December 2022 - Page 2 of 2 -

A Day That Will Live In Infamy Plus 81 Years

We are now closer to the 22nd Century than we are to the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy. That thought is somewhat unsettling to me. As I noted last year, by December 7, 1941, my Dad had already been a draftee in the Army for close to a year, my Mom was working in New York City for the British Lend-Lease Office, and my Uncle John allegedly would skip college the next day to enlist in the Navy.

Despite all of this, long-lost letters regarding one of the sailors killed on the USS Oklahoma were returned to a family just last week. They concerned Machinist Mate 2C Lorentz Hultgren whose body was finally DNA identified in 2015. At the time of the letter from 1944, his body could not be identified. He will now be buried with full military honors in the National Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl) early in 2023.

Besides Hultgren, two other sailors were finally identified this past August.

The effort to identify sailors killed at Pearl Harbor continues to this day, 81 years after the attack.
Two more sailors, Petty Officer Second Class Claude Ralph Garcia and Petty Officer First Class Keith Warren Tipsword — each serving about the USS West Virginia — were identified this past August.
https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/pearl-harbor-sorrow-suffered-sailors-mom-revealed-letters-returned-family

Most know that the USS Arizona was never refloated and serves as the final resting place for those killed there. The battleship USS Utah also was never refloated and its remains still lie on the floor of Pearl Harbor.

https://www.ussutah1941.org/uss-utah-memorial.html

The Utah is referred to as the “forgotten ship”. A memorial to it was established in 1972. Adjacent to the USS Utah Memorial is that of the USS Oklahoma. Both are on Ford Island. As of 2022, they are now available to be visited with reservations which was an issue in the past as Ford Island remains an active military facility. The Ford Island Bus Tour can be accessed here.

The USS Oklahoma Memorial was only dedicated in 2007. The video below shows the dedication of the memorial, some of the survivors, and the memorial.

The Frenkel Report

From what I can gather, the Frenkel Report was a confidential document prepared by an outside attorney for the NRA in approximately 2003. The attorney’s name was Jacob Frenkel. His specialty is conducting internal investigations and providing white collar criminal defense. The report in question concerned expenditures by Wayne LaPierre for travel as well as multi-million dollar payments to favored vendors. This report was provided to the Audit Committee and then laid dormant until recently.

The blog NRA In Danger has done great work in bringing out the testimony and legal wrangling over disclosure of this report. The NRA wants the document kept sealed contending that it is covered by attorney-client privilege while the New York AG’s office and the Special Master disagree.

Judge Joel Cohen agrees with the Special Master and the NYAG regarding the sealing of the document.

From NRA In Danger:

The ruling was that the NRA attorneys screwed up and waived the argument by not raising it earlier. “The NRA’s piecemeal approach to raising objections to producing this document is inefficient. and inappropriate. All objections to production should have been raised and litigated in connection with the prior motion. Those that were not argued are waived. The fact that the NRA purported to reserve the right to assert additional objections at a later date does not make it so.”
The court adds that the objection would have lost anyway. Attorney-client privilege is lost if the client shares the document with non-attorneys, and NRA shared it with its accountants. “In any event, even if the privilege objection is considered timely, it is unavailing. The Report was, by design, shared with a third party, namely PricewaterhouseCoopers. Any privilege that otherwise might have attached to this document was waived.”

Again, Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, have lost in court and the NRA has racked up even more legal bills.

More on the Frenkel Report can be found here and here. As NRA In Danger notes, whatever is in that 19 year report must be “really hot”. If I had to speculate and this is all it is, the report must be enough to at least bring criminal charges against Wayne along with potential liability to both the current President and 2nd VP of the NRA who have served on the Audit Committee.