Complaint could stop top NRA executives from discharging a substantial portion of the organisation’s debts

A major donor to the National Rifle Association is poised to challenge key aspects of the gun group’s bankruptcy filing, in an attempt to hold executives accountable for allegedly having defrauded their members of millions of dollars to support their own lavish lifestyles.

Dave Dell’Aquila, a former tech company boss who has donated more than $100,000 to the NRA, told the Guardian on Saturday he was preparing to lodge a complaint in US bankruptcy court in Dallas, Texas. If successful, it could stop top NRA executives discharging a substantial portion of the organisation’s debts.

It could also stop Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s controversial longtime chief executive, avoiding ongoing lawsuits that allege he defrauded the pro-gun group’s members to pay for luxury travel to the Bahamas and Europe and high-end Zegna suits.

LaPierre has denied the allegations of financial impropriety, insisting in a letter to NRA members that the group is “well-governed, financially solvent and committed to good governance”.

Extremism experts warned that the anti-government movement was planning attacks online. Why didn’t Facebook act?


One hundred days before Dave Patrick Underwood was murdered on 29 May, a group of analysts who monitor online extremism concluded that an attack like the one that killed him was coming.

An anti-government movement intent on killing law enforcement officers had been growing rapidly on social media, the analysts at the Network Contagion Research Institute warned.

Building on the work of other analysts, the researchers had identified Facebook groups where thousands of members obsessed over the idea of an imminent American civil war called “the Boogaloo”, displaying photographs of rifles and combat equipment, sharing advice for making weapons and posting memes about killing police and federal officials. The Facebook groups were particularly dangerous, the researchers concluded, because they were helping to build local connections between nascent domestic extremists. The movement appeared to be successfully recruiting members of the US military.

Facebook responded to findings that it was “studying trends” around the use of the word “Boogaloo” on its platforms, and that it would remove any content that violated its rules against inciting hatred or violence. Over the next few months, a spokesperson said, it would remove 800 individual Boogaloo-related posts that violated its policies. But it did not ban the Boogaloo movement from its platform, or take the majority of the Boogaloo groups down...

WASHINGTON – The National Rifle Association said Friday that it has filed for bankruptcy in U.S. court as part of a larger restructuring plan aimed at moving to Texas after New York state had sought the organization’s dissolution for allegedly misappropriating funds.

The gun-rights advocacy group said it would restructure as a Texas nonprofit to exit from what it described as “a corrupt political and regulatory environment in New York,” where it is currently registered.

“The plan can be summed up quite simply: We are DUMPING New York, and we are pursuing plans to reincorporate the NRA in Texas,” wrote NRA CEO and executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, adding that the move will have “no major changes are expected to the NRA’s operations or workforce.”

In his statement Friday, LaPierre said that the NRA is not insolvent and the move to Texas would make the organization stronger. “We are as financially strong as we have been in years,” he said...

Facebook COO downplayed company's role in the insurrection; reports show otherwise.

Update, 1/14: A trio of new reports make clear that contrary to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's position, individuals were using Facebook to plan violence before last week's insurrection at the US Capitol—and that users are still doing so today...

...Violent rhetoric on Facebook remains a major problem today, Reuters reports, with threats against the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden proliferating.

A Facebook spokesperson, who asked not to be named for "security reasons," told Reuters that the insurrection at the Capitol appeared to be a "galvanizing event," and efforts on Facebook to bring Trump supporters back to Washington, DC, next week are now widespread. "Signals Facebook tracked included digital flyers promoting the events, some of them featuring calls to arms or the insignia of militias or hate groups," Reuters reports.

Several Facebook events, pages, and groups designed to bring crowds of Trump supporters to the Capitol around Biden's inauguration that we reported on below on Tuesday are still active on the site as of Thursday...

Rachel Maddow points out that while it's unlikely that two thirds of the full Senate would vote to convict Donald Trump of the sedition that led to the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the rule only requires two thirds of the senators present. So if some Republicans didn't show up to defend Trump...