by One of the latest documents posted in the New York Attorney General’s case agains the NRA has an interesting tidbit in it. It is a report from the Special Master to the court. While most of the report deals with the length of the deposition scheduled for Wayne LaPierre, it notes that clarification is sought on whether Paul Payne is being represented by Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors.
Where have we heard that name before?
Oh, yes. It was in the bonus episode of Season 2 of Gangster Capitalism podcast. That episode described how Payne worked as a special assistant to Wayne LaPierre and how he was responsible for organizing the campaign to elect the Wayne-selected candidate for 76th Director. Monies from NRA dues were used to pay the travel and lodging expenses of “volunteers” to campaign for the candidate. I personally saw them in action at the NRA Annual Meeting in Dallas where they pushed Herb Lankford and in Tucson where they pushed Jim Wallace. Both succeeded against reform candidates.
You can listen to the episode in the embedded player. Note that both Dezarae Payne, his ex-wife, and Michael Schwartz are still active Second Amendment activists.
I fully expect these folks to be out in force in Houston campaigning for Isaac Demerest against Frank Tait. It was obvious in Tucson that, even after being exposed by the Gangster Capitalism podcast, Wayne and his cabal have no shame when it comes to their openly corrupt actions of using member’s dues to stack the board.
The complete Special Master’s report to the court is below. See item (iii) where Payne’s name is mentioned.
First I want to thank you, John, for keeping things like this in the spotlight. While those of us that are interested in what happens to the NRA, and want to see the piss poor leadership gone, and a new type of board and governance put in place are following things in several other places, there certainly are those who only see things on this blog, and so you are their only source.
While I have seen much, while certainly not every single point of the BS that is happening with WLP and company in regards to the NYAG and the law suit, and his response, this new information to me is quite possibly one of the things that for some reason sticks in my craw the most.
I knew that crooked Wayne and company, which I shall refer to merely as WLP, actively campaigned against anyone who dared to try and upset the financial applecart that they had set up. I had not considered that of course they would use my money to ferry the people from throughout the vastness of the United States to the annual meetings in order to lobby members to vote against reform candidates to the board.
This might be long, but it is necessary. I joined the NRA right after Obama was elected, for the first time. After a couple of years, seeing the things that they were doing, from the endorsements of antigun candidates with A+ ratings, to not getting involved in states that were battling for gun rights causes, because they were not getting national media coverage, apparently, to making deals to support questionable legislation, at best, I stopped my membership.
A few years ago, I realized my mistake, understanding that you cannot affect change from without, and so I rejoined, with the knowledge that I plan on staying the course, and helping in any way that I am able. I still have a couple of years to become a voting member. But the hell of it is, I don’t have WLP to pay my way all the way to Houston to the meeting so that I can attend and vote. I am retired and on a fixed income, and when I say that, my fixed income is not the same as that of Wayne, the golden parachute, LaPierre. By the way, if it is shown that what he did is in fact illegal, I hope that the moves to instate that golden parachute get reversed, along with paying back a lot of the money that is found to have been paid without the approval of the proper people at the NRA, like trips and hundred thousand dollar elephant torture.
While on the subject, it would seem to make a bit of sense to hold meetings for the entire membership of the NRA in a more centrally located place within the continental United States. Not that Houston isn’t a great city, or that it could not use the influx of money or people, or that it doesn’t support the gun rights community. But a more centrally located city like Kansas City , or even the idea of bringing the prestige and financial boom to a city like Omaha, Nebraska or a similar place would seem to make it much easier for those who can’t afford to get all the way out to Houston. The NRA needs to be for the grassroots members, and we need to be more able to have them make it to meetings. Perhaps move the yearly meetings around to different quadrants of the continental U.S. every time, to allow different demographics to attend the meetings, instead of the exact same people every year.
Again thanks for keeping up on the NRA and the happenings, and I hope that people will recognize the NRA is much more important than WLP, and that we can weather this storm, as bad as it seems. As a nation, we have gone through much worse, together. And that is how we can weather this storm in the NRA- together.