The National Rifle Association (NRA) has traded barbs in court with the gun lobby's former marketing firm, Ackerman McQueen, the producers of the now-defunct NRATV channel. The NRA has accused McQueen of lying and McQueen has accused the NRA of lying with each allegation stemming from accusations of financial impropriety.
Now, at least some members of the NRA's board of directors want to know what the truth is and they've asked the gun lobby's current president to launch an independent investigation of self-dealing, both among CEO Wayne LaPierre and the lobby's insanely expensive law firm.
From TPM:
Addressed to NRA President Carolyn Meadows, the letter comes from four members of the nonprofit’s 76-member board. NRA chief Wayne LaPierre has reportedly been clamping down on dissent on the board by stripping members of their access to key committees and purging others deemed disloyal.
The board members who sent the letter are Soldier of Fortune magazine publisher Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown, gun activist Timothy Knight, motivational speaker Sean Maloney, and NRA fundraiser Esther Schneider.
The letter demands an internal investigation as well as the creation of an independent committee to probe the allegations of self-dealing, with a focus on the NRA’s law firm Brewer & Associates.
Wayne LaPierre, as you may recall, has been accused of self-dealing for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on designer suits and lavish trips abroad with his wife that do not appear to have had anything to do with official business. LaPierre's behavior could actually endanger the lobby's tax-exempt status in the state of New York where the group's spending habits are under investigation.
For their part, the NRA's law firm has been charging the gun lobby a truly insane amount of money totaling up to $97,000 per day. And what do they have to show for it except even more legal trouble?
This will make for a truly remarkable documentary when it's all over and for possibly the first time ever I wonder if the NRA in its current form will survive.