New York attorney general seeks to dissolve NRA in suit

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post




The chief executive of the National Rifle Association and several top lieutenants engaged in a decades-long pattern of fraud to raid the coffers of the powerful gun rights group for personal gain, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday by the New York attorney general, draining $64 million from the nonprofit in just three years.

In her lawsuit, Attorney General Letitia James called for the dissolution of the NRA and the removal of CEO Wayne LaPierre from the leadership post he has held for the past 39 years, saying he and others used the group's funds to finance a luxury lifestyle. She also asked a New York court to force LaPierre and three key deputies to repay NRA members for the ill-gotten funds and inflated salaries that her investigation found they took.

James accused the NRA leaders of flouting state and federal laws and signing off on reports and statements they knew were fraudulent, while diverting millions of dollars away from the NRA's charitable mission to benefit themselves and their allies.

The attorney general requested that the court bar the four men -- LaPierre, general counsel John Frazer, former treasurer Woody Phillips and former chief of staff Josh Powell -- from ever serving in a leadership position for a New York charity in the future. "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, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/nra-lapierre-ny-attorney-general/2020/08/06/8e389794-d794-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html

---

Full headline: New York attorney general seeks to dissolve NRA in suit accusing gun rights group of wide-ranging fraud and self-dealing

[Calista241]

1. Personally, i kinda like having the corrupt NRA at the forefront of the gun rights movement.

Otherwise, more money and efforts by gun rights activists will be focused on more competent groups like the 2nd Amendment Foundation.

[bearsfootball516]

5. The NRA has insane amounts of lobbying power though.

They’re basically the No. 1 reason why we don’t have common sense gun control laws right now.

[Calista241]

15. That power is transferrable.

Gun people are not going to stop liking and supporting guns because the NRA is no longer there.

And a judge is going to have serious questions about this dissolution argument coming from NY. It will be fairly easy for the NRA to credibly say this is a politically motivated prosecution. If their story about their expenses is good enough, or if they can make the case that new management will treat their members better, it's a high bar to see them get dissolved.

[Mersky]

59. I'd say that lapierre, et al feathering their nests with donors' money

Is outside the mission goals of the organization. Would they have become less of a political lightning rod if the leaders hadn’t been motivated by their personal pocketbooks as they pursued increasingly partisan campaigns and lobbying? I expect that some members will rightly feel cheated by this news.

[Thekaspervote]

64. Dissolved or not, her opening statement..no one is above the law. That is not a political argument

[BComplex]

37. Lobbying costs money, however. And that is something the NRA is going to be divested of.

[KS Toronado]

44. Plus it should mean less money they have to spend on R Senators & Representatives

[BComplex]

45. Bingo!

Yay!!!

[Calista241]

66. That money will still be spent.

It’ll just be spent by a more competent organization. Gun rights ppl will still be just as fanatical about guns tomorrow as they are today.

[Calista241]

84. The 2nd amendment foundation was the actual legal backer behind the

Recent Heller and McDonald cases before the SCOTUS. The NRA didn’t think they were winnable, and only filed briefs once they got to the court. There’s more to 2nd amendments rights groups than the NRA, and they are extraordinarily well run, and on a mission.

[onetexan]

26. K&R-shut the corrupt NRA down!!!

[underpants]

3. And I thought this was going to be about Trump

Well let’s see some Russian money poor in to save the NRA....or not.

[flamin lib]

32. She fired a very large shot across the bow of the Trump organization.

In her intro she went to great effort to say that, paraphrasing, nobody regardless of size, wealth or station in life is above the law. She was talking directly to Trump.

[orangecrush]

56. Yup.

[George II]

4. I was hoping her announcement would involve some trump criminal activity, but this is good too.

She's now hammering Wayne LaPierre.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. He's definitely in a weakened state

with all the infighting going on, so now would have been a good time to pounce.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

9. Maybe she'll field some questions on the trump stuff at the end.

[panader0]

47. What about the Russian money laundered by the NRA?

And let's make the NRA's "report card" on the Congress critters available for all to see.

[MichMan]

6. Wouldn't that make the NRA the victims of the fraud by the executives?

[dalton99a]

8. It is a Russian laundromat. Shut it down

[UpInArms]

13. NRA got more money from Russia-linked sources than earlier reported

McClatchy reported in January that the FBI was investigating whether Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia’s central bank, sent money to the NRA in an effort to secretly boost Trump’s presidential campaign. Campaign records show that the NRA was Trump’s biggest supporter, spending about $30 million on him during the campaign, a much larger amount than it has spent on previous presidential candidates.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/11/nra-russia-money-guns-516804

[dalton99a]

17. +1

[3Hotdogs]

38. --wonder if she wants her dues back.

[UpInArms]

51. NRA Was 'Foreign Asset' To Russia Ahead of 2016, New Senate Report Reveals

The National Rifle Association acted as a "foreign asset" for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election, according to a new investigation unveiled Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Drawing on contemporaneous emails and private interviews, an 18-month probe by the Senate Finance Committee's Democratic staff found that the NRA underwrote political access for Russian nationals Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin more than previously known — even though the two had declared their ties to the Kremlin.

The report, available here, also describes how closely the gun rights group was involved with organizing a 2015 visit by some of its leaders to Moscow.

Then-NRA vice president Pete Brownell, who would later become NRA president, was enticed to visit Russia with the promise of personal business opportunities — and the NRA covered a portion of the trip's costs.

More at:

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/27/764879242/nra-was-foreign-asset-to-russia-ahead-of-2016-new-senate-report-reveals

The Top Ten Donald Trump Russia Quotes (a Mini-Timeline)

1986: "The Russian market is attracted to me!"

But how did the mutual attraction start? Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin sought out Trump on his first day in New York in 1986 and "hooked" him, per his daughter Natalia's personal recollection. It was Dubinin who later planted the idea of a Moscow Trump Tower in Trump's brain and persuaded him to visit Moscow, where he slept in the Lenin suite of a KGB-monitored hotel. Hence the "pee tape" or something like it might very well exist. (*)

1996: "Tremendous financial commitments!" with "almost all of the oligarchs in the room!"

After 20 years of seeking to build a Moscow Trump Tower, it finally seems like a reality when Trump announces a $250 million investment at a 1996 news conference in Moscow, citing "tremendous financial commitments!" An article in the Moscow Times lauds Trump as the city's first grand builder since Stalin. Trump describes one meeting where "almost all of the oligarchs were in the room." Trump would host cocktail parties in Moscow to recruit Russian investors and buyers. Trump would also trademark his name in Russia in 1996. In fact, four of the trademarks were officially renewed the day he was elected president!

2007: "It's ridiculous that I wouldn't be investing in Russia." — Donald Trump, testifying under oath in 2007

Trump also said under oath that there would be a Trump International Hotel and Tower in "Moscow, Kiev, Istanbul, etc., Poland, Warsaw." Trump had been doing major real estate deals with Bayrock, a company whose principals had apparent ties to the Russian mob. Those ties were exposed when Bayrock's director of finance revealed them in a 2010 lawsuit. (**)

2007: Trump launches his Trump Super Premium Vodka brand in Moscow.

2008: "We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia." — Donald Trump Jr., speaking in Moscow, Sept. 15, 2008

2008: "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. — Donald Trump Jr., speaking in Moscow, Sept. 15, 2008

2008: According to Felix Sater, while visiting the Kremlin, pampered Ivanka Trump sits and spins in Vladimir Putin's chair! Who does that?

2013: "I've done a lot of business with the Russians." — Donald Trump, Oct. 17, 2013

2013: I have plans for the establishment of business in Russia. Now, I am in talks with several Russian companies to establish this skyscraper. — Donald Trump, Nov. 9, 2013, discussing the Trump Tower Moscow Project in an interview with RT (Russia Today)

2014: We don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia. — Eric Trump in 2014, explaining how the Trumps were able to expand their golf holdings during a major financial crisis when American banks refused to make such loans to anyone, much less the Trumps

Anyone reading these quotes would not get the impression that Trump had "nothing to do with Russia," no knowledge or Russia, no dealings with Russia, and no possibility of any deals with Russia whatsoever, as he would later claim.

NOTES

(*) Please see the expanded Timeline for fascinating details about how Trump was recruited by Yuri Dubinin, as witnessed by his daughter Natalia after she picked him up at the airport on his first day in NYC. The Soviet ambassador had her drive him straight from the airport to Trump Tower, making a beeline for the perfect American kompromat. It was Dubinin who first planted the idea of a Moscow Trump Tower in Donald Trump's acquisitive little brain, then invited him to stay (probably for "free&quot in the Lenin suite of a hotel run and monitored by the KGB, complete with cameras, listening devices and other compromising paraphernalia. Politico called Dubinin's offer "a classic cultivation exercise, which would have had the KGB's full support and approval." And it's very interesting, and perhaps not coincidental, that after Trump returned from Russia, he first began to talk about running for president. Was that idea also planted in the Trump brain by Russian operatives skilled in the dark arts of manipulation? Did the KGB start prepping Trump to become Russia's man in the White House more than 30 years ago?

[onetexan]

72. K&R!!

Thank you for laying it out so clearly. Definitely a clear pattern.

[soothsayer]

19. Follow dat money!

[bucolic_frolic]

11. Did they find any Oligarch money

There was always that rumor, and what about that Russian lobbyist, the gal with the boyfriend in Washington? I'm prob butchering this story. No sleep.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

81. You might want to look here.

This lady is a 35+ year career employee of one of the big three security agencies - FBI, NSA or CIA, as she describes herself. She has extensive evidence of the multigenerational sleaze and Mob ties of Donnie, formerly owned by the Gambino and Genovese crime families of New York, and now owned by Russian mobsters.

She's got lots of Russians listed and probably Russian connections to the NRA, in her pinned post. Her name is from the fact that President Obama used Lincoln's Bible at his first inauguration. There is also a written interview with her. She argues that Donnie must be the ultimate insider, that he has never been prosecuted for his crimes because he's been a criminal informant (snitch) on his buddies for 40 years.

twitter.com/LincolnsBible

[hamsterjill]

12. THIS was the "major announcement"???

I’m sorry...I just so wanted it to be a Trump. And it’s NEVER Trump.

[soothsayer]

20. It's a major award!

[Grasswire2]

43. haha. I got the reference. :-) nt

[BumRushDaShow]

25. After 3 years of everyone under the sun trying with no resolution except more court filings

--even if she announced something regarding 45 along that line today, it would still take years in court (if anything, this NRA thing is gonna take years unless there is some settlement that happens).

The Manhattan D.A. is right on the precipice of breaking the years-long log jams.

[DinahMoeHum]

14. I'm watching on MSNBC. At least 18 counts.

n/t

[Zorro]

16. She's pounding those sick NRA fucks

Good for her!

[chowder66]

18. Excellent. That put a smile on my face this morning!

[cp]

21. Very good news!

[Marcuse]

22. We are innocent! We did not spend members' dollars on ourselves- only the rubles.

[dalton99a]

23. +1

[Delarage]

24. It started out OK I think

Wasn't the NRA initially about gun safety and training (for like hunters and stuff) before becoming a pro-military-style weapon-promoting and Russian money-laundering machine? They've long since lost whatever shred of usefulness they ever had and are a typical right-wing cesspool of corruption. Good riddance. And keep an eye on whatever bullshit tries to fill the void.

Even regular NRA members should be pissed but they've been contributing to some dumbass's yacht fund and covering for a lot of death and destruction:

[link:

|

[yaesu]

27. I've got some old NRA mags from 1962/63 and their action section shows them fighting

a lot of gun legislation and calling out politicians but they weren't anywhere as bad as they are now. I picked these up at a flea market for a few bucks for the old ads, history mostly. Includes the issue with the ad Oswald ordered his weapons from.

[not_the_one]

28. This is a warning shot across the bow, for the turd. Letitia is letting him know she doesn't play

games.

Hopefully OUR mid October surprise will be a similar press conference with the Trump Foundation as the target.

That would be when russian money laundering should come to the forefront. RICO their ass and freeze their assets right before the election.

Then we sit back and watch the meltdown... preferably on live teevee.

[BComplex]

42. Oh! Oh! From your lips to God's ears!!!

That would be so wonderful!

[keithbvadu2]

30. Just imagine getting (rightly) called out on your dishonesty and ethics by Ollie North!

Just imagine getting (rightly) called out on your dishonesty and ethics by Ollie North!

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142315315#post9

[IronLionZion]

31. Sweet! Let's get more states on this, like Virginia where they are headquartered

[Javaman]

33. I'm curious if this is the tip of something larger...

wasn't it found that the nra was taking money from russia and funneling it as donations to the rebukes?

[Botany]

34. In 2016 both Trump and many GOP Senators got a shit ton of money from Russia through the NRA

OH's Rob Portman come on down.

[keithbvadu2]

35. NRA Cuts More Operating Costs-and Lavishes Executives With Perks

NRA Cuts More Operating Costs-and Lavishes Executives With Perks

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/nra-money-executive-perks-pay-cutting-costs/


The NRA Is Being Sued Over Its Relentless Telemarketing Campaigns

When begging for bucks goes wrong.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-nra-is-being-sued-over-its-relentless-telemarketing-campaigns

The NRA has employed InfoCision since 2012 under a contract that grants the fundraising company up to 65 percent of the funds it raises on the NRA’s behalf. InfoCision gets between $2.50 and $3.75 for each “completed call” to potential NRA donors, and up to half of the regular payments for new or renewed NRA memberships.
-------------------------------------------

If those high fees are unavoidable, they can also have the effect of obscuring, for a potential donor, exactly where his or her money is going. Many of those speaking with an InfoCision fundraiser, after all, will not know that a majority of their donation is not going to the charity that fundraiser is representing.

=============
NRA solicitations
comment from a blog (DU I think)

I had a coworker who was a big time gun owner who kept a gun in every room in the house just in case someone broke in (lots of problems with that idea, may be worth a blog article someday, but that’s what he did). He even went so far as to start buying more guns for each room after a school shooting, like home invasion and mass shooting are correlated somehow. He had let his NRA membership lapse and refused to renew it because he got tired of nonstop requests for donations. To him all the membership did was give the NRA to badger him for more money with phone calls, and direct mailings. If the
organization is as strapped for cash as it appears, those solicitations may have gone way over the top and people are simply tired of being badgered for money and are choosing to let their membership to lapse.

[ResistantAmerican17]

36. Karma!!!! Now they have to use money they don't have to pay for lawyers they can't afford.

But on the upside, Rudy is available and he works for free. Just run him a tab at a shitty watering hole and let him bill his liquor. This thieving enterprise, allegedly, needs to be burned to the ground.

[keithbvadu2]

67. "and let him bill his liquor" - Budget buster!

"and let him bill his liquor" - Budget buster!

[ResistantAmerican17]

68. Sure enough!!! That would be the bulk of their remaining rubles.

[3Hotdogs]

39. Didn't most of their money come from gun manufacturers?

And some of them are now bankrupt. Remington?

[Ponietz]

40. woulda it'd rather been a RICO case, but great news

[DSandra]

41. Of course, he's a psychopathic conartist, he would screw and kill as many people as possible

Seriously, these psychopaths are a menace to society and should be brought down at all costs.

[bucolic_frolic]

46. Perfect timing

Neutralizing these guys 90 days before Election Day is payback and solvent. Should hamstring them for months or even succeed in collapsing them.

[groundloop]

49. However, in the back of my mind I keep thinking this could be what's needed to rile up tRump's base

We know damned good and well that right wingers will be claiming this is PROOF that liberals are coming for their guns. An election where GOPers are demoralized and disinterested would have been nice, I'm afraid this will be their call to arms to rally their base. Even if it doesn't get tRump back into the White House it could have an impact on Senate races.

[BumRushDaShow]

50. Not if they realize that they were bilked out of their $$$

I.e., they may demand new leadership (and someone like North might step up and help that process along).

[bucolic_frolic]

53. It's a good point

but I do feel winning elections by a stealth strategy where you're afraid of your own positions and shadow is no way to live.

[ScratchCat]

54. THIS

My fear to as soon as I heard this was about the NRA. This and other recent events feel like someone is trying to give disillusioned Republicans everything they need to go back to the polls and vote for Trump.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

82. Yes, could be costly in PA, MN, WI, MI, OH

It'll be a Repub rallying cry.

[dlk]

48. If the lawsuit uncovers Russian (or other) money laundering

There may be enormous fallout. It seems the Russians’ tentacles are everywhere.

[Scruffy1]

75. I think that's what this is about.

This is really old news, but if they could find Russian money laundering in the orecess it would be criminal.

[dlk]

79. The money laundering, the lobbying, the political contributions...

There’s no shortage of dirt.

[FailureToCommunicate]

52. I wonder how much $$$ of our tax dollars went to NRA friendly gun companies thru PPP?

[malchickiwick]

55. Thoughts & Prayers Mutherfuckers (n/t)

[niyad]

57. Very good news. Hope it makes the traitorous murderer squirm.

[madville]

58. But no criminal charges

NY AG publicly alleges a laundry list of illegal activities but no criminal indictments of individuals. At this point the suit will be used as a fundraising tool by the NRA and Trump that “the partisan Democrat AG is abusing her office to harass and crush political foes”.

[BumRushDaShow]

61. From what I saw somewhere this morning

their charitable arm is HQ'd in VA and the AG of D.C. is also working from their end as well. Plus you have this from the NYT piece that revealed some of the impetus behind the cases (originally published last December and updated as recently as today) -

Inside Wayne LaPierre’s Battle for the N.R.A.

By Danny Hakim

Published Dec. 18, 2019
Updated Aug. 6, 2020, 11:58 a.m. ET


/snip

And since April, the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, has been conducting a civil investigation of the N.R.A., which is chartered in New York. Now, veterans of the attorney general’s office and some within the N.R.A.’s inner circle believe James will weigh whether to seek a criminal referral related to LaPierre’s use of nonprofit funds for personal expenses.

/snip

I asked LaPierre if he worried about his own criminal exposure. “I actually don’t,” he said, citing the safe-harbor provision. He called Brewer’s work “the largest forensic audit that’s ever been done on the association” to “see if there was anything we needed to self-correct.” Tax experts I spoke with, however, noted that such provisions did not generally apply to personal expenses, and in any case would need to have been addressed before James opened the inquiry. The investigation is being led by the charities bureau of the attorney general’s office, which oversees all nonprofits. Such investigations are typically civil procedures, but the office can refer criminal findings to another agency, or be granted criminal jurisdiction by the governor.

“If the expenses incurred by Mr. LaPierre were not legitimate business expenses of the N.R.A., and if he conspired with others within or outside the N.R.A. to incur those expenses in a way that would conceal them, then criminal charges could not only be brought against Mr. LaPierre, but also the others who were involved in the scheme,” said Sean Delany, a former chief of the charities bureau. Daniel Kurtz, another former charities-bureau chief, said the N.R.A. would have to establish that such transactions were “fair, reasonable and in the corporation’s best interest,” adding, “They can assert that, but it’s preposterous.” Kurtz did see some hurdles for a criminal case, based on what was known, because LaPierre was not said to have diverted money directly into his own pocket. But the attorney general can go to court and seek to restructure an organization’s board, oust its management, recoup misspent funds or even pressure it to dissolve.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/magazine/wayne-lapierre-nra-guns.html

I.e., it's probably pretty obvious that LaPierre engaged in criminal activities but it would behoove to get all of the records over the long time that he has been in place, so that they can prove it (for criminal - "beyond the shadow of a doubt" vs "preponderance of the evidence" for civil), so he and the rest of them can be nailed hook, line, and sinker.

[onetexan]

73. For sure, alot of discovery to be done, and then criminal indictments of individuals will follow.

This lawsuit lays the groundwork for the discovery. This is nowhere close to being done and the investigation will take a long while. BUT it's a start and KUDOS TO Letitia James for daring to go up against that criminal enterprise the NRA. By the time she's done LaPierre won't know what hit him.
Ooooweeee we're in for a quite a ride.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

83. The goal of dissolving the NRA seemed like a non-sequitur.

She laid out the case for jailing some officers of the NRA, then ignored that. Is she running for Governor?

[Wawannabe]

60. This is blockbuster!

Keep hittin em maybe it will begin to erode the powers of stupidity!

[George II]

62. SOOOO glad that she was elected and not Zephyr Teachout a couple of years ago!

[SergeStorms]

63. Not what I was hoping for...

but it'll do for now. How I'd love to see the NRA, LaPierre and Phillips spinning down the drain. I'm 100% for the second amendment, but 100% against an organization like the NRA.

[Steelrolled]

65. Good luck. Expect a game of whack-a-mole.

[LiberalLovinLug]

69. And the Trumpsters will take this as an assault on the 2nd amendment

[warmfeet]

70. Throw them on the ash heap.

Piss on the ashes.

[Yeehah]

71. I hope she succeeds!

The NRA is nothing but a bunch of nazis.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

74. I don't like Wayno

[JohnnyRingo]

78. They can blame Ollie North.

He became a whistle blower shortly after LaPierre insisted he take on the position of president in 2019. He blew the whistle on all of them.

They can't blame the left for this one.

[dustyscamp]

80. hehe

Link to tweet