The NRA gets sued
And doesn't take it lying down...
Most of this comes from the Associated Press so blame them and the state of New York if you don’t like it.
Last week New York’s attorney general – Letitia James – sued the National Rifle Association. She claims top NRA executives illegally diverted tens of millions of dollars and used them for personal trips, no-show contracts for associates and other questionable expenditures.
Which sounds pretty much like standard operating procedure for every major corporation I ever heard of…why go after the NRA?
Turns out the NRA was chartered as a nonprofit organization in New York in 1871 and nonprofits have rules that James says the NRA hasn’t been following.
Meanwhile, the Washington, D.C. attorney general also sued the NRA Foundation – a charitable arm of the NRA which is supposed to provide programs for firearm safety and marksmanship – and accused it of diverting funds to the NRA to help pay for the spending being done by the top executives.
Here’s what the D.C. Attorney General, Karl Racine, had to say about that:
“Charitable organizations function as public trusts – and District law requires them to use their funds to benefit the public, not to support political campaigns, lobbying or private interests. With this lawsuit, we aim to recover donated funds that the NRA Foundation wasted.”
According to the AP story the NRA went from a nearly $28 million surplus in 2015 to a $36 million deficit in 2018.
He wasn’t the only executive named in the lawsuit, but Wayne La Pierre, the NRA’s CEO, is accused of …hang on this might take a while …spending millions on private travel and personal security, accepting expensive gifts from vendors like an African safari and use of a 107-foot yacht and setting himself up with a $17 million NRA contract if he leaves the organization.
An article on the Business Insider website said LaPierre was paid $1.4 million in 2017 (according to NRA-filed tax documents) and the Washington Post found that he made more than $5 million in 2015, so one way or another LaPierre has made a pretty good living off the NRA.
NRA President Carolyn Meadows claimed the lawsuits were politically motivated and Donald Trump got involved and said if Joe Biden is elected president the government is going to take away your guns and I guess they could start at Joe’s house because apparently he’s a gun owner himself. (Not sure I’d want Joe running around with a loaded gun in a high-stress situation, but that’s another column and I’ve got my hands full with this one.)
Anyway…
It’s also interesting that if federal agents come to your town to break up demonstrations they’re the good guys and if federal agents come to your house to take your guns they’re the bad guys, but we’ve always known Donald Trump has a very flexible view of reality.
All that led to the cartoon posted above.
In response to the lawsuit and/or lawsuits, LaPierre issued a statement that said in part: “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. The NRA is well governed, financially solvent, and committed to good governance. We’re ready for the fight. Bring it on.”
Wayne left out the “cold, dead hands” part, but I feel confident it applies.
Oh how the mighty have fallen!