Sorry Charles – Doug Hamlin Is Not A Placeholder

My good friend Todd called me this morning asking if I had seen this report from the New York trial. It was from The Trace’s Daily Bulletin. The report was a one paragraph blurb about Charles Cotton’s testimony.

From The Trace’s Daily Bulletin for July 17th:

The National Rifle Association’s new chief executive Doug Hamlin is a placeholder, according to the testimony of former NRA president Charles Cotton that points to fault lines in the gun group’s leadership. In May, board members chose Hamlin, who led the NRA’s publications arm, as Wayne LaPierre’s replacement. Hamlin is allied to a small, self-described reform bloc at the group. “The intent is to try to get, frankly, some high-powered person to take it over,” testified Cotton, a LaPierre defender whom the reformers consider part of an old guard. Cotton made his remarks in a New York courtroom where the final phase of New York Attorney General Letitia James’s lawsuit against the NRA is underway. —Will Van Sant 

Say what you will about The Trace and reporter Will Van Sant but they don’t get stuff like this wrong. I’m sure Cotton actually said that in his testimony in court. That said, I don’t think anyone who participated in the NRA Board of Directors meeting in May thought the election of Doug Hamlin to be the new CEO and Executive VP was to be as a placeholder. Moreover, I don’t think Hamlin would have stuck his neck out if he himself thought he was only destined to be a placeholder.

If you are talking placeholders then you are talking about people like then-Interim EVP Andrew Arulanandam. You could even include Cotton in this category as he was pitching himself as the EVP to settle thing down for a few years and then ride off into the sunset. I don’t know where Cotton got the idea that Doug Hamlin was a placeholder unless that is how the Cabal would like to see it.