State Attorney General Letitia James is taking dead aim at the National Rifle Association.
New York’s No. 1 law enforcer filed a Thursday lawsuit seeking to dissolve the nation’s largest pro-gun lobbying group, alleging senior leadership at the registered non-profit illegally used tens of millions of NRA dollars for multiple vacations, private jets, expensive meals and other luxury items.
NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre, the group’s in-your-face front man, was called out for spending $800,000 on eight getaways to the Bahamas over three years, along with accepting expensive gifts that included an all-expenses paid African safari with his wife and use of a 107-foot yacht from vendors without board approval.
The group, based in Fairfax, Va., but chartered in New York, also appeared to dole out lucrative no-show contracts to former employees in order to “buy their silence and continued loyalty.”
“The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets,” said James after the 18-month investigation into the NRA’s self-proclaimed “charitable mission.”
“Today we send a strong and loud message: No one is above the law, not even the NRA, one of the most powerful organizations in this country,” she said, adding the NRA operated as “a breeding ground for greed, abuse and brazen illegality.”.
The Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit seeks to to dissolve the NRA and require each of the current and former executives named in court papers to make full restitution. The gun-loving quartet, including LaPierre, should also be barred from serving on the board of any charity in New York, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit claims that the organization reported a $27.8 million surplus in 2015, followed three years later by an NRA report that the group was $36 million in the red.
LaPierre, who has led the lobbying group for decades, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on private trips for himself and his family, the suit alleges. Over the past two years, he also spent $3.6 million on travel consultants and several million dollars on private security for himself and his family, according to the suit.
The others named in the suit are NRA general counsel John Frazer, former CFO Woody Phillips and former chief of staff Joshua Powell. All were accused of redirecting charitable funds for the benefit of family members and friends, with Powell’s salary jumping from $250,000 to $800,000 over just two years and Phillips allegedly steering a deal worth more than $1 million to his girlfriend.
Anyone attempting to fire a warning shot over the quartet’s crooked antics faced retaliation from by LaPierre, according to the suit.
The NRA in turn cast the legal action as a political and “baseless, premeditated attack on our organization and the Second Amendment freedoms it fights to defend” — and filed its own lawsuit against James.
“This has been a power grab by a political opportunist — a desperate move that is part of a rank political vendetta,” the group said. “Our members won’t be intimidated or bullied in their defense of political and constitutional freedom.”
The cash-strapped gun group, which doled out roughly $30 million to help elect President Trump in 2016, was beset by financial trouble and internal unrest as the NRA’s public support took a hit over a spate of deadly mass shootings from coast to coast.
Last year, the organization suspended its top lobbyist and one of his deputies, and former NRA president Oliver North stepped down amid accusations of an attempted effort to oust LaPierre.
Gun control advocates were quick to applaud the action and had little sympathy for the group’s fiscal woes.
“Thoughts and prayers today to the NRA, which is losing money and political power so quickly that by the end of this case, there might not be anything left to dissolve,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “The NRA is just as out of touch with American voters as they seem to be with NY law.”
John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said his group had warned regulators about corruption within the lobbying organization for years.
“Even casual observers of the NRA have seen it turn from a safety-focused non-profit into a front group for gun manufacturers and a personal piggy bank for its leadership,” he said.
Trump defended the NRA after James’ probe became public last year, tweeting the group was “under siege” by the prosecutor and Gov. Cuomo. The president accused the pair of “illegally using the State’s legal apparatus to take down and destroy this very important organization” and suggested the NRA register in another state.
But James actually cited a court order secured last year against Trump’s former charity as precedent in the NRA suit. In a rare admission of wrongdoing, the president acknowledged misusing Trump Foundation charitable funds to boost his presidential campaign and purchase a $10,000 portrait of himself.
He was ordered to pay $2 million in damages to eight charities, and his foundation was dissolved.
With Chris Sommerfeldt