As NRA Leadership Fight Spills Into Public, N.Y. Attorney General Opens Investigation [View all]

[pnwmom]

Last edited Sat Apr 27, 2019, 07:40 PM - Edit history (4)

Source: NPR

Even as the NRA struggled to handle its internal divisions, an external threat emerged this weekend in the form of a new investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

"The Office of New York State Attorney General Letitia James has launched an investigation related to the National Rifle Association (NRA)," a spokesperson for the attorney general told NPR. "As part of this investigation, the Attorney General has issued subpoenas. We will not have further comment at this time."

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/27/717808885/oliver-north-says-he-will-not-seek-a-2nd-term-as-nra-president

---

https://www.thedailybeast.com/nra-suspends-top-lawyer-while-oliver-north-warns-group-could-lose-nonprofit-status

Steve Hart, the longtime lawyer for the National Rifle Association board, has been suspended from that role, two people with knowledge of the move told The Daily Beast.

In addition, Col. Oliver North-who announced his departure from the powerful gun rights group this morning-has warned board members that the organization could lose its nonprofit status.


AND SOME BACKGROUND FROM APRIL 17:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/secrecy-self-dealing-and-greed-at-the-nra

LaPierre is right that the N.R.A. is troubled; in recent years, it has run annual deficits of as much as forty million dollars. It is not unusual for nonprofits to ask prospective donors to help forestall disaster. What is unusual is the extent to which such warnings have become the central activity of the N.R.A. Even as the association has reduced spending on its avowed core mission--gun education, safety, and training--to less than ten per cent of its total budget, it has substantially increased its spending on messaging. The N.R.A. is now mainly a media company, promoting a life style built around loving guns and hating anyone who might take them away.

SNIP

Loesch and Noir have become the primary public faces of the N.R.A.; at events, enormous banners feature their images alongside those of LaPierre and Chris Cox, the organization’s top lobbyist. But Loesch and Noir are not technically employed by the N.R.A. Instead, they are paid by Ackerman McQueen, a public-relations firm based in Oklahoma. In at least one year, Loesch earned close to a million dollars, according to a source who has seen her contract.

SNIP

The N.R.A. and Ackerman have become so intertwined that it is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. Top officials and staff move freely between the two organizations; Oliver North, the former Iran-Contra operative, who now serves as the N.R.A.’s president, is paid roughly a million dollars a year through Ackerman, according to two N.R.A. sources. But this relationship, which in many ways has built the contemporary N.R.A., seems also to be largely responsible for the N.R.A.’s dire financial state. According to interviews and to documents that I obtained—federal tax forms, charity records, contracts, corporate filings, and internal communications—a small group of N.R.A. executives, contractors, and venders has extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from the nonprofit’s budget, through gratuitous payments, sweetheart deals, and opaque financial arrangements. Memos created by a senior N.R.A. employee describe a workplace distinguished by secrecy, self-dealing, and greed, whose leaders have encouraged disastrous business ventures and questionable partnerships, and have marginalized those who object. “Management has subordinated its judgment to the vendors,” the documents allege. “Trust in the top has eroded.”