Tombstone, Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)- It’s hard to imagine a scenario where Letitia James, the NRA-hating Attorney General of New York, would turn out to be the NRA’s savior, but that’s how things are stacking up at this point.

The “leaders” of the NRA Board of Directors made it clear during the Members’ Meeting on Saturday that anyone criticizing Wayne LaPierre is just a hateful hater spewing hate and trying to tear down the NRA, and should be ignored and ostracized.

The full Board, or at least the 62 (out of 76) Directors who bothered to attend the Monday board meeting, reinforced that message with a resounding vote to reelect LaPierre, 54 to 1, with 7 abstentions.

This was probably the NRA board’s last chance to send a message to the New York judge who is going to rule on Letitia James’ lawsuit against the Association, to let him know that the whole organization isn’t corrupt or willfully blind to the failings of their long-time Executive Vice President and his closest allies. Instead, the Board sent the exact opposite message, inviting the judge to replace the entire Board at the same time that he removes LaPierre and NRA Secretary and General Counsel John Frazer, and installs an overseer to reorganize the 151-year old organization. I expect to see all of that ordered in early 2023 when this case finally gets to trial.

I have no doubt that the NRA will immediately appeal when the judge rules in favor of James – which is a foregone conclusion, based on the overwhelming evidence that’s readily available – and many Directors will claim to their dying day that the whole thing was a politically-motivated sham, made up by us hateful haters. They’ll just keep shoveling more and more millions of dollars into the pockets of Bill Brewer, their carpetbagging New York lawyer now based in Texas who is on record as contributing to Hillary Clinton and “Beto” O’Rourke, as long as there’s money available – which might not be much longer.

The evidence of corruption is overwhelming and easily accessed through the transcripts of the NRA’s failed bankruptcy case. I’m frankly surprised that the NY AG’s office hasn’t expanded their list of named defendants in the case to include more, if not most, members of the Board, but perhaps that will come after the case moves into the discovery phase later this year when details on payments from Wayne’s special “Consultant Fund,” to members of the Board and various other “friends of Wayne” come out into the open.

One thing I want to make clear: I don’t personally believe that Wayne was actively & intentionally engaged in straight-up embezzlement.

But it is apparent that he created an environment where corruption flourished. I think there’s a good chance that Woody Phillips, Wayne’s hand-picked Treasurer for over 26 years, might have been engaged in that sort of brazen criminal activity, just as he allegedly did at his previous employer. And I think it’s pretty clear that Woody was also using NRA money to enrich and endear himself to some of his friends and close associates.

It was Wayne’s responsibility, along with the members of the Audit Committee, to have caught that and put a stop to it, but they never did. It also appears that Wayne’s hand-picked deputy, Josh Powell, deliberately padded his expense accounts and snagged money wherever and however he could, while making a mess of virtually everything he touched, and mistreating NRA employees and contractors in the process.

Again Wayne or other NRA “leaders” failed to take timely corrective action. In other words, they failed to do their jobs – a job LaPierre was paid handsomely to fail at. It seems that Wayne was more patsy than criminal. Used by unscrupulous money-grubbers who convinced him that this, that, or some other scheme, was a great idea. That these would be a feather in his cap, a boon for the NRA, a fundraising gold mine, etc.. And that it was only fair and reasonable that the folks putting the deals together should receive some reward. Wayne should also benefit personally from the deals, as everyone knows that Wayne is the “hardest working man in Washington,” and owed way more than the $1.8 million he’s currently being paid…

In short, I think Wayne was – and is – a tool, who was good at schmoozing and making rich guys feel important and generous, and who let scoundrels prosper at the NRA’s expense, while they made sure he was always getting a hefty cut of the spoils. He was sloppy and cavalier about his fiduciary responsibilities to the Association, and unwilling to see the corruption among his “friends” and associates, especially when he and his wife were personally benefiting in the process.

I don’t hate Wayne, and I certainly don’t hate the NRA. I’ve spent some 40 years trying to help make the NRA more responsive, efficient, and effective. I don’t begrudge anyone for receiving reasonable pay for good work, and I understand that good and conscientious men can disagree on the best course of action in the face of political threats. I firmly believe in the proverb of iron sharpening iron, and while I won’t try to claim that there’s no personal animosity between myself and some of the folks at the top of the NRA, I try hard to keep things away from personal feelings and stay focused on verifiable facts.

I definitely don’t think it right or appropriate for the CEO of a nonprofit organization like the NRA, to beg for $20 or $100 donations from average Americans, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck or are on a fixed income, while that CEO is being paid over a million dollars per year – or anything close to that. LaPierre’s $1.8 million dollars per year breaks down to about $34,000 per week, or $150,000 per month – over 4 times what the President of the United States is paid. Meanwhile, the NRA routinely sends out fundraising letters over LaPierre’s signature, breathlessly warning about the rising threats to gun rights, and begging members to dig deep and send $20, $50, $100, or whatever they can afford…

I find that repugnant.

I believe the events of this past weekend have sealed the NRA’s fate. I see no chance of avoiding a loss in the New York lawsuit, and I’m just thankful that the judge in the case appears to be fair and reasonable. I believe he will rule in favor of Letitia James and New York, and will remove those in control of the NRA, probably with at least some hefty fines, if not the full restitution that James is calling for. I believe the judge will place the association under the auspices of a caretaker manager tasked with reorganization for the benefit of the members.

While the NRA will undoubtedly appeal (unless they really go bankrupt first or negotiate some sort of settlement – which I think is highly unlikely) and they will call for the judge’s orders to be stayed during the appeal. I believe it is unlikely that the judge will allow the current “leadership” to remain in control of the Association and its assets for a minute longer than he must.

My big fear is that NRA members and donors will dry up when all of this happens. Some out of anger that they were duped, and others out of doubt that the appointed manager will guide the Association in the right direction. So I hope the Judge can find a manager that NRA members will respect, or that he’ll include a person or panel to advise the manager on ideological matters and provide reassurance to the members, that the Association is returning to its core principles. There is a chance that under the appointed manager NRA’s political activities could be held to a minimum, if not prohibited altogether, which is another concern.

No matter what happens next, the NRA has a long and difficult road ahead, and it’s anyone’s bet as to whether the organization will ever be the strong beacon of liberty that it ought to be. The lawsuit is supposed to enter the discovery phase by the end of the year and go to trial by early next year, so until then, there’s little that anyone can do to impact the Association’s future, other than to pray for the best possible outcome.

My efforts will continue to focus on building The Firearms Coalition and fighting the gun control that will inevitably grow out of the recent horrors in Buffalo and Uvalde.

Tombstone, Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)-  I reported last week that a group of influential NRA reformers was attempting to draft LTC. Allen West, to run against Wayne LaPierre for the CEO position in the NRA, and today West has confirmed that he is officially a candidate for the NRA’s top job.

Readers should all be aware by now that there are some serious problems at the NRA, and those problems revolve around long-time EVP/CEO Wayne LaPierre, and a small contingent of NRA Directors, determined to shield him and keep him in power, regardless of the damage to, or total destruction of, the NRA, this is causing.

NRA members have been paying LaPierre between $1 million and $2 million dollars per year for the past decade (last year it was $1.6 million), and almost that much for the two decades before that. But while LaPierre has been scraping by on this meager pittance – which amounts to more per month than the average NRA member earns in a year – LaPierre has also been awarding himself certain perks at NRA members’ expense.

Including personal trips on private jets for himself and his family members, luxury accommodations everywhere he goes, lucrative contracts to friends and spouses of NRA executives and former executives, and acceptance of a wide array of gifts and favors from NRA vendors, including repeated use of a fully-staffed, luxury yacht in the Bahamas. not tom mention over three-quarters of a million dollars worth of clothing, and African hunting safaris for him and his wife.

LaPierre admits to these things, and to failing to report most of them to the NRA Audit Committee as potential conflicts of interest, as required by NRA policy and New York law. He also admits to unilaterally granting these same vendors multi-million dollar contracts, with no competitive bidding or consultation with the NRA Board of Directors.

During his testimony in the failed NRA bankruptcy trial – a bankruptcy which LaPierre initiated without consultation with the Board of Directors, in violation of the Association’s Bylaws, and which was thrown out for “bad faith filing” after an investment of millions of dollars of NRA members’ money – and in his official response to a lawsuit filed against him by the Attorney General of New York, LaPierre admitted to the above, and multiple other, breaches of policy, ethics, and state law, any one of which would be ample justification for his immediate removal from office. Yet he refuses to accept responsibility, and a small band of influential NRA Directors continues to shield him from administrative repercussions.

In fact, this cadre of LaPierre loyalists, has guided the Board through the reelection of LaPierre three times since reports of his transgressions first came out in early 2019.

Many of LaPierre’s actions formed the basis of the lawsuit filed against the NRA and four of its current and former officers and executives – including LaPierre – in late 2019. That suit is expected to finally get to the discovery phase this fall, and go to trial at the end of the year. Knowledgeable observers say that’s unlikely to be the end of it though, as the attorney retained by LaPierre to represent the NRA, has a reputation of delaying and delaying, before finally settling, or, if the case does go to trial, appealing the decision, as long as there’s money available to pay his fees (which have been topping $2 million per month!).

The LaPierre apologists argue that this is a fight between the evil New York AG, and the virtuous, pure as the driven snow NRA, but that’s not the case.

While the New York Attorney General is indeed pretty evil, and there’s no doubt that her investigation into the NRA, with her admitted intent to destroy the Association, was absolutely politically motivated, her original motives play no role in what her investigation discovered: deep-seated corruption and abuse of power on the part of LaPierre and others at the top of the NRA hierarchy.

A good bit of that corruption and abuse has now been confessed to by LaPierre, yet he and his apologists dismiss his bad behavior as “trusting the wrong people” and not realizing that accepting expensive gifts – and giving expensive gifts at NRA expense – was a problem. They argue that, when he learned of an impending investigation by the NY AG, LaPierre initiated a thorough, top-down investigation into NRA’s dealings, cleaning up problems, instituting new policies, and off-loading vendors that wouldn’t go along with retroactive updating of invoices and other questionable bookkeeping requirements.

What they neglect to consider, is how the problems, shortcomings, invoicing issues, and other matters requiring “cleaning up,” got in that condition in the first place.

• How did it become standard practice for vendors to bill the NRA for millions of dollars, with no details on the invoices?
• How did it become standard practice for retiring NRA executives to be given consulting contracts worth as much or more than their salaries as employees, with no requirement that they provide any value at all to the Association?
• How did it become standard practice for former executives to receive severance payments equal to their full annual salary, for years after they quit or were fired?

As a member of the NRA Board of Directors in 2019 when these allegations first became public, Allen West questioned and challenged LaPierre and his supporters, and there was discussion of nominating West for EVP at that time, but there were arguments about “best” picks and “working on reforming the Association from the inside.”

In the end, West, and those who supported him, or otherwise demonstrated any disloyalty toward LaPierre, were purged from the Board.

Former NRA President, and leading LaPierre apologist, David Keene has written an attack piece, deriding LTC. West as a “good orator” who is otherwise totally incompetent. Keene suggests that the objective of those supporting LTC West is more about getting Wayne LaPierre out, than it is about getting the best-qualified person in, and I’ll agree with that last point.

The most important thing that needs to happen at the meetings in Houston, is the removal of Wayne LaPierre. He’s a cancer and stain on the Association, costing millions in lost contributions, and sending politicians running in the opposite direction. Personally, I would support a stuffed weasel for the position over LaPierre.

While I like West, and I believe he’ll do a good job as EVP of the NRA, I’m not sure he’s the absolute best person for the job. I don’t know if there is an absolutely best person for the job, and I’ve been seeking that unicorn for at least a decade. But I am absolutely sure that West is a better person for the job than Wayne LaPierre. And, since the position of Executive Vice President comes up for election in the Board of Directors every year, if it turns out that West is not a good fit, the Board can replace him with someone else next year, if they can find a better candidate.

The thing that every NRA member, and especially every NRA Director, needs to be looking at right now though, is not what good Wayne LaPierre has or has not done in his position as EVP of NRA in the past…

But rather how effective he is right now and is likely to be in the foreseeable future, and how much it is costing the Association – in money, trust, and influence – to keep LaPierre in power.

LaPierre had the opportunity to do the right thing back in April of 2019 when his misdeeds were suddenly splashed across the pages of the New Yorker magazine, and numerous people close to LaPierre advised a quick and as quiet as possible retirement. But instead, LaPierre chose to go with a scorched earth attack on anyone and everyone who expressed anything less than unflinching loyalty to him personally. He accused Olliver North of extortion, accused Chris Cox of mutiny, fired dozens of long-time NRA supporters and outside attorneys, and manipulated the removal of over a dozen Directors, while spending multiple millions of dollars per month of NRA members’ money, on the attorney who he described as “the only one keeping me out of jail.”

It is sad and frustrating that this lunacy has gone on for over three years now, and that it has come down to a test of loyalty, not to the NRA or the Second Amendment, but to Wayne LaPierre personally. LaPierre and his apologists have declared war on anyone who refuses to bow and kiss LaPierre’s ring. They keep paying him over a million-and-a-half dollars per year while paying his attorney over two million per month, and they say that those of us calling for reform are the ones trying to destroy the NRA. It’s pure lunacy.

Tell your NRA Directors to stop the madness and vote for Allen West for EVP. It only takes a simple majority to win.

You can write to any (or all) member(s) of the NRA Board of Directors by snail mail to: (Name of Board member), NRA Office of the Secretary, 11250 Waples Mill Road, Fairfax, VA 22030, or via email by sending to NRABoD@NRAHQ.org. You can also call 703-267-1021 to leave a message for a Director. You must include your name, contact information, and your NRA membership number (it’s printed on the mailing label on your magazine, usually preceded by 3 or 4 zeroes). The names and states of all Directors are printed in the Official Journal of the NRA magazines, usually a page or two from the back cover.

Let them hear from you, and please try to attend the Members’ Meeting in Houston on May 28th,  2022.

Tombstone, AZ- -(Ammoland.com)- On May 2, 2022, the New York Attorney General’s Office filed its Second Amended Complaint against the National Rifle Association.

Not only the Association but its Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre, Secretary, and General Counsel John Frazer, Former Treasurer and CFO Wilson “Woody” Philips, and Former Deputy CEO Josh Powell.

As with the original complaint and the previous amended complaint, this one is full of very specific, largely verifiable, and utterly damning charges against NRA’s top officers and executives. Many of the previous accusations have been admitted to by some of the various parties, while Woody Phillips has refused to answer most questions, based on his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

It needs to be understood that LaPierre and the others are not named in the suit based on their positions within the NRA, as when someone sues a state and names the Attorney General or the governor as a representative of the state. The four named defendants were named for specific actions each is accused of, and the NRA itself is named for failing to stop them. With that in mind, legal experts said early on that the NRA’s best defense against the suit would be to adopt the following policies:

• Remove the named defendants from any position of power within the Association – particularly any position that would allow any of them to have any oversight or influence over the Association’s legal strategy in battling the suit.
• Initiate a thorough internal investigation by a Board-appointed committee with the power to get answers to its questions.
• Adopt a policy of full cooperation and transparency working with state regulators.
  Institute strict policy and oversight rules to correct and avoid future problems, that would be backed up by consequential enforcement.
• Plead victim status to the court, declaring that, if the named defendants (or others) abused their positions, then the NRA was the victim, not the perpetrator, and therefore should not be penalized.

A genuine response to the allegations would go a long way toward blunting the very real political motivations involved in the suit. New York Attorney General Letitia James is a highly motivated political actor, and she has not been shy about expressing her animosity toward the NRA, its mission, and its members. The Association should deal cautiously with her office, and request that the judge make sure that this personal and political bias doesn’t taint the case or cause undue injury to the Association.

This animosity on the part of AG James has actually been one of the strongest arguments from defenders and apologists of Wayne LaPierre. They point to James’s hatred of the NRA, and her political ambitions, and conclude that the whole case is just trumped-up lies and political theater.

The problem with that assertion is that LaPierre himself has admitted under oath that most of the charges against him are true.

He admits to billing the NRA for personal travel for himself and his family. He admits to improperly accepting gifts from major vendors, and awarding those same vendors multi-million-dollar contracts with no competitive bidding. He admits to giving multi-million-dollar severance packages to retiring and even fired employees, usually in exchange for them signing a strict nondisclosure agreement about NRA activities.

And he admits to giving contracts to family members and former staffers, often with little or no performance requirement attached. He also admits to doing all of this without clearing it, or even reporting it, through or to, the NRA Board, as required by state law and NRA policy.

His main defense in all of this, is to claim that either, it wasn’t improper, he didn’t know it was improper, and/or he didn’t know what other people were doing. Not a very impressive defense from a CEO who’s being paid in excess of $1.6 million per year.

One is reminded of Bart Simpson’s all-purpose defense: “Nobody saw me! I wasn’t there! You can’t prove a thing!”

So the big question is: Why is Wayne LaPierre still controlling the NRA?

Why would any organization facing existential threats – most of those threats based on accusations of misconduct and dereliction on the part of its chief executive – allow that executive to continue to hold inordinate sway over the organization? And why would any organization facing this kind of turmoil in its executive offices allow that same executive to retain control over the legal strategy of the organization in addressing the charges?

An equally perplexing question, is why the Board has so far not even attempted to rein in its rogue executives?

As noted above, NY AG Letitia James hates the NRA and all it stands for, and she wants to see it destroyed. The judge in the case has already taken dissolution of the Association off the table as a potential punishment, should the AG win her case. Her latest Amended Complaint focuses less on the NRA as a target, and more on the officers and directors – as it should – with the complaint calling for severe financial penalties and restitution payments from the Association’s wayward “leaders.” The complaint calls for the removal of LaPierre and his followers, but only as part of the penalty phase of the trial. That isn’t going to happen until sometime next year.

Meanwhile, LaPierre and company remain in control of the Associations resources, and most importantly, in control of its legal strategy – which amounts to shoveling millions of dollars into the pockets of New York lawyer William Brewer, who was originally hired by LaPierre to head off a threatened lawsuit from the NY AG back in 2018. Obviously Brewer failed in that mission, but he’s been very successful at extracting cash from the Association.

Brewer has reportedly been drawing over $2 million per month, averaging around $30 million per year, for the past 3 years. At the same time, NRA membership numbers have been in a nosedive, fundraising has collapsed, and the Association has cut practically all of its core programs to the bone.

If LaPierre and his enablers were to be removed from power now, the Association might do what they should have done from the beginning: Claim victim status and reorganize, without the crippling payments to the Brewer law firm. With that, they should be able to start recovering membership and see improvements in their fundraising, not to mention begin to recover the trust of its members. But that would not be seen as a good thing by Letitia James. Those steep legal bills, along with the potential of a court-mandated lawsuit against the NRA from the NRA Foundation, if things go as expected in a lawsuit filed by the AG of Washington DC, could totally bankrupt the NRA, and that would be a big win for Letitia James.

I’m not an attorney, but I’ve spoken with knowledgeable attorneys, and they keep coming back to the need for the NRA to distance itself from the accused “leaders,” even if only with temporary furloughs or compartmentalizing them away from certain aspects of the Association, particularly the legal strategy. They have also suggested that the NY AG could – and should – force this action by filing a request for partial summary judgment based on the admissions already submitted by LaPierre and some of his supporters. LaPierre has admitted to a variety of offenses, any one of which would fully justify his removal from office. Other NRA “leaders” have also admitted to various transgressions and failures in their fiduciary duties. With those admissions, it should not be difficult to convince the judge to remove LaPierre and the offending officers on the basis that they are using the NRA’s resources to protect LaPierre and themselves, rather than fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities to the NRA and its members.

Wayne LaPierre, along with NRA President Charles Cotton, 1st VP Willes Lee, and 2nd VP David Coy, should be the subjects of a motion pointing out that they have all admitted to actions that should disqualify them from participating in the management of the Association, and especially anything to do with setting legal strategy.

If protecting the assets and interests of the Association’s members is of any concern at all to the attorneys in the NY AG’s Office – as the law states are their primary obligation – then they would have such a motion filed within days.

While we would hope that such a motion would be filed and addressed by the court prior to the Members’ Meeting in Houston on May 28, 2022, that seems unlikely, so NRA members must press the attack from different directions. The primary tactic must be to pressure NRA Directors to do what they should have done at least three years ago: Remove Wayne LaPierre. The best opportunity for the Board to take this action will be at the Board meeting on Monday following the Members’ Meeting. At that time, it will only take a simple majority of Directors to elect new leadership.

New NRA Leadership ~ LTC Allen West?

A group of concerned NRA members, including former and current members of the Board of Directors, want to draft former Director, LTC Allen West to run for the Executive Vice President position at the meeting in Houston. West has the support of many and could work with reformers to clean up the NRA and get it back on the right track, and he has a record of integrity and effectiveness.

Along with electing LTC West to the position of Executive Vice President, the Board needs to elect a slate of officers to back West in his reform efforts, and to lead the NRA’s legal strategy going forward. All of this makes it absolutely critical that every NRA Director attend the meetings in Houston, and be prepared to stand up for the membership. It’s equally critical that NRA members attend the Members’ Meeting on Saturday the 28th, 2022, to call out the lies and corruption, and to put some starch into the backs of the Directors. We also have a campaign underway to recruit, nominate, and elect a slate of reform candidates for the Board of Directors in the 2023 election.

Much more information about all of this is posted on our website, www.FirearmsCoalition.org, with both the first and second Amended Complaints, along with the Responses to the first one from LaPierre and the NRA. It’s a lot to digest, but it’s critical reading for anyone concerned about the future of the NRA.

I hope to see you in Houston.

NYS Second Amended Complaint against the National Rifle Association, May 2022

2020 People of the State of NY v NRA & Co May 2022 Amended