaPierre, NRA’s chief executive and executive vice president since 1991, and his family are accused of traveling to the Bahamas on a private charter at least eight times over three years, costing the NRA $500,000. 

On some of those trips, an NRA vendor allowed him to use a 107-foot yacht with four staterooms and two jet skis, which he never disclosed to the NRA. LaPierre and his wife also went on an all-expenses paid African safari covered by an NRA vendor, according to the suit.

LaPierre is also accused of spending more than $3.6 million in NRA funds on black car services and travel consultants in just the last two years, as well as teeing up a contract that guarantees him lifetime compensation, worth an estimated $17 million.

Former treasurer and CFO Wilson "Woody" Phillips is alleged to have set up a $1.8 million consulting deal for himself just before his retirement, as well as overseeing an arrangement that saw Ackerman McQueen, an advertising and PR firm, pay for NRA leaders' entertainment and travel costs before billing the organization. That arrangement is subject of a separate legal dispute.

Also named in the lawsuit are former NRA Chief of Staff Joshua Powell and current Corporate Secretary and General Counsel John Frazer.

NRA LIES ABOUT THEMSELVES IN DOCUMENTS, BANKRUPTCIES, TRIALS —  Founding Fathers of the NRA  —  The NRA, was founded in 1871 to promote gun safety and training, relies heavily on its 5 million members for dues. Some supporters are rebelling publicly and questioning its leadership.  About time they woke up…

“I will be the first person to get in your face about defending the Second Amendment, but I will not defend corruption and cronyism and fear mongering,” said Vanessa Ross, a Philadelphia-area bakery owner and lifetime NRA member who previously worked at the Virginia headquarters managing a program for disabled shooters.

Among the revelations that have burst into public view: CEO Wayne LaPierre racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges at a Beverly Hills clothing boutique and on foreign travel, invoices show. 

Oliver North, forced out as president after trying to oust LaPierre, was set to collect millions of dollars in a deal with the NRA’s now-estranged public relations agency, Ackerman McQueen, according to LaPierre.  And the NRAs outside attorney reaped “extraordinary” legal fees that totaled millions of dollars in the past year, according to North.

The dueling allegations, coupled with multimillion-dollar shortfalls in recent years and an ongoing investigation by the New York attorney general, threaten the potency of the NRA, long a political juggernaut and a close ally of President T-RUMP.

The NRA said its finances are healthy and that the allegations of misspending are unfounded. In a statement last month, a dozen board members said they have “ full confidence in the NRA’s accounting practices and commitment to good governance.” LaPierre declined to comment.  If they only knew what’s about to happen — and why only a dozen?  There were eighteen on the board — 

The gun rights organization’s board includes firearms industry executives, conservative leaders, gun enthusiasts, and a handful of sports and entertainment celebrities. Among its members, whose names are not listed on the NRA website, are former Republican congressman Bob Barr of Georgia, basketball star Karl Malone and Joe Allbaugh, who served as the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the George W. Bush administration. (The three are not among the directors the NRA reported paying.)

After learning about the money his fellow board members received, Malone said he was concerned. “If these allegations are correct and 18 board members received pay, you’re damn right I am,” he said. “If it’s correct, the members who pay their dues should be damn concerned, too.”   The NRA does not require board members to donate or raise funds for the group, as many nonprofit organizations do.  They do not have term limits.

   

THEY PAY NO TAX —  They are Crooks Operating a Non-Profit Illegally —  It’s just a cash-cow big-boys club with toys closed-ended and very corrupt —   State and federal laws allow members of nonprofit boards to do business with their organizations under certain guidelines. The Internal Revenue Service can impose penalties if top officials and their families receive economic benefits that exceed fair market value.   

Tax experts said the numerous payments to certain NRA directors create potential conflicts of interest that could cloud the board’s independent monitoring of the organization’s finances.

“In 25 years of working in this field, I have never seen a pattern like this,” said Douglas Varley, a Washington attorney at Caplin & Drysdale who specializes in tax-exempt organizations and reviewed the NRA’s federal and state filings from 2016 through 2018 for The Washington Post. “ The volume of transactions with insiders and affiliates of insiders is really astonishing.”

Carley said he did not see any obvious or apparent violations of the law, and noted that the NRA, for the most part, appeared to have properly disclosed the payments.   “But the pattern raises a threshold question of who the organization is serving,” he said. “ Is it being run for the benefit of the gun owners in the country and the public? Or is it being run as a business generating enterprise for officers and employees of the organization?”

WASH YOUR HANDS AFTER READING THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT — NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said that the number of financial relationships between directors and the NRA is “small,” considering the size of the board and the organization.   He called the gun rights movement “a close-knit community comprised of partners and vendors who understand the issues and are defenders of the second amendment.”   

Because gun-control groups have pressured companies into not doing business with the NRA, Arulanandam said, “the pool becomes smaller” .  therefore, connections between employees or board members and partners are not unusual.” 

 William brewer, an outside attorney for the NRA, said business arrangements with directors are approved “where appropriate” by the board’s audit committee.   

 “Naturally, there are occasions where the NRA engages vendors who have a connection to NRA executives, employees or board members — but only when such an association works in the best interest of the organization and its members,” he said.   like all the time were occasions, no one else got a shot at it — 

The NRA provided the post with a copy of its conflict-of-interest policy, which states that approval by the audit committee is not required for minor transactions, reimbursement of expenses or “transactions and activities undertaken in the ordinary course of business by nra staff.”

According to the policy, board members “owe a duty of loyalty to the nra and must act in good faith and in the NRA’s best interests rather than in their own interests or the interests of another entity or person.”   

Board members who spoke to the post defended their ability to serve as fiscal watchdogs while also collecting fees.   former president David Keene, who has been paid $112,000 by the group for public speaking and consulting since 2017, said he has “never hesitated to exercise the oversight required of a board member and would gladly give up any compensation if I thought for a minute, it was compromising my judgment or responsibility.”  

10. “NRA” board members as a group tend to be both forthright and bullheaded, so I cannot imagine any of them would let a few dollars affect their judgment,” he added.  

FINANCIAL ‘CRISIS’ ALLEGATIONS  —  In late April, the NRA’s annual meeting was getting underway in Indianapolis when members of the board received an alarming letter from LaPierre, who has run the gun lobby for decades.  In it, he wrote that Oliver North had warned that the group’s longtime public relations firm, Ackerman McQueen, was going to release information alleging “a devastating account of our financial status.” LaPierre said North indicated that the missive would not be sent if LaPierre resigned. 

The NRA chief hinted that North was compromised — conflicted between his duties to the board and his personal financial interests, noting that the retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel had signed a contract with Ackerman to host an NRA documentary series for “Millions of dollars annually.”

“I believe our Board and devoted members will see this for what it is: a threat meant to intimidate and divide us,” LaPierre concluded.  The next day, North was forced to resign. But in a parting letter, he warned that the organization’s finances were in “clear crisis.”  

The board sided with LaPierre, reelecting him unanimously, according to NRA officials. Sure, he signs their checks….   “We have full confidence in Wayne LaPierre and the work he’s doing in support of the NRA and its members,” said Carolyn D. Meadows, who replaced North as president.  Attorneys for North declined to comment.

 Letters from Ackerman’s chief financial officer to LaPierre, first reported by the Wall Street Journal and obtained by The Post, detailed large expenses billed by LaPierre, including nearly $275,000 in personal charges at a Beverly Hills men’s store and more than $253,000 in luxury travel to locations such as Italy, Budapest, and the Bahamas. Bills also show $13,800 to rent an apartment for a summer intern.

In another letter, North warned top officials that huge fees charged by the Brewer law firm — which he said appeared to total $24 million in the previous 13 months — were “draining NRA cash at mind-boggling speed.” Brewer is the son-in-law of Angus McQueen, the CEO of the NRA’s longtime ad firm.

In the wake of the revelations, Retired Army Lt. Col. Allen West, a former Republican congressman from Florida and two-term NRA board member, called for LaPierre to resign, describing “a cabal of cronyism.”   West is another frickin moron who needs to go away, he is not welcome in normal media channels only or usually appearing on FOX opinion shows and other Fake News NAZI style assassination groups.

NRA officials said that LaPierre’s wardrobe allowance began 15 years ago and that he was urged by Ackerman to make the purchases for his public appearances, a practice that they said has since been discontinued. They said his travel was necessary for fundraising. The apartment was secured for a three-month summer internship when university housing typically used was unavailable, the NRA said. 

 NRA officials also said that North’s memo describing the legal fees paid to the Brewer firm was “inaccurate.” “It reflects a misinformed view of the firm, it's billings, and its advocacy for the NRA,” said Charles L. Cotton, chairman of the NRA’s audit committee. “The board supports the work the firm is doing.” Brewer did not respond to a request for comment on his fees.

The swirl of allegations is being driven by the NRA’s increasingly acrimonious split from Ackerman, an Oklahoma-based firm that, with affiliated companies, received about $40 million from the nonprofit group in 2017, according to tax filings. Ackerman has produced provocative ads and television shows that increasingly marked a departure from the NRA’s traditional focus on gun rights.

As turmoil rocks NRA meeting, attendees back a group under pressure from all sides, the gun lobby and the PR agency have sued each other in recent months, accusing one another of improper billing and deceit.  In a statement, Ackerman said it “followed the explicit directions” of NRA officials. The company said the NRA conducted an audit of its payments nearly every year and can justify all its billings. “They could challenge any invoice, but they did not,” the company said.  The NRA has accused Ackerman of concealing records, which the firm denies, and breaching confidentiality by leaking information.

The feud comes amid an investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, into the tax-exempt status of the organization, which is chartered in New York. As part of the probe, her office has issued subpoenas to the NRA, as well as orders to NRA entities and vendors to preserve records, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Brewer, the NRAs outside attorney, said the group complies with all regulations and is cooperating with the inquiry. “The NRA is prepared for this and has full confidence in its accounting practices and commitment to good governance,” he said.   Amid the turmoil, much of the NRA board has remained silent — or defended LaPierre’s spending. 

“This is stale news — being recycled by those with personal agendas. In any event, the entire board is fully aware of these issues,” Meadows said in a statement.   The organization has not hired an outside firm to investigate the allegations of misspending, a measure that legal experts note is often taken by nonprofit boards in such situations. Brewer said NRA practices are already under “constant review” by top officials and the board.

Instead, NRA leaders claim gun-control advocates are ginning up the controversies to sabotage the organization. “Our financial house is in order — we aren’t going away,” read a May 22 letter to members signed by Meadows and 11 other board members, many of them past presidents.

But some longtime NRA members are losing faith in the leadership — and considering walking away from the organization. “You have these facts coming to light, what to most NRA members seem very unreasonable amounts spent on luxuries and conveniences,” said NRA member and firearms trainer Robert Pincus of Florida.

 “And at the same time, you have the NRA cold-calling and fundraising, claiming they are going to go bankrupt if they don’t get money to fight New York state,” Pincus said. “Then you have the new president saying they are in great financial shape; all the financial problems of the past have been fixed. Those three messages don’t all go together.”    The Truth is Below — 

‘NOTHING NEFARIOUS’ ( ALL LIES ARE NEFARIOUS) —  Federal and state filings show that the NRA has turned to its board members for a variety of paid services in the past three years — including to bring in new members.  Attorneys who specialize in nonprofit organizations said it is unusual for board members to be paid membership commissions for recruitment.

“Most groups lean on board members to give money, not for board members to get money,” said New York lawyer Daniel Kurtz. “I think the contributing public would look at that with a dim eye.”  Among those paid such commissions was board member Owen Mills, who runs Gunsite Academy, an Arizona firearms training facility, which received about $11,000 in 2016 and 2017.

Mills defended the financial ties between board members and the NRA, saying they should be able to do business with the group if their prices are competitive.  “There’s nothing nefarious about it,” Mills said. “The NRA buys a lot of stuff. And so, it wouldn’t be unusual to do business with your board members, and all of that is open to the public process.” 

Since 2016, large sums have flowed to board members for consulting, public filings show. NRA officials provided additional details about the specifics of some of the work they did.  

Lance Olson, a former police officer from Iowa, received a total of $255,000 for outreach to gun collectors and fundraising, and Dave Butz, a former NFL player, received $400,000 for public outreach and firearms training, according to the NRA.   Olson did not respond to requests for comment. Butz, who was not reelected to the board in April, declined to comment.

 A firm run by White House communications aide Mercedes Schlapp, who resigned from the board when she joined the administration in 2017, received a total of $85,000 in 2016 and 2017 for media strategy consulting.  She did not respond to requests for comment. Schlapp’s ability to represent the organization in Spanish-language media “made her firm highly qualified,” the NRA said. 

Longtime director and former NRA president Marion Hammer received at least $610,000 in the past three years for consulting services and legislative lobbying in Florida. Hammer declined to comment. In a statement, the group called her a “ tireless supporter of the NRA’s fight to protect the Second Amendment.” We call her “  The lying mouth of the South”.

Director Bart Skelton, a writer in New Mexico, received at least $28,750 over three years to produce articles for NRA publications and $6,550 in compensation in 2017. He did not respond to requests for comment.  

NRA director and rock performer Ted Nugent’s company received $50,000 for appearances at the 2016 NRA convention, while director and country music singer Craig Morgan’s company got $23,500 for musical performances. 

In other cases, the NRA paid businesses run by members of its board.    The NRA Foundation, the group’s charitable arm, bought nearly $3.1 million in ammunition and other supplies in 2017 from Crow Shooting Supply, a business controlled by director and past president Pete Brownell.   NRA officials and Browned say the group began purchasing supplies from Crow before Browned took over the company in 2011.  

However, the first time the foundation disclosed the contract in tax filings was in 2017, as the Wall Street Journal first reported.

NRA officials said the foundation made the disclosure in 2017 “in an effort to provide greater visibility regarding the Foundation’s mission and activities.”   A spokesman for Brownell, who announced last week that he was stepping down from the board to focus on his business, said the contract was vetted by the audit committee.  

“Crow is one of the only wholesalers in the country who can meet the programs’ volume and shipping needs,” spokesman Ryan Repp said. “Pete takes his ethical obligations seriously,” adding that Brownell abstained from voting on issues that directly affected his business

The amount of money collected by one board member remains unknown because she was paid by Ackerman, the NRA’s marketing agency. Julie Golob, a gun activist in Kansas City, Mo., hosts and consults for NRA video programming produced by the firm, according to internal documents.    She declined to comment on how much she is paid or on her dual roles as NRA director and subcontractor. The NRA has said the arrangement was approved by the audit committee and that Golob does not participate in discussions related to Ackerman.

In addition to the 18 board members paid in recent years, the NRA also reported paying an undisclosed amount to a son of board member James Porter, a former president of the group. The son, who works for the Bradley law firm, has been involved in extensive litigation involving guns, according to his biography. Neither father nor son responded to requests for comment. 

Another director, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), received thousands of dollars in donations from the NRA’s political arm to his campaign. Young did not respond to a request for comment. 

CHALLENGES ON MANY FRONTS — Longtime NRA members said they are worried that allegations of insider dealing and big spending at the NRA could create the appearance of impropriety.

“The NRA cannot afford to give fodder to the public and to the media that we are anything but above board,” said Tiffany Johnson, a firearms instructor in Memphis and lifetime member. “We can’t give anybody any reason to even intimate that we have impermissible conflicts of interest, that there is self-dealing.”  

Compounding the situation are signs that the NRA’s finances are under strain.  Public filings show that the gun rights group spent $31,000,000 dollars more than any other outside group — had a more than $17 million shortfall in 2017, the most recent tax filing available.  That year, it collected nearly $312 million in revenue.

NRA officials said the organization is “on budget” this year and “meeting all banking and supplier obligations.”  But it is under intensifying scrutiny in Congress, where Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have been examining the group’s ties to Russia. That inquiry has expanded to include the allegations of self-dealing. 

Meanwhile, the turmoil at the NRA has benefited some other gun rights organizations, which said they have seen an uptick in memberships and contributions.  “In recent months we have seen an over 20 percent increase in support,” said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation and chair of its sister organization, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. 

He said donors are giving in response to “reports of lavish spending” at the NRA and the support for gun control among Democratic presidential contenders.   NRA directors say the current fracas has been overblown and will not inflict long-term damage.    (LIES) 

“We are the most influential body representing firearms owners in the world,” said Mills, the director from Arizona, “and we will survive this little speed bump and come out all the stronger and remain the guardian of civil rights.”   In a statement, LaPierre called the lawsuit an “ constitutional, premeditated attack aiming to dismantle and destroy the NRA.”

May 24, 2022 — INFORMATION --  VARIOUS SOURCES  —  National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre and the rest of the NRA leadership are on borrowed time after a year of lawsuits, investigations, and personal embarrassments stemming from allegations of gross mismanagement of the organization.  While the power and influence they have built will take years to dissipate fully, the bottom line is clear: the past year has been a disaster for the NRA, and LaPierre in particular. 

NRA leaders were forced to reveal in bankruptcy proceedings the depths of their mismanagement and incompetence, spent millions just to lose control of both the White House and Congress, and found themselves at odds with the public at every turn as they pushed an extremist agenda.

 In the courtroom, it would be difficult for the NRA to find itself on worse footing. It is facing litigation not only from former vendors but also the New York and District of Columbia attorneys general for the extravagant spending that has come to define CEO Wayne LaPierre’s tenure. In the face of these threats, the NRA made what might be its most desperate move yet: 

THE HAIL MARY CARD WOUND UP IN HELL  —   A Hail Mary bankruptcy filing in Texas in search of a proverbial Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card. — Put Plainly, The NRA Couldn’t Even File Bankruptcy Correctly  and it did not work  —  In its Chapter 11 filing, the NRA spent  millions on legal fees only to get :

Testimony in open court about rampant mismanagement with evidence of luxurious personal spending by LaPierre including his private jet travel paid for by the NRA and family trips on a yacht paid for by a stakeholder of a key NRA vendor.   The board president admitting to shredding and burning documents after being “told they could be subpoenaed and used.” 

A CFO pleading the Fifth Amendment.  But the judge was buying any of it — Ultimately a dismissal, with the judge finding the bankruptcy was not filed in good faith and that LaPierre’s efforts to hide the bankruptcy from the board were “shocking.” 

Put plainly, the NRA couldn’t even file bankruptcy correctly.   NRA leaders also helped cement the organization’s reputation for pushing an extremist agenda.   Last year, as COVID-19 spread across the country, the NRA leadership used the moment to focus on their real priority: pushing a gun everywhere, for anyone, agenda. 

With the NRA Annual Meeting of Members scheduled for October 2021 in Charlotte, North Carolina, this report lays out the details of the reality the NRA doesn’t want to talk about with its members. From the NRA’s travels through the court system to answer for its various misdeeds, to the lurid details of mismanagement and incompetence coming out of those court cases, to a diminished balance sheet, to the various forms of extremism it has embraced, to its waning influence in American politics, the past year at the NRA is one Wayne LaPierre and NRA leaders would like you to forget. 

WAYNE LAPIERRE’S MISMANAGEMENT, ABUSE SURFACE IN COURTROOM — The most significant element of the NRA’s bankruptcy to NRA members, gun enthusiasts, lawmakers, and regulators was the avalanche of revelations about the NRA’s financial dealings that were unearthed during the trial and in adjacent litigations.   The public learned that virtually no one at the NRA—other than NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre and his three closest board allies—knew about the planned bankruptcy filing, which is consistent with testimony that the organization was run as “Wayne’s kingdom,” where he employed what he himself reportedly called “management by chaos.” 

The trial included new information about LaPierre’s luxurious life on the company dime, including over $13 million for travel and a post-employment golden parachute worth $17 million.   In addition, LaPierre was forced to testify about his annual weeklong trips to the Bahamas, where he stayed on one of two yachts owned by a Hollywood producer who is a stakeholder of key NRA vendors. 

The NRA’s bankruptcy trial prominently highlighted the failed leadership of Wayne LaPierre. A particularly powerful part of the trial involved testimony from several current and former NRA board members who spoke about the organization’s dysfunction and mismanagement. 

They painted a picture of a board incapable of exercising meaningful oversight over management, in part due to LaPierre’s stranglehold over the organization and a lack of transparency from his team. Examples include the following:

Owen “Buzz” Mills, who served on the NRA board from 2009 until August 2021, called LaPierre’s management a “train-wreck” during his testimony. Mills testified to the dysfunction of the NRA board and stated his belief that the NRA’s current problems were “our fault” because “ the board had failed to provide adequate supervision and direction.”

When asked whether he believed the NRA had “self-corrected,” Mills testified, “I believe that the management is corrupted and I believe the board is corrupted. I don’t see anything salvaging – anything there that’s salvageable.”

Ackerman McQueen executive and longtime Wayne LaPierre confidant Tony Makris testified that LaPierre had described his personal management style as “management by chaos,” wherein LaPierre intentionally kept senior leaders “at odds with each other, then he would maintain control.”

NRA board member Philip Journey, who is also a Kansas state judge, filed a motion with the bankruptcy court to appoint an examiner to investigate the allegations of fraud and waste at the NRA    Judge Journey’s motion alleged the NRA board had been reduced to a “figurehead while management steered the NRA’s overall direction.

He also raised questions about the conduct of the NRA board of directors’ legal counsel, saying, “NRA’s management, and the board’s own lawyer, withheld information from board members.”

Journey further alleged that “on one occasion, the board’s attorney ostensibly told a board member to sit back, shut her mouth, stop asking questions, and trust that NRA management had everything under control.  In an especially dramatic moment of the trial, Journey testified he had come to realize the NRA “essentially operated as a kingdom rather than a corporation,” adding that it was “Wayne’s kingdom.”

He said that “it became apparent that the corporate governance and the balance of power, the checks and balance –  system of checks and balances was essentially nonexistent,” and the corporate governance structure “was worse than I ever imagined.”

SHAKY BUT UNFORTUNATELY STILL ALIVE — THIS BASTARD NEEDS TO GO — CEO LaPierre’s shaky testimony also raised questions about his ability to lead the NRA. His inability to answer questions posed to him during cross-examination prompted Judge Harlin Hale to repeatedly sustain objections and instruct LaPierre to answer the question asked. 

On his first day of testimony, the judge chided LaPierre, saying, “Would you please listen to the question and answer it only? Because I’ve done this a few times this afternoon.”

Remarkably, the NRA’s own lawyer took the extraordinary step of moving to strike LaPierre’s own testimony.  This culminated in an exchange where the judge admonished LaPierre, “And I’m about to say something I’ve said for a day and a half now. Can you answer the questions that are asked?” adding, “Do you understand that I’ve said that to you more than a dozen times over the last day?”

Ultimately, perhaps the greatest example of LaPierre’s failed leadership highlighted in the trial was his decision to plunge the NRA into bankruptcy, excluding others at the NRA—a move federal judge Hale described as “nothing less than shocking.”

At the end of the Chapter 11 process, the NRA had lost what was left of its credibility, spent millions of dollars in legal fees, and made various disclosures required by the bankruptcy process — all to have the bankruptcy filing dismissed and for the NRA to end up in an even worse place than where the organization started before the bankruptcy proceeding began.

More NRA Board Members Resign —Rats Deserting The Ship — 

Three NRA board members resigned in the lead-up to the 2021 NRA annual convention (which was cancelled at the last minute due to COVID-19 health concerns). In his purported resignation letter, Mills said he was resigning due to the NRA losing its insurance coverage that covers costs for directors and officers (D&O) in case they are sued because of their role with the organization.

Ted Nugent resigned due to “schedule conflicts,” Theodore Anthony Nugent 12/13/ 1948 is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and activist. He initially gained fame as the lead guitarist and occasional lead vocalist of The Amboy Dukes, a band formed in 1963 that played psychedelic rock and hard rock. After dissolving the band, he embarked on a solo career. Nugent is known for his Gibson Byrdland, his bluesy and frenzied guitar playing and his energetic live shows.

Despite possessing a distinctive, wide-ranging singing voice, Nugent recorded and toured with other lead singers during much of his early solo career, including Derek St. Holmes, Charlie Huhn, Brian Howe, and Meat Loaf, only taking on full lead vocal duties later.   His biggest hit was 1977's "Cat Scratch Fever," on which he sang the lead vocals. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was part of the supergroup Damn Yankees. 

That’s all cool, the druggies loved his riffs. In later years, Nugent has drawn attention for his outspoken conservative political views, as well as his vociferous advocacy of hunting and gun ownership rights.  He is a board member of the National Rifle Association and a strong supporter of the Republican Party.  

He has made several controversial and threatening statements against advocates of gun control; in one case, the Secret Service investigated him based on comments about President Barack Obama.

Susan Howard resigned, reportedly saying she had a “sickness of heart at what I have discovered regarding the lack of leadership in our leaders—they have failed not only the board but the entire membership of millions of faithful contributors.”

These three recent resignations from the NRA’s board of directors brings the number of the resignations in the past two and a half years alone to at least twelve.

Mills is the third NRA board member to resign in recent weeks, after Ted Nugent resigned due to “schedule conflicts” and Susan Howard resigned, reportedly saying in an email she had a “sickness of heart at what I have discovered regarding the lack of leadership in our leaders — they have failed not only the board but the entire membership of millions of faithful contributors.” 

These three recent resignations from the NRA’s board of directors brings the number of the resignations in the past two and a half years alone to at least 12:

Pete Brownell     Timothy Knight     Sean Maloney      Julie Golob     Richard Childress     Craig Morgan     

Dan Boren    Duane Liptak     Ted Nugent    Susan Howard    Tom Selleck   

YACHTS, PRIVATE PLANES, AND MORE FOR CEO WAYNE LAPIERRE — While there has been a trickle of information about extravagant spending at the NRA in past years to the benefit of CEO Wayne LaPierre — Now the books are open It’s not a trickle, it’s more like a distance pissing contest by the Russian Army after a night of free Vodka drinking.  

From the contemplated purchase of a Dallas mansion Multiple Millions of Dollars —  Hundreds of thousands of dollars of expensive designer suits—courtroom battles over the past year publicly spilled new and damning details.

From the onset of the bankruptcy trial, LaPierre’s private jet travel took center stage. One of the major revelations was the disclosure of several spreadsheets allegedly detailing millions of dollars in private travel by NRA executives.

The flights spanned from 2015 through 2019 and represented some of the most detailed disclosure of private travel by NRA executives to date.   The entries included cost, dates, locations, and in some cases, passengers. 

These flights included several trips to Palm Springs, Las Vegas, and the Bahamas.  LaPierre admitted to charging the NRA for private jet travel, including flights for private vacations and trips to pick up his niece in Nebraska.

After public scrutiny about his use of private jets, LaPierre paid the NRA back nearly $300,000 in flight costs—a fraction of the apparent total spent on private flights—

In total, the New York attorney general has alleged that “the NRA paid over $10 million” for LaPierre’s private charter flights during his time at the NRA.

At trial, LaPierre explained that the NRA paid for his personal travel agent, Gayle Stanford, with whom he would book trips and private flights. The travel agent testified that she didn’t have a written contract with the NRA for more than two decades, until 2019.  She testified that, without formal approval, she added a 10 percent fee on all travel booked for the NRA.  According to the New York attorney general, the NRA paid Stanford more than $13.5 million, in aggregate, between August 2014 and January 2020, of which one could estimate personal fees to Stanford of over $1 million.

In deposition testimony played in court, Stanford said that LaPierre had occasionally instructed her how to word invoices for his travel, including invoices that omitted flight details about trips to Nebraska, where his niece lives, and the Bahamas.

Deposition and trial testimony also indicated that LaPierre received expensive benefits and perks from at least two NRA vendor.   Most notably, LaPierre admitted that, starting in 2013, he began making annual weeklong trips to the Bahamas, where he stayed on one of two yachts owned by a Hollywood producer, who is a part or full stakeholder of multiple NRA vendors.   In addition, LaPierre said he also made multiple annual trips around New Year’s Eve to the Bahamas to stay at a resort, also paid for by the producer. 

LaPierre testified that these yacht trips were a “security retreat.”  His claim, in a pretrial deposition, that this more than one-hundred-foot yacht was “the one place” he could “feel safe” after high-profile school shootings was widely criticized by the public and in various press accounts. LaPierre testified, “I was basically under presidential threat without presidential security in terms of the number of threats I was getting,” and that “this yacht was the one place that I hope could feel safe, where I remember getting there going, ‘Thank God I’m safe, nobody can get me here.’

100. In addition, LaPierre admitted that NRA vendor Under Wild Skies covered the costs of hunting trips—including airfare, licenses, professional hunters, and game equipment—to exotic locales like Botswana for him and his wife.   The vendor even reportedly paid to preserve and ship their hunting trophies to the couple’s home.

 This trial testimony came just days ahead of a leaked video that made national news showing LaPierre on one of these hunts in Botswana repeatedly missing his shot and wounding an elephant.   In March 2021, the species of elephant was declared to be endangered. The footage showed LaPierre shooting the elephant several times in the wrong spot, with the host eventually firing the fatal shot after LaPierre was unable to do so.

The footage also showed LaPierre’s wife, Susan LaPierre, shooting and killing an elephant, and then cutting off its tail and holding it over her head while shouting, “Victory!”  Parts of the animals were allegedly surreptitiously shipped to the LaPierre’s by an outside vendor, including the front feet, which were turned into stools for their home.

NRA TRIAL LEAVES UNANSWERED QUESTIONS INFORMATION UNAVAILABLE — The revelations from the NRA’s various legal battles weren’t confined to CEO Wayne LaPierre. Testimony from two other NRA leaders left several questions unanswered.

The organization’s longtime chief financial officer, Woody Phillips, was a key component of the bankruptcy trial—despite not saying much of substance. The New York attorney general played deposition testimony in court showing Phillips invoking his Fifth Amendment rights no fewer than eighty times on several topics, including questions about Wayne LaPierre’s travel, fundraising arrangements with NRA vendors, and LaPierre’s relationship with former longtime PR firm Ackerman McQueen.

106. The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution offers legal protection against self-incrimination by providing individuals with the right not to testify. The decision of Phillips to plead the Fifth Amendment leaves key questions unanswered and foreshadows problems for the NRA in its civil litigation against the New York attorney general—in which Phillips is a named defendant—including whether the testimony from the bankruptcy trial will be used in the New York case, and whether the refusal to testify will result in adverse inferences against the NRA, Phillips, or both that could assist the attorney general’s case.

The NRA attempted to point the finger at Phillips during the bankruptcy trial, with the NRA’s counsel calling him a “man not up for the job.”   This position was undercut by 2019 testimony by Wayne LaPierre—in a separate matter—that he had tried to convince Phillips not to retire and instead to stay at the NRA as CFO.  Further, in May 2018, Phillips and LaPierre both received generous contracts with the NRA. For Phillips, the contract was a $360,000-a-year post employment consulting contract.

Recently departed CFO Craig Spray testified that while the NRA paid Phillips over $600,000 in 2019, Phillips did not provide any services to the NRA’s Treasury Department that year.  The revelation that LaPierre tried to convince Phillips to stay on as CFO and that the NRA provided him such a generous post-employment contract severely undermines the NRA’s central argument at trial that it had righted its own ship internally.

Another bombshell from the NRA bankruptcy trial came when it was revealed that NRA board president Carolyn Meadows had acknowledged that in the early part of 2019, she “destroyed” notes; When asked at a pretrial deposition why she did this, Meadows testified that she was “ told they could be subpoenaed and used.” Meadows testified that she “shredded” some of the documents, while other documents she “actually burned.” While the evidence was not available at trial (nor will it be at future trials), questions remain about what was in those notes.

Litigations, Bankruptcy, and Investigations —  NY ATTORNEYS GENERAL 

Legal proceedings and lawyers continue to dominate the NRA’s day-to-day existence, with the NRA reportedly having spent $22 million on legal fees in the first five months of this year alone.  Over the past year, the NRA has seemingly found itself in the news more for the legal drama that surrounds it, rather than its purported nonprofit purpose of Second Amendment advocacy. 

Most notably, the NRA continues to face existential threats from regulatory lawsuits brought by the attorneys general of New York and the District of Columbia for alleged violations of charities laws. 

The complaint filed by New York attorney general Letitia James includes 18 separate causes of action that largely center around the alleged widespread mismanagement of the NRA as a charity, with CEO Wayne LaPierre as the ringleader of that activity.

According to the attorney general, “LaPierre effectively dominates and controls the NRA Board as a whole through his control of business, patronage and special payment opportunities for board members, and his public allegations to the NRA membership of a ‘criminal conspiracy’ against board members and officers who question his activities.”

On August 16, 2021, the AG’s Office amended its complaint to add new allegations of wrongdoing primarily related to the NRA’s failed bankruptcy.  The new filing alleges that, “The NRA, LaPierre, and General Counsel John Frazer have continued the same course of misconduct in violation of New York law, IRS requirements for exempt organizations, NRA bylaws, and internal policies and procedures without objection from the NRA Board.”

Among other potential remedies, the New York attorney general’s case seeks the dissolution of the NRA. In January 2021, New York Justice Joel Cohen rejected the NRA’s attempt to dismiss the case, or in the alternative move the venue of the case.

Discovery in this case is ongoing, with no trial date set.  The NRA and its sister 501(c)(3) organization, the NRA Foundation, also suffered an initial loss in the case brought against it by District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine. In a December 2020 ruling, DC Superior Court Judge Jose M. Lopez issued an opinion allowing the attorney general’s enforcement action to proceed.

The complaint alleges that the NRA Foundation exceeded and abused the authority of the charity, and that the foundation acted contrary to its nonprofit purpose. The crux of the allegations by the DC attorney general are that, “In recent years, the NRA has experienced financial problems related, in large part, to low membership and the NRA’s decision to continue to waste funds on improper, lavish spending. To plug holes caused by its own poor management, the NRA turned to the Foundation’s funds.”

BANKRUPSTY FILED -- CHAPTER 11 —  As referenced previously, the NRA took the desperate step of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2021. The NRA seemingly availed itself of the bankruptcy process to halt legal proceedings against it by state attorneys general, former vendors, and donors. 

NRA leaders openly admitted this, including board member Bob Barr, who said the bankruptcy “has nothing to do with the NRA’s financial position. . . . It simply is a legal vehicle to move under protection of federal laws, to escape the abuse by the New York authorities.”  The New York and DC attorneys general both objected to the bankruptcy filing, resulting in a twelve-day trial in a Texas bankruptcy court. 

After hearing the evidence, the bankruptcy court threw out the NRA’s case in short order. In a written decision issued on May 11, federal bankruptcy judge Harlin Hale dismissed the NRA’s Chapter 11 filing for not being filed in “good faith,” holding that the “NRA is using this bankruptcy case to address a regulatory enforcement problem, not a financial one.” 

The judge also wrote, “There are several aspects of this case that still trouble the Court,” and said there were “cringeworthy” facts during this trial, something the NRA’s counsel acknowledged. The judge, who presided over the twelve-day trial, wrote, “It has become apparent that the NRA was suffering from inadequate governance and internal controls.”

Judge Hale’s decision in throwing out the case relied largely on the testimony and actions of NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre. Judge Hale wrote, “What concerns the court most though is the surreptitious way Mr. LaPierre obtained and exercised authority to file bankruptcy for the NRA. 

Excluding so many people from the process of deciding to file for bankruptcy, including most of the board of directors, the chief financial officer, and the general counsel, is nothing less than shocking.”

The NRA’s legal battles with its former public relations vendor, Ackerman McQueen, also continue to wind through the courts. Public reports estimate that, prior to a very public and messy separation, the NRA paid Ackerman more than $40 million in a single year for various media services, including the failed NRATV. 

The court previously dismissed significant portions of the NRA’s case against Ackerman McQueen and individual Ackerman McQueen executives, although several contract-related claims remain.

Ackerman has filed counterclaims against the NRA that levy several new and detailed allegations of wrongdoing at the NRA, with causes of action for breach of contract, fraud, defamation, and civil conspiracy all headed to trial.   The case is of significant monetary value, with Ackerman stating that it is seeking over $50 million in damages from the NRA.  The federal court in the Northern District of Texas overseeing the case has previously indicated a trial could be possible in late 2021, although the date could slip into 2022. 

The NRA also faces a donor class action lawsuit brought in federal court in Tennessee by prominent NRA donor David Dell’Aquila. The case is still in its early stages procedurally, but Dell’Aquila alleges that NRA donors were defrauded because NRA funds were spent on items that were not in furtherance of the NRA’s mission. 

Moreover, in November 2020, the NRA paid a $2.5 million fine to settle a case brought by the New York State Department of Financial Services that charged the NRA as acting as an unlicensed insurance producer with respect to its “Carry Guard” insurance program.

The program, which promised to cover an individual’s legal expenses if they shoot someone and claim self-defense, was unveiled at the 2017 NRA annual meeting with much fanfare but has subsequently become a regulatory debacle. 

The state also alleged that the NRA deceived its members with misleading marketing practices. The civil charges brought by the New York State Department of Financial Services followed a multiyear investigation that began in 2017, when the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund conducted and shared with regulators an investigation and legal analysis of the NRA’s Carry Guard program.

The NRA’s legal problems continue to drain the association’s coffers, with the New York Attorney General’s Office indicating that the “NRA has paid the Brewer law firm nearly $75 million in legal fees” from March 2018 to December 2020.  

Tax issues also continue to haunt the NRA. During the NRA’s failed bankruptcy, the Internal Revenue Service alleged that the NRA owed the government more than $3.4 million. About $1.4 million of that sum relates to undisclosed excise taxes and related interest that the NRA failed to pay between 2014 and 2018. 

In 2020, it was reported that Wayne LaPierre, individually, was under criminal investigation for potential tax fraud related to his personal taxes. In trial testimony in front of the bankruptcy court, longtime NRA adviser Tony Makris said that LaPierre told him and other colleagues that lawyer Bill Brewer was the “only one who can keep me out of jail,” and that Brewer was the only one standing between him and “an orange jumpsuit.”

The NRA’s legal problems continue to drain the association’s coffers, with the New York Attorney General’s Office indicating that the “NRA has paid the Brewer law firm nearly $75 million in legal fees” from March 2018 to December 2020.

NRA leaders have spent decades leveraging the energy of extremists for its own ends, in the past year the NRA went to new lengths to embrace rising extremism and conspiracies: peddling COVID-19 misinformation, advancing false and ridiculous QAnon conspiracy theories, supporting armed demonstrations, and more.

Within weeks of the declaration of a pandemic, the NRA was back to the usual playbook: aggravating people’s sense of uncertainty and offering guns as a solution to their fears.  The NRA warned that politicians were “exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic to deny you and your loved ones your fundamental right to self-defense and your Second Amendment rights . . .  against a backdrop of reported prisoner furloughs and law enforcement only arresting for the most serious of crimes.” 

This warning was capped off with an appeal for donations. NRA second Vice President Willes Lee was more blunt, saying that during COVID-19, “You need a firearm to protect from the criminals that Democrats are releasing.” Early in the pandemic, the NRA released a video that warned, “You might be stockpiling up on food right now to get through this current crisis. But if you aren’t preparing to defend your property when everything goes wrong, you’re just stockpiling for somebody else.”

More Lies — You don’t need a firearm until you need a firearm, then you REALLY need a firearm. During China virus, you need a firearm to protect from the criminals that Democrats are releasing.  The states released those with good records, and small offenses, caught with frug etc.  The left cells for the really bad ones.The NRA has become synonymous with mismanagement, extremism, greed, and scandal. Indeed, in many ways the NRA’s rhetoric and positions on gun rights seem ancillary, and primarily in service of keeping donations flowing and existing management in power. 

With scandal continuing to engulf the organization and no change in sight at the top, 2021 and 2022 seem destined to see the NRA veer even further from the mainstream and double down on the failed leadership of Wayne LaPierre.  One of his own members would do the NRA a big favor by taking him down.  He has stolen funds for his greed, lied to the people and killed children — He is not your hero he is Lucifer’s Brother — 

More Lies — The NRA and its leaders have even spread conspiracy theories suggesting that the counts of sick and dead from COVID-19 were fake or inflated. Fact check after fact check has debunked conspiracy theories about the supposed inflation of the number of deaths from COVID-19.

 More Lies —In May 2020, NRA board member and former president Marion Hammer member of the “F*cking Idiots Hall Of Fame complained that publishing “the cumulative number” of COVID-19 patients in a Florida county “without publishing the current number of active cases is deliberately deceptive.

 “ Even in December 2020, the NRA published a piece on its website claiming that the number of deaths from COVID-19 had been inflated by public health officials, a claim it then used to cast aspersions on public health statistics regarding gun deaths.    

The day the piece went up on the NRA’s website, 2,668 people in the United States died from COVID-19.NRA board members reacted to the pandemic by rushing headlong into racist remarks, dismissals, and conspiracy theories. 

MORE LIES — FROM A FEW FRIKKEN IDIOTS — Wayne LaPierre Is Not Alone —

Almost immediately, then-NRA board member Ted Nugent commiserated with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, claiming that the pandemic had arisen from an  “ Evil” Chinese culture that tortures dogs: “This is the same Asian culture of the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking.” 

NRA second vice president Willes Lee, applicant for the “F*cking Idiots Hall Of Fame has used the racist terms “Wuhan virus” and “China virus” online dozens of times and even suggested the virus itself was an “election ploy” that would “go away” after the 2020 election.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK), an NRA board member, dismissed the virus as a “beer virus” and called for citizens “to go forth with our everyday activities.”  

CONFUSED BY THESE REMARKS? —  NOTE:   Alex, Ted  Willes and Don were instantly installed and voted into the “F*cking Idiots Hall of Fame, as there were no objections from the Psychiatrist’s who side on the board and one commented if you need a good example of severe mental illness, these two are on a level with T-RUMP and Kim Jong Un —  Putin and the Village Idiot— 

One of the doctors exclaimed , “  Surprisingly and they let them play with guns —he screamed  “ Sacre Bleu “   
WEBSTER —  Sacre bleu or sacre bleu is a French profanity used as a cry of surprise, irritation or displeasure. It is a minced oath form of the profane sacré dieu, “ Holy God". The Holy God exclamation being profane is related to the third commandment: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”   

The American version  is Holy Sh*t”   which confuses us more since it could mean,   "Sh*t has Holes in It  or Sh*t is Religiously Relevant “.   Hope that clears things up  since most of our TV preachers serve the latter of the two definitions and the Sh*t is mostly handled or dished out by our politicians, TV preachers and some corporations claiming it’s food. 

 

PANDEMICS AND MORE LIES —  NRA board members’ comments on the pandemic did not stop at dismissals: they actively encouraged protests pandemic-related public health restrictions. 

 In a since-deleted video at one such protest, NRA board member Anthony Colandro  ( applicant for the “F*cking Idiots Hall Of Fame) encouraged others to attend the rally and claimed the virus was “a bunch of bullshit” and “a media virus.” He added, “We are being spoon-fed socialism every day and 8.5 million people are just bending over and taking it. . . . Y’know what? I hope you all get an anal probe with a microchip in it because this is what we’ve become: sheep.” 

The NRA also retweeted Donald Trump’s tweet calling to “LIBERATE VIRGINIA.” if T-RUMP said that we think he meant Liberate Vaginas !  He truly is a misogynist woman abusing bastard —  

When protesters at the state capitol in Michigan openly carried long guns and Confederate flags and called for Governor Gretchen Whitmer to be “locked up” over her administration’s pandemic-related public health restrictions, longtime NRA board member and FIHOF member Ted Nugent praised them as his “blood-brothers”  — Hopefully they all bleed to death at one time  - 

While the NRA’s leaders praised armed demonstrations against measures to stop the spread of COVID-19, they leveled cartoonish and offensive accusations against those who protested for racial equity in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Some even maligned Floyd himself.

 NRA board member Allen West (applicant for the “F*cking Idiots Hall Of Fame) said that Black Lives Matter was “no different” from Nazi brownshirts and “cannot be allowed to exist.

” Meanwhile, fellow board member Mark Geist ( applicant for the “F*cking Idiots Hall Of Fame) called the movement a “rancid evil trying to overtake our country.

” NRA second vice president Willes Lee  ( Lifetime member for the “F*cking Idiots Hall Of Fame) referred to the group as “domestic terrorists” and urged Donald Trump to enact national concealed carry reciprocity—a dangerous policy to undermine any requirements for carrying a hidden, loaded gun in public—“for our self-defense.”

Since the renewed calls for racial equity,  Racist, Scumbag, and NAZI,  FIHOF 5th Degree Member in Good Standing Ted Nugent “Thug-punk George Floyd killed himself with fentanyl while he disgraced his family his community, his race,  and his country.”   shared a meme complaining that Black people had yet to thank white people for ending slavery and falsely claimed that,  

While the NRA’s leaders blasted those protesting for racial equity, the organization remained silent about the disproportionately violent response from police around the country.   For decades, the NRA has spread conspiracy theories and fearmongered about a supposedly looming authoritarian police state that was only held at bay by easy access to guns. But when police responded with unwarranted force at protests racism, the NRA stayed silent

Donald T-RUMP Past president of the FIHOF was hardly the only candidate with extremist beliefs whom the NRA endorsed in 2020. 

Last year, NRA board member Mark Robinson won election as lieutenant governor of North Carolina. Robinson, who received NRA support, has a history of making anti-Semitic and homophobic statements, including in an interview he gave with a far-right religious leader who plans to become king of the United States. 

 Among others, the NRA also endorsed multiple candidates for state and federal office who had espoused beliefs in the QAnon conspiracy theory, including:                   Scramble Spell Test: These women are :   u n t s c 

Marjorie Taylor Greene  —     In addition to embracing QAnon, Greene has ties to multiple far-right extremist organizations, has harassed school shooting survivors, and has endorsed conspiracy theories that the Sandy Hook and Parkland shootings were “false flag” events.

Lauren Boebert,  has been featured in NRA publications for years, including earlier this year when one called her a “brave, Glock-toting woman” who is “unstoppable.” In addition, at least five NRA board members have shared QAnon-related content online. 

The NRA’s embrace of QAnon conspiracy theorists is hardly surprising. For decades, the NRA has enabled access to guns by right-wing extremists through its advocacy against common sense gun laws, while simultaneously harnessing the extremists’ fixation on guns and a violent response to perceived government overreach. In doing so, the gun lobby has amplified radicalizing messaging to new and broader audiences. 

Simply put, the NRA has long claimed that the threat of an armed insurrection is the only thing stopping an authoritarian takeover of the American government and that easy access to guns is crucial to an armed popular uprising. With this faulty logic in place, the NRA can use conspiracy theories to paint even the most modest change to gun laws from an opposing candidate as the first step in an insidious plan to implement authoritarianism, thus increasing fear among the electorate and generating money and political motivation for its cause. 

As the NRA’s former number two recently put it in a tell-all book, Wayne LaPierre knew that when the NRA needed to raise money, it could depend on fear-mongering messaging, which LaPierre purportedly referred to as pouring “gasoline on the fire.”  This sort of rhetoric continued around the 2020 election.  In October 2020, LaPierre addressed the NRA’s Annual Meeting of Members. Explaining that the stakes in the election “couldn’t be higher,” LaPierre encouraged members to “fight like your very right to survival is on the line in this national election.”

And in January 2021, LaPierre sent a letter to members warning of “armed government agents storming your house, taking your guns, and hauling you off to prison.”  The note boasted that “only the NRA has the strength to win knock-down brawls on Capitol Hill.”

Continuing Financial Turmoil at the NRA — The pandemic has been financially devastating for many individuals and organizations around the country. Within two weeks of the declaration of a pandemic, reports emerged that the NRA was preparing layoffs and implementing a 20 percent pay cut for employees. By June 2020, we learned of the extent of those measures: the NRA had laid off or furloughed 200 staff members.

One unnamed NRA official warned at the time that the layoffs and furloughs “have further harmed both the NRA’s legal capacity and political influence beyond what was already a troubling deterioration.” A court filing indicated that by early 2021, the NRA had been reduced to 490 employees, down from the 770 it reported at the start of 2020 and just over half the recent high reported four years earlier.   court filing indicated that by early 2021, the NRA had been reduced to 490 employees, down from the 770 it reported at the start of 2020 and just over half the recent high reported four years previous.

The NRA’s leadership blamed the pandemic, claiming:  “Like every other business and nonprofit, we are forced to make tough choices in this new economic environment” created by the pandemic. However, 2019, the last year for which there is a full public accounting of the NRA’s financial state, was the fourth year in a row that the NRA had run a deficit.

In January 2020, just two months before the start of the pandemic, Wayne LaPierre was recorded telling the NRA board of directors that the organization had taken “about a $100 million hit in lost revenue and real cost to this association in 2018 and 2019,” due to the various legal issues facing it. He also said that for the NRA “to survive,” he took “about $80 million” out of the budget and “took it down to the studs.”

LaPierre’s statement and the NRA’s various disclosures from the previous several years made it clear that the group’s leaders had left it in a precarious financial position. As one expert noted, “Everybody’s in the same boat as the NRA. The NRA’s real problem is they had real existing financial problems before this happened.”

Through mandated financial disclosures, more information has been divulged about that precarious position. Those disclosures have revealed that, in response to the organization’s financial problems, NRA leaders have targeted programs relating to safety, education, training, and hunting services.

SPENDING CUTS  —    In 2019, the NRA cut spending on  “Safety, education & training” by approximately $4.3 million  —  For at least the second year in a row, less than 10 percent of what the NRA spent was dedicated to that category.

In fact, in those two years, the NRA cut spending on “Safety, education & training” by approximately a third. Meanwhile, 2020 marked the third year in a row that the NRA cut spending on “Hunter Services” by more than 60 percent.  

That year, “Hunter Services” accounted for less than 0.08 percent of the NRA’s reported spending.
In addition, the NRA’s “Eddie Eagle” gun safety program for children “ Has essentially fallen apart,” with a drop of some 95 percent in 2020 in terms of the number of children the program reached.

 
More Wasted Ill Money — Keeping Them Out of Jail —   At the same time the NRA was cutting spending for training and hunter services, it spent more on lawyers. The NRA hired its top outside law firm, Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors, three years ago. Although the picture of how much the NRA has paid the firm is incomplete, the New York Attorney General’s Office indicates that the “NRA has paid the Brewer law firm nearly $75 million in legal fees” from March 2018 to December 2020.

The NRA reported nearly $45.9 million in “Legal, Audit and Taxes” spending in 2019,250 percent increase in two years. Separately, media reports indicate that the NRA’s legal spending on outside counsel in 2020 even exceeded its 2019 expenditures, and as of the first several months of 2021, was on pace to match or even surpass that spending this year on outside legal fees.

A large portion of the $22 million the NRA reportedly spent on legal fees in just the first five months of 2021 was likely driven by legal fees for the NRA’s failed attempt at bankruptcy. In its initial bankruptcy filings, the NRA disclosed that it had already dedicated more than $6 million for the bankruptcy before it even filed. 

Further, the New York Attorney General’s Office has alleged that the bankruptcy “cost the NRA tens of millions of dollars in attorneys’ fees, payments to proposed restructuring officers, costs relating to special board meetings necessitated by the filing, and other expenses” (emphasis added).

The New York Attorney General’s Office has alleged that the bankruptcy “cost the NRA tens of millions of dollars in attorneys’ fees, payments to proposed restructuring officers, costs relating to special board meetings necessitated by the filing, and other expenses”.   Given the way the NRA leadership has spent its members’ money in recent years, it’s hardly surprising that in 2019 alone, the organization’s revenue from membership dues dropped by a third to its lowest levels in seven years.  That drop, along with a $10 million decrease in contributions, meant that the NRA’s revenue was down by more than $57 million, or 13 percent, in 2019.

Reports indicate that the NRA’s total revenue declined again in 2020 and revenue was lagging even the 2020 figure through the first several months of 2021.

NRA Election Failures Underscore Its Waning Influence —   If you look at what has happened to the NRA’s public image and their public communications in the last three years, it’s a graduate level course in what not to do in communication. That organization in 2016 was at its pinnacle, and perhaps the most powerful political organization in the United States at the time. 

And in three years, it has disappeared from the scene, not mentioned, not heard of, and you just got a textbook example of what a national election looks like without the NRA involved.” Tony Makris, Longtime NRA advisor and supporter —  Now thinking he was  a supporter, a jockstrap for the organization — 

Due in large part to scandal, legal bills, and extremism, the NRA’s declining influence in the policy and electoral sphere was on full display in the past year. At the ballot box, the NRA lost the three races in which it invested the most organizational resources: the White House and the two US Senate races in Georgia.   

The contrast between 2016 and 2020 could not be starker. In 2016, the NRA was the largest independent group supporting Donald Trump’s candidacy, spending a reported $31.2 million on the presidential race.   In 2020, the amount the NRA spent supporting Trump dropped some 47 percent, to $16.6 million.  Overall, the NRA’s spending on all federal elections dropped from $54.4 million in 2016 to $29.1 million in 2020.

The huge drop in federal election spending could be explained by the group’s many financial and legal troubles, as Donald Trump himself speculated that,  “they’re spending all of their money on fighting the attorney general of New York” instead of spending to support his campaign. 

The New York Times noted the NRA’s muted appearance in 2020, writing, “Long the nation’s most powerful gun lobby, the NRA played a diminished role in the 2020 election, hampered by financial woes and a host of legal challenges.”

The NRA did, however, invest quite seriously in the Georgia Senate runoff elections. The group poured at least $4.5 million to support Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.  Weeks before the runoff election, the NRA claimed, “The stakes of this Senate runoff could not be higher” and emphasized, “Georgia is the key to protecting our right to keep and bear arms.”  Ultimately, both NRA-backed candidates lost, giving Democrats the majority in the US Senate for the first time since 2014. 

One NRA publication lamented the loss, writing, “After the 2016 election, gun owners had a president, a US House of Representatives and a U.S. Senate that respected their elementary rights. On Inauguration Day, all three will be gone, to be replaced by a president who promises to ‘defeat the NRA,’  A US House of Representatives run by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and a Senate majority leader who is vowing to ‘change America.”

 A T-RUMP Bump In The Road —   In a recent tell-all memoir, former NRA chief of staff Josh Powell casts doubt on whether the NRA had any meaningful lobbying strategy with the Trump White House. Powell recalls that in early 2017, he met with Steve Bannon at the White House, where Bannon asked him “What do I need to do for you guys?” 

Powell responded, “Number one, we need money, we’re broke — we spent every dime on the election supporting the president.   Number two, we need national reciprocity. Honestly, that’s our legislative priority.” As Powell reports, he then realized that neither Steve Bannon nor Jared Kushner knew what concealed carry reciprocity was, and that no one in the White House knew about the bill that had passed the House. 

Powell opined, “Clearly Chris Cox, our chief lobbyist, was not creating enough noise.  Yet inside the NRA he was claiming, ‘I’ve got this covered.’ Well, he didn’t.”  “I’ve gotten a lot of calls from Republicans in the Senate who don’t want to fight this fight any longer because the NRA’s authority is fading, the anti-gun-violence movement’s impact is increasing, and I think we have a chance.”

US Senator Chris Murphy — GOP-NRA COLLUSION

The NRA’s declining influence is also evidenced in its increasing partisanship. Earlier in 2021, Jason Ouimet, the executive director of the NRA’s lobbying arm, claimed that the “NRA has been and continues to be a nonpartisan organization that endorses politicians across the political spectrum.”

In practice, the NRA almost exclusively supports Republican candidates for federal office. According to the New York Times, the NRA “continues to lose ground in Congress, with the last remnants of its Democratic support vanishing and its still-high Republican support eroding slightly.”

 In its attempt to keep lawmakers in check, the NRA brands legislators with letter grades, assessments that have become more stratified and polarized over time. For the second election in a row, the NRA gave more F's than As in 2020.

Of the candidates in 2020 whose grades changed since their last election, three times as many had their grades downgraded compared to those whose grades were upgraded.  In addition, the number of A-rated Democrats in both houses of Congress declined from sixty-three in 2008 to zero today. In fact, there is currently only one Democrat in Congress with a rating better than a C.