Willes Lee

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It’s War! Plus A Warning

April 30, 2024 by 5 Comments

There is a war for control of the NRA going on within the Board of Directors. While one could say it started when Wayne LaPierre announced his resignation, it probably started as early as last year when Charles Cotton was given a third term as President and Willes Lee forced out as an officer.

It picked up speed in mid-January when Buz Mills and Marion Hammer within a couple of weeks of one another both called out Charles Cotton’s attempt to become the next permanent CEO and Executive VP of the NRA. This forced Cotton’s hand and he appointed a search committee. The committee as we’ve come to expect is filled with the Old Guard. Even Bill Bachenberg who stayed relatively quiet for years on the Board sent out a letter critical of the search committee.

What had been essentially a Cold War suddenly became a “shooting war” little more than a week ago. That was when Marion Hammer had her contract with the NRA terminated by Interim EVP Andrew Arulanandam. I don’t think anybody believes Arulanandam did this on his own initiative. While we will never know for sure, it more than likely was at the behest of Cotton and Bill Brewer. As “Bitter” posted in the comments to that post, this sent a message to the rest of the Board to back off and don’t question us. If they were willing to take down someone presumably as powerful as Marion, lesser Board members don’t stand a chance to oppose them.

Al Hammond, who is presumably Camp Marion, lobbed a bomb into Camp Cotton-Brewer this past Wednesday where he questioned the leadership of the officers and asserted they were not told the real consequences of the New York trial. The next day a new email went out signed by all three officers – Cotton, Bob Barr, and David Coy – which, among other things, accused Hammond on “peddling partial information and NYAG propaganda” and told recipients to go to the NRA’s own “legal facts” website. In my opinion, any Board member who relied solely on that website would have thought the NRA won the case when the reality is that they lost on most issues.

Willes Lee jumped in yesterday with a Facebook post concerning both Hammond’s email and the officers’ response.

The morning calm of the grazing flock was broken by the shrill clarion cry “Circle them wagons.”

Many NRA Board members (incl me) didn’t know of ‘the missive’ until The Three … NRA officers (gaily signed “Charles, Bob, David”) sent an email disparaging the author as ‘misinformation, disinformation, misled, manipulated, troubling, peddling partial information, distorted’ (whew, all in one email). The Three… told us ask THEM for “honest communications”(!) and directed us to our legal-spin blog & scripted legal affairs meetings. #nothingchanged

You can’t make up this stuff.

Marion Hammer was not done either. On Saturday, she sent an email questioning compensation at the NRA. This was followed on Sunday by a brutal article in the Washington Post concerning Brewer’s influence at the NRA. While no more missives have gone out from either Camp Marion or Camp Cotton-Brewer, with the NRA Annual Meeting just a little over two weeks away this is probably the quiet before the storm.

Now to the warnings. First it is becoming evident that Cotton and Brewer are trying to find out who is leaking their emails. At least two different copies of the Cotton-Barr-Coy response were sent out. There were possibly more but I do know of two for sure.

Second, and this goes for all critics of the existing Board, you must have the documentation to back up what you are saying about them. Not having backup documentation will only provide ammo to the Old Guard aka the Cabal. I am aiming this comment at a claim made by Willes Lee yesterday. He asserted a fundraising letter went out in March listing Cotton as EVP. While I have no problem with Lee pointing out the foibles of Charles Cotton and others of his ilk on the Board and am actually somewhat amused by it, you have to be able to prove it. Unfortunately, no one including Lee seems to be able to locate their copy of that letter. It would suck to have to take back such a damaging claim.

I am neither in Camp Marion nor Camp Cotton-Brewer but rather in Camp NRA Member. My hopes for the Board to do what is right faded a long time ago. It sucks to have to rely on a court in New York City to remedy things but it is what it is.

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A Friday Roundup

February 9, 2024 by 2 Comments

This week started with us in Saint Louis where my older daughter had scheduled surgery on Monday. What was expected to be a 1.5-2 hour standard procedure ended up being a five hour surgery. The surgeon found an unexpected tumor hidden behind other organs. While it was cancerous, it is at an early stage with an excellent long term prognosis. The major downside is that she will need a second surgery to complete the original procedure. Please keep Wendy in your prayers.

The news this weeks seems to be coming faster than I can keep up with so I’ll just go with a roundup with links to more indepth coverage.

The New York Attorney General’s Office rested its case against the NRA and the individual defendants on Monday. Their final witness was Eric Hines who is a forensic accountant who found the NRA had a number of internal control failures. The attorneys for the NRA and the individual defendants then asked for a directed verdict saying the state had not proved its case and that certain laws do not pertain to them.

The Reload has a good analysis of this argument by Joseph Brucker. The crux of the NRA’s argument is as follows:

The defendants’ arguments centered largely on the applicability of New York’s Estates Powers and Trusts Law (EPTL) to nonprofit corporations and their executives. The statute contains a provision that subjects any nonprofit corporation organized for “charitable purposes” to certain registration and reporting requirements. However, “charitable purposes” are defined using language that echoes the IRS’s federal 501(c)(3) classification. The NRA, a 501(c)(4), admitted that the law governs some of its funds and activities. But it argued that the statute’s provisions relating to the “administration” of charitable property should only apply to its restricted charitable donations, not to general funds used for noncharitable activities such as lobbying.

The individual defendants, meanwhile, say the statute does not apply to them at all: an accountant or lawyer who accepts a position at a New York nonprofit, they argue, does not sign up for the same responsibilities as the “trustee” of a charitable foundation or bequest. The “trustee” designation set off a round of frenzied discussion in the courtroom on Monday.

If Judge Cohen accepts this interpretation, it could prove problematic for the state to force reform on the NRA.

Erik Uebelacker has been following the case for Courthouse News Service. He has a good synopsis of the testimony of former NRA 1st VP Willes Lee who had gone nuclear on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. What I found most interesting was Lee’s response as to why he had written those posts.

Lee was far more reserved in court than he was on Facebook. During his testimony, he was hesitant to critique the NRA at all, despite his willingness to do so frequently online last year. 

“I don’t know why I was posting those now,” he said Wednesday. “But I must have felt that way.”

He didn’t deny the validity of the content in any of the posts, however.

“I don’t know why I was posting those now”? Jeez! Talk about wimping out when put on the stand.

The two best ways to follow the NRA trial day by day are to follow NRA Watch and to follow the tweets of Uebelacker. I hate to admit our enemies have done an excellent job in covering the testimony in the case in an above board and fair way. NRA Watch is a project of Bloomberg’s Everytown.

Moving on in the Spirit of Aloha, the Supreme Court of Hawaii doesn’t like Heller, McDonald, or Bruen nor do they think it applies in Hawaii.

The court said:

“The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities,” the court wrote. “The history of the Hawaiian Islands does not include a society where armed people move about the community to possibly combat the deadly aims of others.”

Christopher Wilson had legally purchased his firearm in Florida back in 2013. He had been charged with possessing an unregistered firearm. His first challenge under the Second Amendment was denied but his second challenge after the Bruen decision was successful. A Hawaii district court had dismissed the charges based upon Bruen but the state appealed.

If ever a case cried out for the grant of a writ of certiorari it is this one. I can’t see how the SCOTUS can ignore such an in-your-face challenge to the supremacy of national law. As gun rights attorney Alan Beck notes, “The use of pop culture references to attempt to rebuke the Supreme Court’s detailed historical analysis is evidence this is not a well-reasoned opinion.”

In other 2A news, a group of Second Amendment organizations including the Second Amendment Foundation, CCRKBA, and theFirearms Policy Coalition are asking the US Supreme Court to grant certiorari in Bianchi v. Brown. The SCOTUS had vacated and remanded the case then known as Bianchi v Frosh back to the 4th Circuit for a ruling consistent with Bruen. Since then, the case was argued before a 3-judge 4th Circuit panel and its has been over a year since the argument without a decision. For some reason, the 4th Circuit has now decided to hear the case en banc. The case is a challenge to Maryland’s ban on so-called “assault weapons” (sic).

Adam Kraut, SAF Executive Director, notes in their release:

“The Fourth Circuit’s decision to hear this case en banc, over a year after it was argued before a panel and with no published opinion, seems to imply the court desired to take this case from a panel with which it disagreed,” noted SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The unconstitutionality of Maryland’s Assault Weapons Ban has been apparent since it was passed into law, as Heller already provided the proper analysis, which the Fourth Circuit previously ignored to shield the law from a swift death. Intervention from the Supreme Court is necessary to restore order and force the lower courts to properly address this issue in a timely manner, as each day the Plaintiffs rights are being infringed upon.”

Finally, I would like to note that Early, One-Stop Voting begins for the North Carolina March Primary next Thursday, February 15th. Grass Roots North Carolina has issued their Remember in November ratings of the candidates based upon both their voting history (if any) and a survey. Likewise, GRNC-Political Victory Fund has issued their recommendations regarding pro-rights candidates in contested races. Today is the last day to be registered to vote for the primary. This will be the first election in which a photo ID will be required since North Carolina voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring it in 2018.

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Judge Allows Motion On Supplemental Deposition Of Willes Lee

October 10, 2023 by

I was alerted a few minutes ago by an email from the blog NRA In Danger that Judge Cohen had granted the NY AG’s “motion to compel a post-note of issue, supplemental deposition” of Willes Lee. In doing so, he rejected the arguments put forth by the NRA and Lee.

The meat of Judge Cohen’s order is this:

Here, Mr. Lee’s post-NOI public statements, resignation from the SLC, and removal from NRA leadership are “unusual or unanticipated circumstances” that warrant a “brief and targeted” (NYSCEF 2205 [OAG Reply Brief at 12]) supplemental deposition (Esteva v Catsimatidis, 4 AD3d 210, 211 [1st Dept 2004]). Contrary to the NRA’s argument, in these circumstances the OAG’s ability to cross-examine Mr. Lee at trial is not a sufficient replacement for pre-trial discovery. Further, there is no assurance that Mr. Lee will testify at trial, thus potentially locking in his initial deposition testimony without the opportunity to further question the witness based on subsequent events.

He also found that the potential prejudice to the NYAG’s Office outweighed any potential prejudice to the NRA from having Lee desposed.

The deposition must take place within the next 30 days, it can be for up to seven hours, and it will be limited to the new facts and circumstances that the NY AG’s motion identified.

Given the contradictions between what Lee said in his earlier depositions to both the NY AG and the Bankruptcy Court and what he has posted on social media, this will be interesting. The former directors that I contacted about Lee’s assertions in his affidavit were in agreement he never challenged the NRA’s leadership nor encouraged others to do so.

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Willes Lee Is Balking On Supplemental Deposition

October 4, 2023 by 5 Comments

Now that the New York Attorney General’s Office is requesting a supplemental deposition from Willes Lee due to his social media posts, he is balking. This past Friday, September 29th, Sarah Rogers of Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, filed a “Memorandum of Law in Opposition” to the state’s motion to compel further testimony from Lee. She included a number of exhibits with this filing including an affidavit from Lee. I should note that Rogers represents the NRA including Lee as a member of the Board of Directors.

The Memorandum of Law in Opposition asserts two main issues. First, it is asserted that the NYAG has failed to show “unusual and unanticipated circumstances” within the meaning of the rules of the court. Second, Rogers says that the NYAG would not suffer “substantial prejudice” if they did not have the supplemental deposition from Lee. Rather, she says it is the NRA and its attorneys who would suffer as it impairs their pretrial preparation especially with intervening holidays. I presume she means Thanksgiving, Hannukah, and Christmas but not Halloween.

The majority of the Memorandum is devoted to the first issue. They assert that Lee’s postings are nothing unusual and that he has not suffered any retaliation from the NRA’s leadership. Moreover, even if Lee’s posting provide somewhat contradictory or inconsistent information from his prior depositions, they say this is not grounds to allow a “post-note of issue” supplemental deposition. They then say differences of opinion within a 76-member board are not unusual and are par for the course. The NRA says that if the Attorney General’s Office wishes to question Lee about his postings, then do it during cross-examination at trial.

So while the arguments by the NRA’s attorneys in response to the motion of the Attorney General’s Office are on interpretations of law, I find the affidavit filed by Willes Lee to be of greater interest. He says he is an unpaid volunteer and that a supplemental deposition would place “an unreasonable burden on my personal and professional schedule.” I’m not sure whether a deposition legally could be done by Zoom or WebEx but will note this court has already had hearings using such electronic means.

I found Paragraph Five of the affidavit to be most interesting.

Moreover, contrary to the NYAG’s motion, my recent social media posts are not “unusual.” In fact, ever since first joining the NRA Board, I have raised questions and posed challenges to the NRA’s leadership, and urged other directors to do the same in the service of the NRA’s members. And since I began posting my “challenges” in a public forum, not a single member of the NRA leadership has tried to silence me.

Given the assertions of Lee that he raised questions and challenges to the leadership as well as urged others to do so were at odds with what I understood, I sought out a number of former NRA directors who served on the Board during this period for their impressions. I sent them a copy of the affidavit and asked if the assertions in Paragraph Five correlated with what they saw and heard. The responses I got cast serious doubt on Lee’s assertions.

One director said, ” I still can’t understand how anybody has taken his self-righteous reversal seriously.  He WAS the cabal. He enabled the CABAL.”

Another director who I asked if Lee had done as he said he did responded, “Nope. I only saw him as a cheerleader for the establishment.” A third director said, “If he ever did anything in the way of resistance to their “plans” it was not in my sight.”

Finally, there is this from a fourth director, “Willis never spoke out at any time on any issue ever! Even during the contentious meeting where the BOD had to ratify the bankruptcy filing after the fact, he sat at the head table like a stone.” He went on to add, “Willis was complicit in his silence and bears as much responsibility in the wrong doing as Charles Cotton because he was on the SLC and did not oppose anything that had occurred. It is rich, that after he was removed as an officer, suddenly he found so much wrong doing.”

While the NRA certainly doesn’t wish that Lee be deposed again, I would wager house money that many of the “Friends of Wayne” would cheerfully throw him under the bus after his spate of social media posts. They would agree with the former directors that Lee never challenged the leadership nor encouraged others to do so. I do understand why Lee doesn’t wish to be re-deposed. His social media rants are not under oath unlike his prior depositions. He could be accused of being a hypocrite but perjury would remain off the table. A supplemental deposition under oath might change things along those lines.

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NY AG Seeks Supplemental Deposition From Willes Lee

September 21, 2023 by 3 Comments

By tradition, Willes Lee should have been the next President of the NRA. Instead, Charles Cotton was given a third term and Willes was replaced as 1st Vice President by Bob Barr. As one might imagine, this did not sit well with Willes. He had been a loyal supporter of the existing regime within the NRA for four years as 1st and 2nd Vice President, had served as the attack dog for the powers that be, had supported the abortive bankruptcy filing as a member of the Special Litigation Committee, and the list goes on. Not only had he been blindsided by the move to keep Cotton as President for a third term but he only found out he was being ousted as an officer when the Nominating Committee report was slipped under his door.

Since his ouster, Willes has take to social media to give his side of the story as well as make teasing remarks about what really was going on. His posts have appeared on Facebook, X as Twitter is now called, and Instagram. I, like others such as NRA In Danger, have been following his posts on an almost daily basis. It was like watching a train wreck and you can’t look away.

You know who else was following his posts on Facebook? The New York Attorney General’s Office and now they want to know more. Yesterday, they filed a motion to compel the “post-note of issue supplemental deposition” of him. The motion makes note of his Facebook postings and how they seem to be at odds with his prior testimony before the US Bankruptcy Court and in his deposition in the New York case. Alexander Mendelson, Assistant Attorney General (of New York), argues that “unusual and unanticipated circumstances” allow a supplemental deposition even though the time for deposition of witnesses has nominally closed. The circumstances that Mendelson refers to are Willes’ Facebook posts and his ouster as an officer. It is argued that this supplemental deposition can be done before the beginning of the trial and this would be better than wasting time on an exhaustive cross-examination during the trial itself.

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Mendelson supports this motion with 20 exhibits including past testimony and the deposition by Willes, a compilation of his Facebook posts, an affidavit by the Attorney General’s IT professional who downloaded the posts, and a series of emails between the attorneys. It appears that from reading these emails that the only objections come from the attorneys for John Frazer and Woody Phillips. Interestingly, the NRA’s lawyers from Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, have not objected. Moreover, given Willes is still a board member they will accept the subpoena on his behalf as well as represent him.

If Judge Cohen approves this motion and I have no reason to believe he won’t, it is going to get interesting. For example, you have Willes complaining about being left off of committees while at the same testifying in his deposition that it was OK for Tim Knight, Esther Schneider, and Sean Maloney to be excluded. Moreover, given the numerous posts complaining about Charles Cotton and David Coy and their roles as heads of the Audit and Finance Committees, you can be sure that his questioners are going to be digging deeper. I just wonder how much that the NRA’s attorneys will be able to prevent from being on the record.

There is a great lesson here for all of us. Don’t put stuff out on social media and expect it to stay private. What you say there lives forever and it will come back to bite you at the worst possible time. As for Willes who normally has multiple daily posts on Facebook, Instagram, and X, he has gone silent since yesterday. Frankly, I’m glad he hasn’t been silent in the past as his comments will force the truth to come to light.

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This Tweet Made My Day!

July 31, 2023 by 4 Comments

Former NRA 1st VP Willes Lee put up a tweet expressing dismay on the lack of info about the NRA’s sealed lawsuit against AckMac, Mercury Group, and Tony Makris.

I have to say it made my day.

First, I am happy to see Willes calling out the powers that be about keeping this sealed.

Second, I am happy that Willes acknowledged even indirectly that I helped get the news out.

Third, I am happy to be a source of information for the Directors of the NRA. I love the NRA and what it has stood for but I won’t sugarcoat its issues.

Finally, if any member of the Board (or NRA employee) wants to contact me with information on this or other issues, I promise that I don’t reveal confidential sources.

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The NRA Needs Its Own Independence Day

July 4, 2023 by 4 Comments

The National Rifle Association filed their own challenge to the BATFE pistol brace ban yesterday. This was after their attempt to intervene in SAF et al v. BATFE was denied as not timely among other reasons.

The NRA has and has had many excellent Second Amendment attorneys at their disposal. These include scholars such as Stephen Halbrook and David Kopel, appellate attorneys such as Paul Clement and Erin Murphy, and others such as Chuck Michel, David Jensen, and Dan Schmutter. In the past I would have also included the attorneys from Cooper and Kirk but they were considered “disloyal” by Wayne and Company and purged.

So who did they choose to handle their own challenge to the BATFE pistol brace ban? It had to be someone other than the attorney who just lost their motion to intervene, right?

Sadly, they went with William Brewer III again. Instead of going with a strong 2A attorney, they went with the attorney whose primary purpose seems to be to keep Wayne out of jail while getting as rich as possible in the process.

Why I don’t know and no one is saying. Even former 1st VP Willes Lee who has gone from stalwart Friend of Wayne to outspoken critic of the old guard is asking why.

Brewer seems to have the same insidious influence on Wayne and the Board as Rasputin did on Nicholas II and Alexandra. We all know how that ended for the Romanov Dynasty.

The NRA needs to declare its independence from Bill Brewer before he does any more damage to the organization – and the Second Amendment. Unfortunately, as things stand now, I see Brewer riding off into the sunset richer than ever and the NRA in shambles.

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Willes And The NRA Keeps Getting Better

May 21, 2023 by 2 Comments

As I said on Monday, the gloves have come off and the powers that be at the NRA have created an implacable enemy in former 1st VP Willes Lee. Now that he is free from the constraints of being both an officer and a member of the Special Litigation Committee, Lee is feeling no remorse about starting to air dirty laundry.

Yesterday, he posted this on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter:

1/2 Radio silence. Two years into NRA Relocation Committee, NO committee meeting. We are far down the road (no pun) of move/HQ sale without Committee, nor Board, nor even Executive Committee knowledge. We especially need input from staff who must carry out the move. This single issue has a devastating effect on staff, simply because we won’t talk with them. Our ‘staff’ lead, who doesn’t work for NRA & handles this as an extra duty to a full-time job, has repeatedly asked for an NRA staff lead contact. With no committee meeting & repeating the failed Bankruptcy secrecy fiasco, I resigned from this committee to focus on speaking/meeting/outreach/advancement which LaPierre increasingly asked me to conduct (well, now no one does it) while he is sidelined by legal and travel considerations. (2/2 soon)

The second part of it was posted today.

2/2 Scary? Not one NRA HQ building sale/relocation question during the Indy NRA Board meeting. For 2 years, no Board nor Relocation Committee member demanded even an initial meeting (staff does) . We need to get serious.

Wayne LaPierre announced to employees in late March the plan to explore the sale of the NRA headquarters building in Fairfax. As I said at the time, the real estate market is soft with interest rates rising and there are many newer alternatives in the northern Virginia area. While the NRA-ILA still does maintain offices within the District of Columbia, being near the seat of power does have its advantages.

I tend to agree with Lee that a move such as this requires staff input. Many of their most experienced and valued staff members will not want to move to presumably Texas. They have kids in school, family ties to NoVa, and houses. While some of the work could be done remotely, some cannot. That they have not reached out to staff is unforgiveable.

I am reading Lee’s posts as saying by inference that the whole move is being run by Bill Brewer who lives in Texas and Wayne is just along for the ride. Brewer must be really pissed about these posts by Lee.

Good.

These posts and the ones from Monday are just the tip of the iceberg. Lee has been posting other stuff that must be rattling cages in Fairfax, Dallas, and other locations. His Twitter is here, his Instagram is here, and his Facebook page is here. Read for yourself.

UPDATE: The blog NRA In Danger has even more of Lee’s posts arranged in chronological order with some commentary. It is worth a look.

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The Gloves Have Come Off

May 15, 2023 by 5 Comments

It is time to break out the popcorn because this is getting good.

First, the powers that be at the NRA (Brewer, Old Guard, Friends of Wayne, fill in the blank) pushed a bylaw change to allow Charles Cotton to serve a third term as President. This has only been done in the past to allow Charlton Heston to serve more than two terms.

Then, the Nominations Committee did not re-nominate Willes Lee to his position as First Vice President and replaced him with former Congressman Bob Barr. This was done while retaining David Coy in his position as Second VP. According to Lee, he only found out about the Nominations Committee’s move when the agenda was slid under his hotel door the evening before the Board meeting.

There could be many reasons Lee was pushed out but one of the leading ones is that he had resigned his position on the Special Litigation Committee. We don’t know whether this resignation was done because he disagreed with one of Bill Brewer’s legal stratagems or something else. Either way, his loyalty to Wayne and Brewer was deemed suspect and he had to go.

It is fairly well known that I’m not a fan of Willes Lee. While I had supported him in the past, when I was deemed a “hater” by him for disagreeing with the direction that Wayne and his cronies were taking the NRA that was beyond the pale.

I can’t say that I didn’t feel a little bit of schadenfreude when I saw the Twitter post below. I also think that the powers that be may have just created an implacable enemy who knows more than they would like known. This is going to continue to get more and more interesting as time goes on.

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Willes Lee Out; Bob Barr In

April 18, 2023 by 5 Comments

Just before noon, I received a press release from the NRA. At first, I expected it to say what a success the Annual Meeting was and how the officers had all been re-elected. Instead the first paragraph contained a shocker. Willes Lee had been replaced as 1st Vice President and replaced by former Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA). Whoa!

From the release:

The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) announces the election results from its Board of Directors Meeting held in Indianapolis, IN. Charles Cotton was reelected NRA President, former Congressman Bob Barr was elected as First Vice President, and David Coy reelected Second Vice President.

In recognition of his extraordinary leadership these past two years, the NRA Board of Directors  voted unanimously to amend its bylaws to allow Cotton to succeed himself for a third term. In addition to his responsibilities as NRA President, Cotton is Chairman of the Audit Committee and a transformational leader.

LaPierre was re-elected by the NRA Board of Directors, who annually elect the CEO/EVP. The Board of Directors are elected by NRA members. This followed a vote at the NRA Members Meeting on April 15, 2023, where members expressed confidence in Mr. LaPierre.

I have to laugh when they said Charles Cotton was a “transformational leader”. That would be true if you meant the leader who helped make the NRA a defunct organization. As to the members expressing “confidence” in Wayne, about 1/3 or so of those in attendance at the Meeting of the Members including me voted FOR the resolution offered by Jeff Knox expressing “no confidence” in LaPierre.

As to why Willes Lee was dumped, it is speculated that his resignation from the Special Litigation Committee was considered “disloyalty”. As a Florida politician who had voted with Marion Hammer 95% of the time noted, she considered him a “traitor”. I had understood that he felt blindsided when the move to let Charles Cotton have a third term was floated. He was not consulted nor told in advance of this move. I heard other speculation that his resignation from the Special Litigation Committee could have been due to a disagreement with Bill Brewer on litigation strategy.

Lee found this under his hotel room door on Sunday night prior to Monday’s Board of Directors meeting.

Again, the friends of Wayne blindsided Lee. A former director told me that Bob Barr was a true, blue supporter of Wayne. I was also told by another former director that he was surprised that it wasn’t Ronnie Barrett who also supports Wayne. What is surprising is that David Coy was not moved to the 1st VP position with Barr becoming the 2nd VP. This makes Barr as the presumptive nominee for President of the NRA in 2024.

The Facebook page of Lee contains some interesting stuff. He even included an article by Jeff Knox criticizing the Special Litigation Committee. Mind you it was Jeff who offered the resolution of no confidence in Wayne at the Meeting of Members. Normally, something like Jeff’s article would have been ignored as if it never happened and not worthy of comment. Lee also said that he believes in transparency and will never “keep secrets” from the Board.

In other Board news, Carrie Lightfoot reportedly has resigned and will be replaced by Charles Beers. I understand her resignation was due to a need to take care of a family member and to give more attention to her business.

In an ironic twist, Lee reports that the best text he has received today was one that said, “Oh. No. They Ollie’d you, at annual meeting, in Indianapolis. lol.” He even acknowledged how he was part of those who did it to Ollie in 2019.

I’ll put this out there. If any member of the Board of Directors wants to contact me, either on or off the record, my blog email is gunsandmoneyblog AT gmail DOT com.