Five months after the longtime face of the gun rights movement, Wayne LaPierre, was found liable for misspending $5.4 million of the National Rifle Association’s money, the gun group’s leadership will return next week to a Manhattan courtroom.
For the N.R.A. itself, the stakes this time will be far higher.
Mr. LaPierre stepped down as the group’s chief executive in January, on the eve of the first phase of the trial, which featured testimony about years of lavish spending and executive perks, including Zegna suits, superyacht junkets, charter flights and vacations in the Bahamas. The jury’s verdict was a victory for New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who brought the corruption case.
But the N.R.A. itself was not then a defendant. In the second phase, scheduled to begin on Monday in State Supreme Court, a judge will decide whether the group needs outside monitoring, a step that would curb its independence, at least temporarily, and that it stridently opposes.
For decades, the N.R.A. was at the forefront of a movement that repeatedly beat back gun control legislation while vastly expanding the scope of the right to bear arms. But this new challenge comes as the group’s influence within the gun rights movement has waned, along with its standing as a power player in Republican politics.
A recent court filing underlined how wounded the N.R.A. has been by a half decade of scandal. Its membership fell below 4 million last year, from nearly 5.3 million in 2018. Annual dues and contributions have fallen by far more than half over the same period, from $281 million to roughly $115 million.
“Ironically, a monitor might help the N.R.A. right the ship,” said Nick Suplina, a former senior adviser and special counsel at the attorney general’s office who now works for the gun control group Everytown. “Basically the same leadership circle isn’t going to be the path to them digging out of the hole.”
In May, the group’s annual conference saw an actual contest for its top posts, a rare occurrence, but insiders ultimately emerged. Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman from Georgia and an N.R.A. stalwart, was elected board president, while Doug Hamlin, a little-known figure who ran the organization’s publications division, was the surprise choice for chief executive. Both are scheduled to be witnesses during the court proceedings.
Some good news for the N.R.A. followed the annual conference. In late May, the Supreme Court sided with the group, finding that the N.R.A. could pursue a First Amendment claim against a New York state official who had urged companies to cut ties with it after the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla.
Now it says it has spent nearly six years reforming its corporate governance on its own and does not need outside oversight.
“Every witness with personal knowledge of the internal workings of the association today concurs that further state intrusion poses a grave, needless threat to the N.R.A.’s recovery,” the association said in a recent legal filing, adding that the first part of the trial had aired events from its “distant past.”
Ms. James disagrees, and her office sees little reason to let up, having largely prevailed in the trial so far. She and her legal team are seeking the appointment of a compliance monitor for three years who would oversee the N.R.A.’s spending, assess its governance practices and determine whether it is following nonprofit law.
Ms. James’s office argues in court filings that “the N.R.A. did not voluntarily self-disclose its misconduct,” adding that “any attempts” to overhaul its corporate governance were “reactive” and only took place after the attorney general’s office warned it to “essentially get its house in order, and after the media began publishing investigative reports about financial misconduct.”
Her office said it would “introduce evidence concerning the nascent, untested and incomplete nature of the N.R.A.’s new compliance program.” The judge in the case, Joel M. Cohen, will rule from the bench in the second phase of the trial, which is expected to last two weeks. (New York has special jurisdiction over the N.R.A., since it was founded as a nonprofit in the state more than 150 years ago.)
The N.R.A.’s lead counsel, William A. Brewer III, acknowledged in a statement that “there was misconduct by former vendors and insiders” but said there was “no evidence it continues today. Not a shred.” Court filings show that the group is spending between $1,150 and $1,500 an hour for the consulting and testimony of Daniel L. Kurtz, who once ran the attorney general’s charities bureau, which oversees the N.R.A. In a filing, Mr. Kurtz lauded “the N.R.A.’s willingness to self-examine and course correct,” adding that “if some few million dollars went ‘sideways,’ more than a billion dollars were devoted to N.R.A. causes and activities.”
The N.R.A. is not the only defendant. This week, Wilson Phillips, the former chief financial officer, sidestepped a role in the trial by agreeing to a 10-year ban on managing money for New York nonprofits. He had been ordered to repay $2 million in the first phase. A third official, John Frazer, is also a defendant. He was recently removed by the new leadership as general counsel but still serves as corporate secretary.
Mr. LaPierre will also be back in court. In addition to the financial judgment, Ms. James is seeking to bar him from any future fiduciary role at the N.R.A.
Mr. LaPierre’s attorney, P. Kent Correll, argues in legal filings that banning Mr. LaPierre would essentially mean “censoring, deplatforming and canceling him” and “excluding him from the national arena in which the debate over gun policy and legislation occurs.” As an exhibit, Mr. Correll appended a seven-page passage from Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th-century Frenchman who was a keen observer of the United States. (“In our time, freedom of association has become a necessary guarantee against the tyranny of the majority,” read part of the quotation.)
The N.R.A. alienated many of its own supporters in the late stages of the LaPierre era, and recent leadership changes notwithstanding, it remains restive and fractious. One dissident board member, Phillip Journey, is seeking to intervene in the case, and said in a recent note to the judge that he wanted some other board members removed “who actively aided and abetted the looting of N.R.A. assets.”
Mr. Journey is not in lock step with the attorney general’s office, but is among the insiders exasperated by the N.R.A.’s governance. As he has put it: “We don’t need a financial monitor, N.R.A. needs a hall monitor.”
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