New York Attorney General Seeks To Shut Down NRA
The Attorney General of New York will seek to dissolve the National Rifle Association after discovering the gun group has allegedly engaged in severe financial misconduct.
In a lawsuit filed on Thursday, state Attorney General Letitia James said she found the NRA lost more than $64 million over three years.
The 18-month investigation discovered that top executives funneled contracts to friends and family members and used charitable funds for their own personal gain.
“The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets,” James said in a statement, according to NPR. “The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law.”
Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine also announced on Thursday that he would be suing the National Rifle Association Foundation, claiming donor money meant to fund firearms safety and training was instead “diverted to support wasteful spending by the NRA and its executives.”
We allege that the NRA Foundation broke DC law by:
️ Placing interests of NRA above its own
️ Paying millions in fees to the NRA without oversight
️ Issuing millions in risky loans to the NRA ($5mil that the NRA never repaid)— AG Karl A. Racine (@AGKarlRacine) August 6, 2020
The New York attorney general’s office opened its investigation of the NRA in April 2019 after a report from The Trace revealed financial mismanagement in the group that apparently allowed top vendors and executives to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in payouts.
The lawsuit accuses NRA higher-ups of “enriching themselves” with donor money. In James’ crosshairs are Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre, former general counsel John Frazer, former Chief Financial Officer Woody Phillips, and former chief of staff Joshua Powell.
Frazer “had only a brief 18-month tenure in private...