The National Rifle Association announced Friday that it has filed for bankruptcy and will move out of New York and restructure the organization as a nonprofit in Texas.
The nation’s leading gun rights advocacy group said that the move to Texas will enable the group to “exit what it believes is a corrupt political and regulatory environment in New York.”
“By exiting New York, where the NRA has been incorporated for approximately 150 years, the NRA abandons a state where elected officials have weaponized the legal and regulatory powers they wield to penalize the Association and its members for purely political purposes,” the NRA said in a statement.
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the NRA in August, alleging that senior leaders of the group misused tens of millions of dollars, diverting the funds for personal use and other illegal purposes.
The NRA denied the allegations and filed a lawsuit of its own against James, accusing her of violating the group’s free speech rights and requesting that her investigation be blocked. The move to Texas and restructuring of the group could prevent the New York attorney general from seeking the dissolution of the group.
The group filed Chapter 11 petitions in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas, listing assets and liabilities of $100 million to $500 million.
There are a lot of good reasons for the NRA to move from New York to Texas apart from the lawsuit (though that’s a pretty big one), but it won’t be restored to a fully functioning organization until Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre is gone.
The NRA has been in crisis for over a year because LaPierre has engaged in what appears to be systematic looting through contracts to media company Ackerman McQueen and other entities that seem very, very chummy with LaPierre:
This 100-page document…contains unprecedented disclosures of where the money categorized as expenditures for “fund-raising” and “public relations” actually went. For example, it was revealed for the first time the Mercury Group, an Ack-Mac subsidiary run by LaPierre’s closest confidant, Tony Makris, received $5.8 million from NRA in that year; another Makris-run company, Under Wild Skies, got $2.6 million. Meanwhile, NRA has nearly exhausted its $25 million credit line (secured by a mortgage on its headquarters building), liquidated $2 million from an investment fund, borrowed close to $4 million from its officers’ life insurance policy and extracted about $5 million in office rent and overhead from the NRA Foundation.
This, in the same year that NRA’s 10 highest-paid executives received compensation aggregating over $8 million.
Unfortunately, the NRA is structured so that LaPierre has more institutional power than the NRA’s elected President, something Oliver North found out. The NRA needs LaPierre out and a forensic audit to uncover past abuses before gun owners give it another dime. I’ve let my membership lapse because of the crooked self-dealing on display by LaPierre and his cronies, and I suspect there are millions of other gun owners like me. Instead I joined Gun Owners of America, because I know my membership fees won’t be going to line Wayne’s pockets.
No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money has been following every twist and turn of the NRA/LaPierre problems for years, so go over there and start reading if you want all the deep background on the situation.
Tags: Ackerman McQueen, bankruptcy, Guns, Letitia James, New York, NRA, Texas, Tony Makris, Wayne LaPierre
Pretty sure they’re moving to not really gun friendly Texas which is going to go Blue pretty soon for the reason behind most company moves, the CEO (effectively in this case) lives or wants to live there; I’ve read there are metrics behind this, distance from HQ to a CEO’s dwelling. One of the seemingly infinite number of scandals that’s come to light recently was the NRA paying for a search for a suitable mansion for LaPierre in the Dallas area. They found one going for a mere $6 million, almost ended up buying it for him. Search on LaPierre mansion Dallas for lots more.
Or a TL;DR: the NRA has been AWOL as of late, and will continue to be so as Biden tried to “defeat” it again.
The media has been pushing the idea of Texas going blue for close to 20 years now. Democrats managed to make Texas slightly more purple in 2018, but they got bupkis in 2020.
You want a new “assault weapon” ban? How about a California style “ammo background check” or licensing of each and every gun you own? Well, then keep hating on NRA. Cuz NRA has more members than all the other gun groups combined. I wish Wayne would retire, but I also figure IF he “stole” from members it amounted to about TWO CENTS per member. So if TWO CENTS is so important, I suggest you find something to do besides “lining the pockets” of all the other things you consider important. Maybe Dudley Brown and his NAGR is more your style. HE’S not “lining his pockets”, right? Wayne built the most powerful lobbying organization in history and we are going to desperately need it for the next 2 years at least if we are to stave off UTTER DISASTER! So worry less about the TWO CENTS Wayne “stole” from you and worry about what we HAVE TO DO to ward off China joe* and his henchmen.
NRA hasn’t had “the most powerful lobbying organization in history” since Wayne forced NRA-ILA head Chris Cox out for refusing to loan out more NRA-ILA money to cover up for Wayne’s financial mismanagement.
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I am life member of the NRA and will not be sending them another dime until Wayne is gone.
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