A bombshell lawsuit has been filed against America’s powerful gun lobby group, the National Rifle Association (NRA).
At a media conference today, New York Attorney-General Letitia James announced she was seeking to “dissolve the organisation in its entirety”.
She accused the NRA’s leaders of illegally using millions of dollars from its reserves to fund their own “lavish lifestyles”.
“The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organisation went unchecked for decades while top executives funnelled millions into their own pockets,” Ms James said.
“For years, the NRA diverted millions and millions of dollars away from its charitable mission for personal use by senior leadership. (It awarded) contracts to the financial gain of close associates and family, and appeared to dole out lucrative no-show contracts to former employees in order to buy their silence and continued loyalty.
“The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA. Because no organisation is above the law.”
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The NRA’s headquarters are in Fairfax, Virginia, about 30km west of Washington D.C, but it is registered as a not-for-profit charitable organisation in New York.
The lawsuit charges the NRA as a whole, along with four individual defendants. Those people are CEO and executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, former treasurer and chief financial officer Wilson Phillips, executive director of general operations Joshua Powell, and general counsel John Frazer.
“These individuals in the NRA are charged with failing to manage the NRA’s funds and failing to follow numerous federal and state laws, which contributed to the loss of more than $64 million in just three years,” Ms James said.
“Since its founding in 1871, the NRA has been a registered not-for-profit charitable organisation in the state of New York. And these organisations are required by law to register and file annual financial reports with the office of the New York State Attorney-General.
“The assets of such an organisation are legally required to be used in a way that serves the interests of NRA membership and that advance the organisation’s charitable mission. However, as today’s complaint lays out, we’ve found that the NRA instead fostered a culture of noncompliance and disregard for internal controls that led to the waste and loss of millions in assets, and contributed to the NRA’s current, deteriorated financial state.”
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The NRA has filed a countersuit against Ms James, calling the lawsuit a “premeditated attack” on the “Second Amendment freedoms” the organisation defends.
The Second Amendment is the one that enshrines a “right of the people to keep and bear arms” in the US Constitution, though its exact meaning has long been a subject of fierce debate.
“It’s a transparent attempt to score political points and attack the leading voice in opposition to the leftist agenda,” NRA president Carolyn Meadows said.
“This has been a power grab by a political opportunist, a desperate move that is part of a rank political vendetta. Our members won’t be intimidated or bullied in their defence of political and constitutional freedom.
“We not only will not shrink from this fight – we will confront it and prevail.”
Mr LaPierre – one of the four individual defendants named by Ms James – also issued a statement slamming the lawsuit.
“The Attorney-General’s actions are an affront to democracy and freedom. This is an unconstitutional, premeditated attack aiming to dismantle and destroy the NRA, the fiercest defender of America’s freedom at the ballot box for decades,” Mr LaPierre said.
“The NRA is well governed, financially solvent and committed to good governance. We’re ready for the fight. Bring it on.”
Reporters asked US President Donald Trump for his reaction to the news on the lawn of the White House, before he boarded Marine One for a trip to Ohio.
“I just heard about that. That’s a very terrible thing that just happened,” Mr Trump said.
“I think the NRA should move to Texas and lead a very good and beautiful life, and I’ve told them that for a long time.
“I think they should move to Texas. Texas would be a great place. Or to another state of their choosing. But I would say that Texas would be a great place and an appropriate place for the NRA.
“This has been going on for a long time. They’ve been absolutely decimated by the cost of that lawsuit, and it’s very sad. But I would suggest that that’s what they should be doing.”
The lawsuit lays out, in detail, the state of New York’s allegations, including the defendants’ “improper” spending.
“LaPierre routinely abused his authority as executive vice president of the NRA to cause the NRA to improperly incur and reimburse him for expenses that were entirely for LaPierre’s personal benefit and violated NRA policy,” it alleges.
Those expenses included alleged trips on private jets “for purely personal reasons”, holidays on a luxurious yacht in the Bahamas, the use of costly black car services, gifts for “favoured friends”, lucrative consulting contracts for former employees and board members, and “excessive” security costs.
The court filing highlights numerous examples of times Mr LaPierre organised private flights for members of his family, some of which cost tens of thousands of dollars. It alleges they did not serve any business purpose.
Mr LaPierre and his family reportedly went to the Bahamas at least eight times in about three years, costing the NRA more than $500,000.
And he is accused of using his position as head of the charitable organisation to “intimidate, punish and expel anyone at a senior level who raised concerns about his conduct”.
The allegations against Mr Phillips, Mr Powell and Mr Frazer are similar.
“Each of them regularly ignored, overrode or otherwise violated the bylaws and internal policies and procedures that they were charged with enforcing,” the lawsuit says.
“As a result of these repeated violations, charitable assets were diverted to benefit NRA insiders and favoured vendors.”
During her media conference, Ms James compared her pursuit of the NRA with her case against Mr Trump’s charity, the Trump Foundation, which was forced to shut down in 2018 after the President was found to have misused its charitable funds for political purposes.
Mr Trump also had to pay more than $2 million in damages to eight different charities.
“They (LaPierre and co) violated the law. And we came to the conclusion, based on our thorough investigation, that enough was enough, and we need to step in and dissolve this corporation, just as we did with the Trump Foundation,” she said.
Ms James denied she was going after the NRA for political reasons.
“(This investigation) is based on the facts. We follow the facts and the law,” she said.
“As a result of that, we’ve come to the conclusion that the NRA, unfortunately, was serving as a personal piggy bank to four individual defendants.
“This has nothing to do with my personal opinion with regard to gun violence.”
A reporter asked why she was pushing for the NRA to dissolve, instead of simply calling for the four men in question to be removed.
“Because the corruption was so broad, and because of the level of waste, and because they have basically destroyed all of the assets of the corporation,” Ms James said.