Wayne LaPierre

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NRATV Is No More

June 26, 2019 by

Live production of NRATV has ceased. The announcement was made yesterday and follows a demand from Ackerman McQueen to be paid for its services. The move was widely expected given the parting of the ways between the NRA and AckMac.

From the New York Times:

The N.R.A. on Tuesday also severed all business with its estranged advertising firm, Ackerman McQueen, which operates NRATV, the N.R.A.’s live broadcasting media arm, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.

While NRATV may continue to air past content, its live broadcasting will end and its on-air personalities — Ackerman employees including Dana Loesch — will no longer be the public faces of the N.R.A. It remained unclear whether the N.R.A. might try to hire some of those employees, but there was no indication it was negotiating to do so.

It is somewhat ironic that one of the reasons stated for shutting down NRATV was the content that strayed from Second Amendment issues into other conservative social issues. Ironic because I think Wayne LaPierre used it to burnish his conservative credentials when appearing at events like CPAC. In a statement, he said regarding NRATV:

“Many members expressed concern about the messaging on NRATV becoming too far removed from our core mission: defending the Second Amendment,” Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A.’s longtime chief executive, wrote in a message to members that was expected to be sent out by Wednesday. “So, after careful consideration, I am announcing that starting today, we are undergoing a significant change in our communications strategy. We are no longer airing ‘live TV’ programming.”

I think when NRATV was just Cam Edwards with Cam & Co. or special reports by Ginny Simone along with commentary from “the young guns” it was OK. Then it added programming from people like Dana Loesch and Grant Stichfield and it began to move more into other social issues. This loss of focus on the Second Amendment and threats to gun rights was when many members started having second thoughts about its usefulness.

Ackerman McQueen responded to the cessation of live production saying in part:

Ackerman, in its own statement, said it was “not surprised that the N.R.A. is unwilling to honor its agreement to end our contract and our long-standing relationship in an orderly and amicable manner.”

“When given the opportunity to do the right thing, the N.R.A. once again has taken action that we believe is intended to harm our company even at the expense of the N.R.A. itself,” the company added. It said it “will continue to fight against the N.R.A.’s repeated violations of its agreement with our company with every legal remedy available to us.”

The full letter from the NRA terminating its business relationship with Ackerman McQueen and the Mercury Group is below. The letter also demands all materials produced by AckMac for the NRA.

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In His Cold Dead Hands

June 21, 2019 by 1 Comment

It is Friday afternoon and it is time for a laugh after the NRA news of the week. My friend and fellow blogger David Yamane posted the picture below on Facebook. It had the following caption:

Photo from 2040 of Wayne LaPierre holding onto the Executive Vice Preisdency of the NRA in his cold, dead hands.


#guns #gunculture #gunculture2point0 #nra #2a

Great satire always contains an element of truth.

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The NRA, The New York Lawsuit, Ollie North, And Chris Cox

June 21, 2019 by 2 Comments

The news yesterday regarding the National Rifle Association was headlined by a story in the New York Times that said Chris Cox, head of the NRA-ILA, was suspended and put on administrative leave. This followed a late Wednesday filing in New York Supreme Court (the trial level courts in that state) in which the NRA sought a declaratory judgment that Ollie North was not entitled to his legal expenses as a director of the NRA. Also suspended was Scott Christman who served as Cox’s deputy chief of staff at the NRA-ILA.

Both Cox and Christman are accused along with NRA Board member and former Congressman Dan Boren of participating in a failed “coup” attempt orchestrated by Ackerman McQueen and Ollie North. Cox vehemently denies this.

“The allegations against me are offensive and patently false,” Cox said. “For over 24 years I have been a loyal and effective leader in this organization. My efforts have always been focused on serving the members of the National Rifle Association, and I will continue to focus all of my energy on carrying out our core mission of defending the Second Amendment.”

The New York lawsuit was filed on behalf of the NRA by outside counsel William Brewer III and his firm. It seeks a declaratory judgment stating that Ollie North is not entitled to reimbursement for legal fees and expenses incurred as a result of subpoenas in the second Ackerman McQueen lawsuit and the Senate Finance Committee’s request for documents. When a declaratory judgment is sought, it is making a statement that the facts are not in question and that the only thing sought is a declaration as to matters of law. That said, the complaint filed is a mish-mash of allegations that in no way could be considered a 100% recitation of facts. The full complaint is here.

The complaint alleges that North is an employee of Ackerman McQueen, that he had been asked to either resign from AckMac or the NRA board, that he has done neither, and that he orchestrated the “coup” attempt to oust Wayne LaPierre at the behest of AckMac. North is also accused of acting in bad faith and breaching his fiduciary duties to the NRA.

The complaint then includes this gratuitous mention of Chris Cox and Dan Boren. This is the only paragraph where either of these two are mentioned.

North and his co-conspirators orchestrated these threats through, among other
things, a string of text messages that are filed herewith. The text messages were produced in the
Virginia Litigation by Dan Boren, an NRA board member employed by one of Ackerman’s other
major clients, the Chickasaw Nation. Boren relayed the contents of Ackerman’s threatened letter
to North and helped to choreograph the ultimatum they presented to Mr. LaPierre. Moreover, in
email correspondence transmitted over non-NRA servers, Boren admitted his knowledge that
Ackerman may have been invoicing the NRA for full salaries of employees who were actually
working on the Chickasaw Nation account. The same text messages and email messages
demonstrate that another errant NRA fiduciary, Chris Cox —once thought by some to be a likely
successor for Mr. LaPierre—participated in the Ackerman/North/Boren conspiracy.

The text message can be seen in this exhibit. It should be noted that from what I’ve been told that exhibits are not usually submitted when asking for a declaratory judgment. Reading the texts between Boren and Cox, I fail to see this as a “coup” attempt. Rather, in my opinion, it seems they are concerned about the war between AckMac and the NRA and its future impact on the NRA. Cox is correct when he calls what had been going on “a tragic mess”.

This whole affair is so Byzantine. It reminds more of a Soviet-style purge where ministers and members of the Politburo are being purged after the head of the KGB whispers in the ear of the aging General Secretary that they are plotting against him. Insert Wayne LaPierre into the role of the aging General Secretary and William Brewer into the role of KGB head and there you have it.

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NRA Files Second Lawsuit Against Ackerman McQueen (Updated)

May 23, 2019 by 1 Comment

The National Rifle Association filed a second lawsuit against Ackerman McQueen yesterday in Alexandria (VA) Circuit Court. The lawsuit accuses Ack-Mac of leaking sensitive documents to the press, of trying to engineer an executive coup, and of seeking to tarnish the reputation and public image of the NRA and its senior executives. The lawsuit seeks $40 million in damages.

According to the Wall Street Journal which was one of the new organizations that had stories on the leaked documents:

The Wall Street Journal was among the media outlets to which the NRA accused Ackerman of “directly or indirectly” leaking confidential information.

The Journal published an article earlier this month about Ackerman McQueen letters sent to the NRA related to Mr. LaPierre’s more than $500,000 in alleged wardrobe and travel expenses. The letters had been posted anonymously on the internet.

A spokesman for Dow Jones & Co. declined to comment. Dow Jones is owned by News Corp, publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

In a statement, Ackerman called the new lawsuit “another reckless attempt to scapegoat Ackerman McQueen for the NRA’s own breakdown in governance, compliance and leadership.”

The Daily Beast was the first outlet with the story yesterday afternoon. From their report:

“Over the past year, even as it withheld important documents and information from the NRA, AMc [Ackerman McQueen] readily shared snippets of confidential and proprietary materials with hostile third parties, including the news media–in a series of sordid, out-of-context ‘leaks’ engineered by AMc to harm its client,” the complaint reads.


An Ackerman McQueen spokesperson defended the firm.


“It is a sad day for NRA members that their leadership is more focused on attacking partners than fighting for freedom,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Once again the National Rifle Association leadership’s new lawsuit is another reckless attempt to scapegoat Ackerman McQueen for the NRA’s own breakdown in governance, compliance and leadership. We have done our job to protect the brand for decades and have continued to do so despite shameless and inaccurate attacks on our integrity and our personnel by a leadership group that is desperate to make this a story about anything other than their own failures.”

The story in the Daily Beast goes on to say that the lawsuit said that Ollie North was working as “an employee” of Ackerman McQueen when he said Wayne LaPierre should resign or damaging information would be released.

While I don’t have a copy of the actual complaint yet and thus don’t know who is the attorney of record, this second lawsuit comports with the advice typically given by the NRA’s outside legal counsel William Brewer III.

With regard to Brewer, the Daily Beast reported:

As of press time, the advertising firm has not entered court filings rebutting the NRA’s allegations. As the NRA’s legal fights metastasize, so do its legal bills. Leaked documents authenticated by The Daily Beast indicate that the NRA’s outside lawyer, Bill Brewer, has charged the gun group more than $24 million since signing on with them last year. That number came in a letter North wrote raising concerns about the NRA’s leadership. Outside legal ethics experts who reviewed North’s letter told The Daily Beast it raised serious concerns, and that the bills were “off the charts.”


Charles Cotton, who heads the audit committee of the NRA board, has said North’s claims are incorrect and that the NRA is pleased with Brewer’s work.


“Importantly, the relationship has been viewed, vetted, and approved,” he said in a statement.

Cotton is now the 1st Vice President and the presumptive choice to move into the presidency after Carolyn Meadows. Friends who are active in the gun rights movement in Texas note that Cotton was “anti-open carry and anti-liberty” though they did note Cotton did lash out at the current Speaker of the Texas House who is even worse at the beginning of the current session.

While I will say a pox on both their houses – I’m no fan of either Wayne or Ack-Mac – I see this as a counter-attack to muddy the waters even more. It is also a waste of money and diverts legal attention from the critical battle which is coming. The battle will not be with Ack-Mac, the battle will be with NY Attorney General Letitia James and the NY Charities Bureau to stave off dissolution of the NRA itself. I see that battle as the legal equivalent of the Battle of Stalingrad. The lax oversight of Ack-Mac and Wayne by the board when combined with the lavish salaries and extravagant spending have only served to provide our blood enemies ammunition with which to attack us.

UPDATE:  I was able to get a copy of the complaint and you can read the whole thing here.

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Ack-Mac Letter Regarding LaPierre Expenses

May 12, 2019 by 2 Comments

Over and above Wayne LaPierre’s spending on his wardrobe are expenses he billed to Ackerman-McQueen for travel, food, and apartment rental for an intern according to a letter they sent to him on April 22nd. These expenses have become the basis for stories in the Wall Street Journal, The Hill, and many other publications.

From the Wall Street Journal:

National Rifle Association Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre billed the group’s ad agency $39,000 for one day of shopping at a Beverly Hills clothing boutique, $18,300 for a car and driver in Europe and had the agency cover $13,800 in rent for a summer intern, according to newly revealed NRA internal documents.

The documents, posted anonymously on the internet, provide new details of the clothing, travel and other expenses totaling more than $542,000 that Ackerman McQueen Inc. alleges Mr. LaPierre billed to it.

The travel expenses allegedly include more than $200,000 in “Air Transportation” costs during a one-month period in late 2012 and early 2013, in part related to a two-week trip over Christmas to the Bahamas by Mr. LaPierre.

The additional details behind the ad agency’s claims comes as Mr. LaPierre faces internal scrutiny at the NRA over his expenses amid an extraordinary falling-out between the NRA and Ackerman McQueen.

Carolyn Meadows, the new NRA President, in a statement to the WSJ said:

The NRA released a statement from Carolyn Meadows, its new president, who said the “entire board is fully aware of these issues. We have full confidence in Wayne LaPierre.” She added that “it is troubling and pathetic that some people would resort to leaking information to advance their agendas.”

I sure hope Mrs. Meadows is using the royal we to refer to herself when she says “we have full confidence in Wayne LaPierre” because I would hope that some board members – and I know there are some who don’t have full confidence in Wayne.

These photos of the letters seem to have been taken of a letter that was printed in landscape mode which explains why pages 3 and 5 only contain one line of data.

There has been much speculation about then-intern Megan Allen and why her apartment expenses were covered in part or full for three months.  I’m not going to get into these but I suggest you check out her LinkedIn page for her current position with the NRA and her work and educational background. Given the controversy, I’d do that sooner than later.  As to the apartment complex, The Ridgewood II by Windsor apartments are located in Fairfax.

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Ack-Mac Letter Regarding Clothing Purchases

May 12, 2019 by

Suing Ackerman-McQueen might have been a smokescreen as some have said to cover the fiduciary lapses of NRA executives and board members but it seems to have become a bonfire. We are now finding out that Wayne LaPierre was quite the clothes horse. Given his preference for navy blue suits and white shirts, you have to wonder just how many he needed.

As I facetiously said on Facebook, for that amount of money, Wayne could have flown to Hong Kong, stayed in a first-class hotel, gotten measured, and come home with quite a few custom suits that looked like that they actually fit him for a heckuva lot less money. Indeed, he could have even been measured by many Hong Kong custom tailors here in the United States as his measurements changed over time.

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Ollie North’s Letter Read At NRA Meeting Of Members

May 12, 2019 by

By now, everyone should know that Ollie North is out as president of the National Rifle Association. I think it came down to a power struggle between Col. North and Wayne LaPierre over the direction of the NRA. Given the glaringly obvious support that LaPierre holds on the Board, North lost this struggle.

The most obvious indication of this was at the Meeting of Members on Saturday morning, April 27th, when the meeting convened and there was no Ollie. After the people on the stage were introduced, then-First VP Richard Childress addressed the meeting and read the following letter from Col. North.

If I remember correctly, LaPierre just sat in his seat on the stage and shook his head a couple of times like he was disgusted. Later, after being glowingly introduced by now-President Carolyn Meadows, he went on to give his typical stump speech which ignored all the financial improprieties and the role of the outside counsel. Since it was apparent that most of the people attending the meeting get 100% of their knowledge of LaPierre from reading his columns in the NRA magazines, he got a standing ovation.

There are a number of other letters that have been posted to the Internet in the last couple of days regarding the NRA’s issues. They are now the basis for yesterday’s article in the Wall Street Journal and other places and I will be posting them. They are all photos of the actual letters. I will post them with little commentary and let you make up your own mind what to make of them.

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A Heavy Artillery Salvo Has Been Fired On The NRA

April 28, 2019 by 2 Comments

Much of what has been said by politicians about the NRA and everything negative that has appeared recently in the media of any sort should be considered the equivalent of sniping. It might take out one or two people but not the whole organization. That was then.

The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James (D-NY) has now fired what I would consider the preparatory barrage in the effort to dissolve the NRA. As someone noted to me, James is under pressure to act and she did on Friday.

From NPR reporting on the NRA Annual Meeting:

Even as the NRA struggled to handle its internal divisions, an external threat emerged this weekend in the form of a new investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“The Office of New York State Attorney General Letitia James has launched an investigation related to the National Rifle Association (NRA),” a spokesperson for the attorney general told NPR. “As part of this investigation, the Attorney General has issued subpoenas. We will not have further comment at this time.”

The NRA has received a document preservation notice in connection with the investigation being undertaken by the New York attorney general, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The NRA responded to the announcement of the investigation by pledging its cooperation.

“The NRA will fully cooperate with any inquiry into its finances,” said William A. Brewer III, an outside lawyer for the NRA. “The NRA is prepared for this, and has full confidence in its accounting practices and commitment to good governance.”

 This is serious.

It is even more serious because as evidenced by the NRA Meeting of the Members today too many people think just ignoring it will make it go away. The matter is NOT going away.

Compounding this is the NRA’s outside counsel who has a checkered past in terms of legal ethics. He was sanctioned in Texas and his appeal of it was upheld by the Texas Appeals Court last year.

If the NRA is going to use an outside counsel, I might suggest getting the very best – and cleanest – New York non-profit law specialist and let him or her handle it. However, given Brewer’s apparent hold on the attention of certain NRA executives, I doubt this will happen.

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Letter To The NRA Board Drafted By Tiffany Johnson

April 28, 2019 by 4 Comments

Tiffany Johnson, attorney, firearms instructor, and legal studies instructor, has drafted a letter to the NRA Board of Directors regarding a resolution that was discussed in the Meeting of the Members Saturday. The resolution calling for the resignation of Wayne LaPierre and the members of the Audit Committee was referred to the Board of Directors after much discussion and quite a bit of contention.

Tiffany has made a modest proposal that allows the matter to be discussed within the confines of the Board of Directors yet removes the appearance of impropriety and conflicts of interest. The key paragraph states:

I have a humble suggestion to help avoid public airing of private business while also quelling further cries of impropriety.
When the Board addresses this resolution, I request that any Board member, officer, or staff member who has a personal, financial, or fiduciary interest in, or fidelity to, Ackerman McQueen (or its subsidiary and affiliate companies) — as an employee, contractor, paid consultant, vendor, client, etc. — be required to recuse himself/herself from discussing or voting on this resolution.
That way, regardless of how the Board ultimately disposes of the resolution, at least the result will be less vulnerable to accusations of ethically dubious entanglements.

This is a sensible suggestion.

You can read the full letter at this link.

If you would like to sign on to this letter – and I have already done so – please email tiffany@frontsightpress.com with your name and membership type (Annual, Life, Endowment Life, etc.) Don’t wait to sign on to the letter as it needs to be delivered ASAP and the Board itself will meet on Monday.