William Brewer III

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The Purge Continues At The NRA

August 23, 2019 by 5 Comments

The ascendancy of William Brewer and his law firm at the NRA is almost complete. Danny Hakim of the New York Times reported that Charles Cooper of Cooper and Kirk had been dismissed as an outside counsel to the NRA. Cooper and his firm had handled much of the NRA’s lawsuits in the past number of years.

Now Mr. LaPierre is continuing to purge opponents. On Thursday, the N.R.A. dismissed its longtime outside counsel, Charles J. Cooper, the chairman of the Washington law firm Cooper & Kirk, people with knowledge of the decision said. A second outside counsel and a top in-house counsel resigned. The departures come after an internal inquiry showed that the lawyers were involved in an effort to undermine Mr. LaPierre.

From what I have gathered from multiple sources, the “internal inquiry” consists of Josh Powell and William Brewer dragging people into a room and interrogating them for hours on end. If your inquiry team consists of a business failure and an attorney under an ethical cloud the results will be whatever is most likely to feed Wayne LaPierre’s paranoid fantasy of the day.

But as the informercial says, wait! It gets better.

The N.R.A. is also considering halting payments to its former second in command, Christopher Cox, who left in June but is still on the payroll, said the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal matters.

The article continues with the assertion that Cooper, Cox, and others were secretly working with AckMac as part of the supposed coup to depose Wayne. Hakim in his story says he is working with documents that have come to light as a result of the NRA’s lawsuit against Oliver North. If I had to hazzard a guess, I’d say the documents came from Brewer and his firm as they seem to have Hakim on speed dial.

Hakim concludes his story by writing (and including a link to my blog’s namesake):

The unraveling of lawyers, guns and money coincides with the departures of half a dozen board members in recent weeks. But Mr. LaPierre remains center stage, as polarizing as ever.

“Donald Trump and Wayne LaPierre are made for each other,” said Peter Ambler, executive director of Giffords, the gun control group started by former Representative Gabrielle Giffords. He called them “mirror images” engulfed in “allegations of corruption and mismanagement.”

But Todd Rathner, a member of the N.R.A.’s board, said, “Wayne is leading and proving that he has the political juice to get the job done.”

 Given the White House’s backtracking from what Wayne reported of his conversation with President Trump, I’d question Rathner’s last statement. He might have the juice to purge his supposed enemies within the NRA but I sincerely doubt his political effectiveness on the national scene anymore.

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The NRA’s Outside Counsel – Ethical And Billing Concerns

July 31, 2019 by 4 Comments

An article concerning William Brewer III, the NRA’s outside counsel, written by Mike Spies appeared yesterday in the New Yorker and was contemporaneously published in ProPublica, and The Trace. I had been told a few weeks ago that rumors about such an article had been swirling amongst the lobbyists on “K Street”. After reading the article, the rumors were true that it would report on his questionable ethics and tactics within the NRA.

Brewer has been the NRA’s outside counsel for approximately the last year and a half. In that time, his firm has billed in the neighborhood of $24 million. He was hired initially to sue Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Department of Financial Services head Maria Vullo, and the NY Department of Financial Services over their warnings to financial services companies on the “reputational risk” of having dealings with the NRA. It was alleged that their actions had cost the NRA millions of dollars in damages. In May, US District Court Judge Thomas McAvoy dismissed the moneydamages  part of the lawsuit against DFS and against Cuomo and Vullo in their official capacities. He did allow the First Amendment part of the case to continue.

Brewer and his firm have recently represented the NRA in their lawsuit against Ollie North and are involved in the cases in Virginia dealing with Ackerman McQueen.

According to the article, senior accountants at the NRA were raising red flags regarding questionable expenditures including payments to Brewer’s firm.

In 2018, accountants for the National Rifle Association began cataloguing for its board of directors questionable financial arrangements that had led to millions of dollars in payments to a group of the organization’s top executives and consultants. The N.R.A. was experiencing cash-flow problems, and the accountants were trying to address what they believed to be serious financial mismanagement.

For a year and a half, the N.R.A. has employed an outside counsel, William A. Brewer III, who represents the organization in high-profile legal disputes and is also deeply involved in its internal decision-making. The accountants believed that the financial dealings they had found could jeopardize the organization’s nonprofit standing with regulators. Yet, according to a former senior official in the N.R.A.’s treasurer’s office, Brewer tried to thwart their efforts to draw attention to the problematic payments.

The former senior employee, Emily Cummins, who worked for twelve years in the N.R.A.’s treasurer’s office, quietly resigned, in November, as the group’s internal strife escalated. Cummins, in a written statement that began circulating this month among N.R.A. leaders, including at least one board member, alleges that Brewer obstructed the work of N.R.A. accountants and vastly exacerbated the organization’s financial woes as he charged it hefty legal fees. Cummins confirmed that she had produced the statement, which was obtained by ProPublica, but declined to provide any additional comments. Brewer’s firm said its work was justified and of the highest quality.

The statement lays out a list of allegations regarding Brewer’s legal work and his treatment of N.R.A. staff as questions surfaced about his law firm’s billings, which totalled twenty-four million dollars in a thirteen month period. In the first quarter of 2019, Brewer’s firm charged over ninety-seven thousand dollars per day, according to internal N.R.A. documents posted anonymously online.

You may remember that then-NRA President Oliver North and 1st VP Richard Childress raised questions regarding the billings of Brewer’s firm in a letter dated April 18th. They referenced advice from then NRA Board Counsel Steve Hart that it was part of their fiduciary duty to ensure the billings were accurate and reasonable. Prior to the Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, Mr. Hart was summarily dismissed by Wayne LaPierre even though he was the Board’s counsel and not the NRA’s counsel.

Here is where it gets really interesting. Brewer sought to intimidate NRA staff that questioned his billings, arranged to have his bills paid first, and reportedly threatened to ruin the professional reputations of those accountants using “burn books” or dossiers containing private information.

Cummins accuses Brewer of trying to intimidate, deceive, and silence N.R.A. staff who were processing his bills while growing increasingly troubled by the organization’s mismanagement, exorbitant spending, and questionable deals involving conflicts of interest. Former colleagues of Brewer’s, as well as written correspondence obtained by ProPublica, broadly supported her claims.

Cummins writes in her statement that Brewer “intimidated NRA staff and threatened our professional livelihoods.” She alleges that he used pressure tactics with staffers “to keep them acquiescent,” compiling what she called “burn books” filled with personal information that he could use against individuals.

“I witnessed what appeared to be unrealistic and duplicative billing from Bill Brewer,” Cummins writes. “I witnessed that Bill Brewer himself created a 2018 cash flow crunch by interfering with accounts payable to prioritize paying himself immediately versus other NRA vendors that had been providing goods or services for months without payment, also jeopardizing the NRA’s biweekly staff payroll.”

Ms. Cummins, I was told by a prominent Second Amendment attorney who is personal friends with her, was a true believer in the Second Amendment and gave up a lucrative position with what was then Wachovia Bank. Ms. Cummins is a Certfied Public Accountant, a Certified Internal Auditor, and holds advanced degrees from both George Washington University and George Mason University. She served the NRA as Manager of Tax and Risk Management and then Managing Director of Tax and Risk Management for over 11 years. This is not the type of person who would make unfounded and inaccurate charges. She impresses me as a sober individual who cared deeply about the organization and its mission.

As you can imagine, Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, have denied compiling burn books as well as any improper or excessive billing on their part. They have built a reputation on being very aggressive in their tactics which also resulted in significant billings. A Dallas publication back in the 1990s referred to Brewer and his previous partner John Bickel as “high-priced, high-profile Rambo lawyers”.

“Bill’s representation of the N.R.A. is a classic example of ‘servicing the client to death,’ ” Hal Marshall, a former Bickel & Brewer partner, told ProPublica. “We tried to leave no stone unturned in our cases, and it often yielded great results. On the other hand, the bills were hefty.”

Brewer and his firm bring with it ethical issues. Currently, Brewer is appealing a fine of $177,000 for attempting to influence potential jurors and witnesses by using a push poll in Lubbock. This fine and admonishment was affirmed by the Texas 7th Court of Appeals in 2018. They concluded that the trial court judge acted appropriately.

If the right to a civil jury trial, enshrined in both the Seventh Amendment to the
United States Constitution and Article I of the Texas Constitution, is going to signify
anything at all, it must denote the right to trial by a fair and impartial jury. Any conduct
that erodes that fundamental core principle erodes public confidence in the entire judicial
process. Judges, attorneys, and litigants must never condone practices that undermine
that principle if the right to a jury trial is to remain “inviolate.”


Here, the trial judge was faced with serious allegations that attorneys for one party
had consciously attempted to preemptively tip the balance of a fair and impartial jury in
favor of their clients. After diligently hearing testimony for several days, the Honorable
Ruben G. Reyes reached the conclusion that counsel’s conduct was committed in bad
faith, that it affected a core function of the court, and that it was sanctionable. He then

set the monetary amount of those sanctions in a rational manner based on competent
evidence before him. Under the record before this court, we cannot say the trial judge
abused his discretion in imposing those sanctions. Accordingly, the judgment of the trial
court is affirmed.

Brewer has since appealed this decision to the Texas Supreme Court. The case appears to have been fully briefed and now awaits either an oral hearing or an order dismissing the appeal. However, his ethical problems in Texas did preclude him from representing the NRA in Virginia where he had applied for pro hac vice participation. US District Court Judge Liam O’Grady was none too pleased by Brewer’s failure to mention that in his motion to appear.

If this were the only ethical case involving Brewer it would be one thing. However, as Spies points out, a number of former associates of Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, were fired for raising questions about either billing or ethical issues.

In addition to Cummins’s statement, ProPublica obtained text messages and an e-mail composed by former Brewer employees in March, 2018, that alleged unethical behavior by the firm. Four former colleagues of Brewer’s—three of whom, like many firm employees, were abruptly fired during the past two years—described a pattern of disregard for ethical billing and conduct. The texts and e-mail were sent just before the N.R.A. began to heavily invest its dwindling resources in litigation by the firm.

In early March, an attorney who had worked as a Brewer associate sent an e-mail to another New York City-based law firm. The firm worked for a hedge fund that was locked in a legal fight against Eco-Bat, a lead-production company represented by Brewer’s firm. The e-mail warned, “A number of attorneys have recently left Brewer, concerned about the firm’s ethics violations.”

It went on to say that a Brewer attorney believed that he had been fired “for refusal to violate ethical rules.” The attorney thought that he had identified a disqualifiable conflict of interest involving an attorney on his team, the e-mail said. When the Brewer lawyer “confirmed his initial analysis,” the e-mail said, “he was told to drop the matter and terminated the following Monday.”

These allegations were denied by Brewer’s firm. They went on to win the case for Eco-Bat referenced above and the client praised Brewer’s work.

So where was the Board of Directors in this whole affair of questionable and excessive billing and threats to NRA staff. Even more importantly, where was the Audit Committee which was given a report with these concerns? I’ll let Ms. Cummins have the final word on that.

According to Cummins’s statement, Brewer misled the N.R.A.’s board and “used information gathered by NRA staff to fit different purposes and to frame a different story to the board of directors.” It also says that Brewer “effectively silenced NRA staff who uncovered issues needing board of directors attention” and “influenced members of the board” by “selectively withholding information relevant to their decision making.”

Rogers, the Brewer partner, dismissed Cummins’s statement and said that it “may reflect a radical misunderstanding of certain work my firm performed.” Cotton, the N.R.A.’s first vice-president, said, “I am not aware of any concerns that would preclude the firm from representing the N.R.A., period.”

Cummins concludes her statement by saying that, while still an N.R.A. employee, she had tried to sound an alarm regarding the N.R.A.’s legal representation, writing, “I raised concerns about Bill Brewer internally and with the board audit committee.” According to Cummins, she was ignored.

The best you can say is that the Board of Directors was hoodwinked by Brewer and chose to believe him rather than a long-term loyal employee who was raising issues and asking difficult questions.

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The Response

July 23, 2019 by 1 Comment

The letter from Sean Maloney, Tim Knight, Esther Schneider, and Robert Brown provoked an almost immediate response from the NRA and NRA President Carolyn Meadows.

The official statement:

The response from Carolyn Meadows:

Both of these come courtesy of Stephen Gutowski of the Washington Free Beacon. He posted them on Twitter last night.

I seem to remember hearing or seeing a memo from Oliver North, Richard Childress, AND Carolyn Meadows which raised questions about the financial affairs. It seems that once she became president her views changed 180 degrees.

As to Brewer himself, if one were a conspiracy theorist, you would have a field day. Think about it: liberal Democrat lawyer, gives money to Beto and Hillary, AckMac son-in-law, worms his way into the confidence of the EVP of the NRA and starts a civil war within the organization in the run-up to the 2020 elections. Duplicity on this scale is worthy of a Vladimir Putin. Frankly, while some have suggested it, I don’t think Michael Bloomberg could have conceived on creating a mole like this.

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Ouimet Named Interim Head Of NRA-ILA

July 3, 2019 by 4 Comments

Jason Ouimet, the NRA-ILA’s Director of Federal Affairs, has been named the interim head of NRA-ILA. The news was first leaked in a story by Danny Hakim in the New York Times who seems to be the go-to guy for NRA leaks. It was later confirmed in a series of tweets by Stephen Gutowski of the Free Beacon as well as in a memo sent out to all NRA employees.

TO:                All NRA Employees
FROM:          Wayne LaPierre
                       Executive Vice President
DATE:            July 2, 2019
SUBJECT:     Appointment of Interim Executive Director of NRA-ILA


-‑‑‑‑‑—–‑‑‑‑‑‑‑————————————‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑————


I am pleased to announce Jason Ouimet’s appointment as Interim Executive Director of NRA-ILA.


As many of you know, Jason – a 14 year NRA veteran, – currently serves as our Director of Federal Affairs, a position he has held since January 2015. Jason rose through the ranks after being hired as a federal lobbyist in 2005 and then being promoted to Deputy Director at NRA-ILA Federal five years later.


Jason has a strong legislative and campaign background. On Capitol Hill, Jason was a legislative assistant for former Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia) where he was responsible for oversight of significant issues like taxes, Homeland Security appropriations, transportation, small business, Social Security, welfare, science & technology, government affairs, Commerce Justice State appropriations and pensions. He also served as Staff Director of the Life Insurance Caucus of which Senator Chambliss was a co-chair.


Prior to working on Senator Chambliss’ personal staff, Jason held the position of Senior Research Analyst at the National Republican Senatorial Committee working on projects for key Senate races. Jason began his career in 1999 as a Junior Analyst with the Republican National Committee where he conducted field research in Florida, Connecticut, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania for President George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign.


Jason is a graduate of Kent State University where he received his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science degree in 1999.


Jason is an experienced government affairs professional and a skilled political strategist. He is committed to our noble cause and I know that he will do very well.


Please join me in congratulating Jason.


Wayne

From what I understand, Ouimet is both well-liked and well-respected within the NRA-ILA. It is rumored that there may be a search committee to find a permanent head of ILA but hopes are that Ouimet would be the leading candidate.

The appointment of an interim head of NRA-ILA shores things up a bit there. That said, it should not be forgotten that NRA-ILA serves two purposes:  lobbying and campaigns. The appointment of Ouimet satisfies the first criteria but fails to fill the huge hole left by the ouster of Chris Cox. Over a period of 24 years, Cox had developed a series of relationships with SuperPACs, PACs, 527s, and other campaign organization as well as a deft touch in coordinating expenditures where it would be most useful in the election of pro-gun – or at least not anti-gun – candidates.

One has to wonder if the triumvirate of Wayne, William Brewer, and the NRA officers took any of that into consideration when they forced the ouster of Cox. Brewer probably didn’t give a damn, the officers were clueless, and it seems all Wayne could see was a potential competitor to his position.

Others in the political world are seeing it very clearly. An article published this morning in Politico reports that both the Trump campaign and the Republicans are worried about the NRA’s “meltdown” just before 2020.

Greg Keller who is the former executive director of the American Conservative Union said:

“No organization has been more important to conservative voter education and engagement than the NRA. We all hope they’re able to mount the kind of effort in the 2020 cycle they have in the past,” said Gregg Keller, a former American Conservative Union executive director. “But in case they can’t, given their current situation, I hope they’re being forthright about that within the movement so others can pick up the slack.”


“The situation,” he added, “has folks nervous.”

Steven Law, head of Mitch McConnell’s SuperPAC, said this about the departure of Chris Cox.

Concerns over the NRA intensified last week after the resignation of Chris Cox, who had been the head of its lobbying arm since 2002. Cox was well-liked by NRA staff and board members and had deep relationships with major donors and many of the party’s top strategists. He recently participated in 2020 planning meetings with the pro-Trump America First Action super PAC and the anti-tax Club for Growth. The groups discussed polling and opposition research, voter registration efforts, and ensuring smooth coordination.


With Cox gone, it’s an open question who will oversee the NRA’s 2020 strategy.


“Chris Cox is the guy everybody dealt with,” said Steven Law, president of the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC closely aligned with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Wayne LaPierre’s legacy will be as the guy who caused us to lose gun rights in order to preserve his perks if the Republicans fail to hold on to at least one House of Congress and the Presidency. His paranoia and arrogance caused him to listen to the wrong guy and we are all suffering as a result.

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Report On The NRA V. Ackerman McQueen Hearing Today

June 27, 2019 by

Stephen Gutowski of the Free Beacon attended the court hearing today in Alexandra, Virginia in the case of NRA v. Ackerman McQueen. He reported on the case is a series of tweets on Twitter. The whole thread is here.

However, a couple of things just jumped out at me.

Wait a minute! You mean to tell me that William Brewer III, the probable architect of the entire series of lawsuits against Ackerman McQueen, is a AckMac client. What the hell!

I’m guessing those family ties between Brewer and the McQueens is not as frayed as one would have been led to believe. Brewer is the brother-in-law of AckMac CEO Revan McQueen and the son-in-law of former CEO Angus McQueen. Brewer’s wife is Skye McQueen Brewer.

Bill and Skye Brewer at a Ralph Lauren charity event.

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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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The Full Ack-Mac Statement On Terminating Their Contract With The NRA

May 31, 2019 by 2 Comments

Oklahoma City News 9 published the full statement from Ackerman McQueen on their move to terminate its contract with the National Rifle Association. Previous news reports only quoted excerpts from this statement.

From News 9:

May 29, 2019 State From Ackerman McQueen

“Today, faced with the NRA’s many inexplicable actions that have constructively terminated the parties’ Services Agreement, Ackerman McQueen decided it is time to stand up for the truth, and formally provide a Notice to Terminate its almost four-decade long relationship with the National Rifle Association.

“Over the last very difficult year, the NRA’s chaos led us to lose faith in the organization’s willingness to act on behalf of the NRA’s mission. We implored everyone involved to stay true to the NRA membership. In return, we were attacked in frivolous lawsuits and defamed with made-up stories that were then cowardly peddled to the media. Our employee’s rights to privacy were challenged by a determination to drag false allegations into the public with leaks and innuendo. The intent was to make us afraid. We will never fear the truth.

“The NRA has been a powerful force to protect the civil liberties of law-abiding Americans. For 38 years we were with them, as we are with all of our clients, to serve their mission. The turmoil the NRA faces today was self-inflicted. It could have been avoided. We deeply regret that it wasn’t.”

I speculated on Wednesday that Ack-Mac may be recognizing the rise of William Brewer III and his firm in the equation of things and Brewer’s goal to be the one stop shop for both legal and PR needs. I’ve had two NRA Directors who shall remain unnamed contact me since I wrote that to say they thought that was spot on and that Brewer was pushing in that direction. Both took a dim view of the efforts of Brewer.

In response to a question I posted on NRA Director and WLP loyalist Todd Rathner’s Facebook page asking if Brewer would be the new go-to for PR, Mr. Rathner replied:

No. I have asked that exact question and was told that his PR shop is specifically set up to support his legal work. They are not equipped to provide the type of services the NRA requires for overall PR. A lot will be coming in house, some services will be outsourced.

Maybe yes, maybe no but don’t be surprised to see Brewer’s billings increase even more.

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NRA Response To Ack-Mac Terminating Contract

May 29, 2019 by 1 Comment

The NRA has responded to the news that Ackerman McQueen has moved to terminate their contract. Interestingly, the place where I find the most complete version of their statements is on Bloomberg. Go figure.

The statements made on behalf of the NRA come from their outside counsel William Brewer III and NRA Public Affairs Director Andrew Arulanandam.

From Bloomberg:

“It is not surprising that Ackerman now attempts to escape the consequences of its own conduct,” William A. Brewer III, a lawyer for the NRA, said in a statement. “When confronted with inquiries about its services and billing records, Ackerman not only failed to cooperate — it sponsored a failed coup attempt to unseat Wayne LaPierre. The NRA alleges that Ackerman not only attempted to derail an investigation into its conduct, but unleashed a smear campaign against any who dared to hold the agency accountable.”


NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said the group would begin shifting its communications work. “We have an opportunity to elevate our brand, communicate with a broader community of gun owners and press the advantage in the upcoming 2020 elections,” he said in a statement.

As I said in an earlier post, it looks like Brewer is angling to be the provider of both legal and PR services to the NRA. That would be a serious mistake in my opinion. Arulanandam’s statement does give me a little hope that the NRA will beginning reaching out to more than just conservatives for support. However, they may have burned their bridges on that.

Even though the NRA and Ack-Mac were facing off in court, they still continued to work together. Indeed, Ack-Mac was in the room when in the Board of Directors went into executive session at their board meeting. We find this out from a court filing made by the NRA in their suit against Ack-Mac. The motion asks for a freeze in the proceedings due to Ack-Mac coming into possession of the Powerpoint slides that William Brewer III used to outline the legal strategy.

Again, from Bloomberg.

Then came the alleged subterfuge: An employee of Brewer gave a thumb drive with the PowerPoint file to an audio-visual assistant at the meeting so he could load it onto a laptop computer to display. That AV man was an employee of Ackerman McQueen and later “absconded with a digital copy of the presentation,” according to an NRA filing Thursday in Virginia state court.

After an employee of Brewer’s firm realized the laptop was gone, he called the Ackerman employee, who said he had deleted the presentation, according to the filing. But two weeks later, a lawyer representing Ackerman notified an NRA attorney that he was in possession of not one but two thumb drives onto which the the PowerPoint presentation had been copied. He said no one at his firm reviewed the document because it appeared confidential. He offered to destroy or deliver the drives.

The NRA isn’t satisfied. It filed an emergency motion seeking to halt the lawsuit until it gets to the bottom of how its legal strategy ended up in the possession of Ackerman and its law firm. Virginia ethical guidelines instruct lawyers who receive misdirected communications to promptly notify their legal adversaries. But the NRA claims the conduct by Ackerman has done “imminent, irreparable harm” to it and asked the court to consider disqualifying the firm’s lawyers.

“The facts uncovered so far raise grave concern, because AMc stole the NRA’s confidential and privileged information for its benefit,” the group said. “The PowerPoint provides a roadmap of the NRA’s strategy in the litigation, as well as the thoughts, mental impressions and work product of the NRA’s counsel.”

I’m sure the NRA would like to disqualify Ack-Mac’s attorneys. I’ve read their counter-claim against the NRA and it is certainly better written than the NRA’s original complaint. I will admit to being a bit picky about the quality of writing in legal briefs as I’ve read a lot of good ones over the years for this blog.

As it is, what brilliant person in executive management thought it was a good idea to have employees of the company you are suing to provide technical support? Moreover, it leads to the question as to whether Wayne and Company are so intertwined with Ack-Mac that they can’t tell the difference between an Ack-Mac employee and a NRA employee?

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Ack-Mac Moves To End Contract With NRA

May 29, 2019 by 4 Comments

The NRA’s longtime advertising firm Ackerman McQueen has formally provided notice that they will be moving to terminate their contract according to the Wall Street Journal.

In the announcement Wednesday, Ackerman said it had formally provided a notice to terminate its contract with the NRA, claiming the agreement already had been “constructively terminated” by the NRA’s own “inexplicable actions.”

The NRA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The ad firm said it had implored all parties to stay true to the NRA’s membership, but instead was “attacked in frivolous lawsuits and defamed with made-up stories” peddled to the news media.

This move comes on the heels of two lawsuits by the NRA against Ackerman McQueen and a counterclaim by Ack-Mac.

There is no word what will happen to NRATV which is produced for the NRA by Ack-Mac. As a reminder, NRATV personalities such as Cam Edward and Ginny Simone are Ack-Mac employees  while others like Dana Loesch are independent contractors.

While many of us have long wanted Ack-Mac gone or have, at the minimum, wanted a competitive RFP (request for proposal) search for an ad firm, this is a bit of a surprise to see Ack-Mac just walking away. It could mean that they see the NRA as a diminishing source of revenue and are fleeing like rats from a sinking ship. Alternatively, it could be a recognition by Ack-Mac of the rise of William Brewer III and his attempt to be the one stop shop for both legal and PR work for the NRA. Only time (and targeted information leaks) will tell.

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An Insight Into The Thinking Of William Brewer (Updated)

May 15, 2019 by

William Brewer III is the outside counsel for the NRA and is the lead counsel in their case against Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York State. He is also at the center of some of the controversy surrounding the NRA due to his bills.

I stumbled across this very recent article written by Brewer in Texas Lawyer. The article is entitled Advocacy as Art:  Lawyers Must Engage in Issues and Crisis Management. The article is behind a paywall but registration is free and you can read up to 3 articles per month.

His thesis in this article is that in large cases attorneys must manage both the courtroom litigation and the public relations outside the courtroom. I think you are seeing that very clearly in that he is the one who provides the response in many cases to the billing controversies, the Ack-Mac leaks, and the case against Ack-Mac itself.

From the article:

The fusion of legal and communications resources can produce more compelling, effective advocacy—enabling clients to favorably posture themselves, mitigate reputational damage and have a voice in the telling of the stories that define them.

What’s more, lawyers who manage issues and crisis management are able to help clients gain strategic advantages in their advocacy and recognize improvements in operational efficiencies, including cost-savings.

When communications professionals are deployed within law firms, the resources are more quickly and readily available. They are unencumbered by the drag of expensive “ramp up” periods often required by PR firms—which often renders the messaging “late” and diminishes its effectiveness.

There is also an inherent advantage in having law, media and politics all directed under the umbrella of the attorney-client relationship. The advocacy can be coordinated and responsive— working in alignment with a client’s legal objectives, elements of which might not be fully appreciated by a siloed PR firm.

If you read that last paragraph closely, you can see what he is trying to do for his firm with the NRA. He is seeking to be the legal counsel, the Ack-Mac PR firm, and the NRA-ILA wrapped up into one neat package. In other words, he wants to be the one-stop shop for all their needs and in turn get all the money.

Even if Brewer was the best attorney on Earth – and that is in considerable doubt – he still doesn’t have the necessary infrastructure to also provide the public relations and lobbying clout that the NRA needs. You need only to look over the list of professionals at his firm to see that.

I think there is a lot of danger for the NRA in what he is attempting to do  in having “law, media, and politics all directed under the umbrella of the attorney-client relationship.” While the bar canon posits that he should put his clients first, his ethical lapses in the past make one suspect that he will first do what is right for Bill Brewer. If that means sucking the coffers of the NRA dry, so be it.

UPDATE: David Codrea has a post on William Brewer along with links to Open Secrets questioning just if this is really a “pro-gun” attorney. According to Open Secrets which tracks campaign donations, Mr. Brewer gave $2,700 to the campaign of Beto aka Robert Francis O’Rourke and zip to Sen. Ted Cruz. He has also given money to such “pro-gun” luminaries as Al Franken, Hillary Clinton, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Dick Durbin.

I wouldn’t care if Brewer was the real life reincarnation of Perry Mason he gave money to Beto F’ing O’Rourke. That alone should make you question his judgment.