BREAKING NEWS: New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Thursday that she is suing the NRA, seeking to shut it down completely. The AG, who is infamously anti-Trump, claims that the NRA’s former leadership violated law by mismanaging the group’s funds.
According to the Daily Mail [1], James asserts that Executive Vice-President Wayne LaPierre, former Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer Woody Phillips, former Chief of Staff and the Executive Director of General Operations Joshua Powell, and Corporate Secretary and General Counsel John Frazer used the NRA as a “personal piggy bank.” She said the men used NRA funding to fund “trips for them and their families to the Bahamas, private jets, and expensive meals.”
#BREAKING [2]: I filed a lawsuit to dissolve the National Rifle Association for years of self-dealing and illegal conduct.
The @NRA [3] is fraught with fraud and abuse.
No organization is above the law.
— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) August 6, 2020 [4]
Conservatives are furious by the move, but James claims her lawsuit is not politically motivated. However, the NRA was one of Trump’s most prominent donors in 2016, giving $30 million to his campaign.
She says that in addition to shutting down the organization, she want them to pay fraud costs of $64 million.
James said, “The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets. 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. There is one set of laws. Today, we send a loud message that no one is above the law – not even the NRA, one of the most powerful organizations in this country.”
This is a developing story.
This piece was written by Objectivist Staff on August 6, 2020. It originally appeared in Objectivist.co [5] and is used by permission.