Thoughts and Prayers for the NRA Circular Firing Squad
When convicted felon Oliver North says a organization is too corrupt for him, there must be something really rotten going on...
Amid all the bad news from this past weekend comes some hope. The National Rifle Association, once a powerhouse of domestic politics, is descending into self-induced chaos.
An internal power struggle, brought on in part by the prospect of investigations by New York Attorney General Letitia James, spilled into public view on the eve of its annual meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Allegations of financial misconduct, lawsuits, and (reportedly) looming bankruptcy led to a failed coup against NRA Chief Executive Wayne Lapierre, the resignation of President Oliver North, and the suspension of the organization’s external council.
From MSNBC:
On his way out the door, North, whose resignation was not voluntary, said in his resignation letter that there’s “a clear crisis” within the organization.
That seems like a fair assessment. Before his own ouster, North sought LaPierre’s resignation, accusing the group’s longtime leader of financial improprieties, including allegations LaPierre spent more than $200,000 on “wardrobe purchases … that were charged to a vendor.” There are reportedly additional questions surrounding the lack of transparency surrounding the NRA’s contract with Ackerman McQueen.
LaPierre retaliated, told the board North was trying to divide the organization, and North clearly lost the fight. That does not, however, mean the drama is over.
And there was the not-so-insignificant matter of Russian not-really-a-spy Maria Butina being sentenced on the eve of the convention.
The Justice Department memo requesting an 18 month sentencing for Butina included insights into her activities from a counterintelligence viewpoint, according to David Corn at Mother Jones:
Though this matter was left unaddressed by the Mueller report, the Justice Department filing in the Butina case details how Butina, the thirtysomething Russian native who described herself as a gun rights advocate, had used the NRA and the Republican Party in an effort to obtain clandestine influence for Moscow within US politics.
And that submission included a statement from a former top FBI counterintelligence expert who noted that Butina’s activities had “tremendous intelligence value” for the Russian government and the potential for “harm to the integrity of the United States’ political processes and internal government dealings, as well as to US foreign policy interests and national security.”
Lawsuits, legal claims, and investigations, oh my.
A campaign finance watchdog and gun safety group filed a lawsuit last week alleging the NRA operated a complex network of shell corporations to unlawfully coordinate expenditures with the campaigns of at least seven candidates in the 2016 elections. Nine US Senators have also called for an investigation into this matter.
The activist group Everytown for Gun Safety filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service in the wake of a New Yorker article claiming "a small group of N.R.A. executives, contractors, and vendors has extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from the nonprofit’s budget, through gratuitous payments, sweetheart deals, and opaque financial arrangements."
Marc Owens, a former IRS official who oversaw tax-exempt enterprises at the agency, was quoted saying “The litany of red flags is just extraordinary... ...Those facts, if confirmed, could lead to the revocation of the N.R.A.’s tax-exempt status."
Saturday brought news of yet another investigation, this one by the New York Attorney General, into the tax exempt status of the organization.
All this bad news comes after the NRA’s disastrous performance in the 2018 midterm elections, losing 33 contests as they were outspent by gun safety groups. States enacted more than three times as many gun control measures in 2018 as in 2017.
Still, the NRA Convention is also a trade show, and many attendees were unaware or didn’t care about the group’s legal and political problems.
From Vice News:
On the 15-acre exhibition floor in downtown Indianapolis, attendees — overwhelmingly white, male, and over 50 — gushed over the latest gun models, posed for photos with martial arts icon Chuck Norris, and grumbled about socialism.
Both Vice President Mike Pence and President Donald Trump were featured speakers at this year’s convention. I should mention here that 74,600 Americans have died from gun violence since the 2016 election.
As news of the organization’s controversies made its way into the media, the President felt obliged to jump in with his latest revelation, namely that all investigations he doesn’t like are somehow “illegal.”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1122853926087348224
The New York AG has them by the shorthairs, as Josh Marshall writes at Talking Points Memo:
What I didn’t realize until this weekend were the full dimensions of the NRA’s relationship to New York State. A state Attorney General has standing to investigate any organization doing business in their state. In this case, the NRA (ironically) is based in New York State. That’s where it’s chartered as an organization in 1871, even though it’s long been headquartered in Virginia.
I got all that. But I’d figured it would be at least a relatively simple matter to reregister in another state. It’s not. Tim Mak discussed this on Twitter over the weekend. Not only does a potential move implicate all of the organization’s contracts, assets, legal status etc, there’s something specific under New York State law. According to Mak, under New York state law an organization like the NRA needs the permission of the Attorney General to dissolve and reestablish itself in another state.
Aside from their ideological affinities, the NRA/Trump connection has an important history:
The NRA played a big, big role in the 2016 election for Donald Trump, spending dramatically more than it had in previous elections. Part of that pivotal role was tied to the fact that the Trump campaign proper had little ground operation for the general election. The NRA basically supplied one. The organization spent $30 million supporting Donald Trump and over $55 million in total, according to formal reporting. These numbers have escalated dramatically over the last four election cycles. But the actual spending was likely far higher since a lot of its field organizing work doesn’t have to be reported.
The NRA is a lobbyist organization for the weapons industry. Their mission is to keep Americans so terrified that they arm themselves to the teeth.
It’s fitting for me to give the last quote in this story (via the Washington Post) to those who have fought so hard to diminish the NRA’s influence over the years.
What I think we’re seeing is an organization that once claimed to represent all gun owners in America that over the years became obsessed with power and money, and now it is power and money that is fracturing its leadership at its own convention,” said Peter Ambler, executive director of the gun-control group Giffords.
Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said she thinks the NRA has become a “propaganda machine” that is not focusing on firearms education and safety — something she said her organization is doing.
“They deserve a nonprofit status like a Superfund [site] deserves organic certification, and it needs to be revoked,” she said. “Join Brady — that’s really our message.”
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Lead photo by the Backbone Campaign, via Flickr