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Wayne LaPierre, former head of the NRA, this Thursday in New York. BRENDAN MCDERMID (REUTERS)
The National Rifle Association (NRA), once a very powerful
gun
lobby in the United States, is in trouble.
A New York state jury determined this Friday that its former manager, Wayne LaPierre, mismanaged the group's finances and that this malpractice cost the organization $5.4 million.
LaPierre resigned in January before being tried for civil corruption in a case brought by the New York attorney general.
The jury has found it proven that LaPierre has already repaid the NRA just over a million dollars, and a judge will ultimately decide how much more he should pay the group.
Another defendant, the former treasurer and former chief financial officer of the NRA, also engaged in mismanagement that cost another $2 million.
Until the end of the last decade, the NRA practically put congressmen in and out of Washington thanks to its campaign financing, as a way to oppose the regulation of firearms in the federal government and in the states.
LaPierre was the main architect of that shadow power, leading the organization for 32 years, before he was forced to resign in early January on the eve of the trial.
LaPierre, 74, an NRA employee since 1977 and who already overcame an attempted dismissal as executive director by the NRA leadership, turned the association into a political power that put pressure on Washington and the chambers. to expand gun rights, even as mass shootings continued, if not increased, across the country.
A direct consequence of so many massacres was the first bipartisan gun control legislation in a decade, approved in June 2022 at the initiative of the Democratic Administration and, for some, too timid in its purposes.
Such an agreement would have been impossible a decade earlier. But the RNA's strength began to decline in the middle of the last decade, with revenues down 44% since 2016 and members falling by almost a third since 2018, according to court documents filed last year.
The case that brought LaPierre to court was presented in 2020 by prosecutor Letitia James, the same person who has accused Donald Trump of continued fraud in his businesses.
James, who is a Democrat, accused the NRA of looking the other way while allowing its top executives to divert millions of dollars for lavish personal expenses, turning the group into LaPierre's private preserve (so-called
Wayne-land
, according to the indictment). which provided her with expensive trips and luxury shopping in Beverly Hills.
LaPierre's resignation, announced Jan. 5, marked the end of an era for one of the country's most influential lobbyists.
“With pride in all we have accomplished, I announce my resignation from the NRA,” LaPierre said then.
“I have been a card-carrying member of this organization for most of my adult life, and I will never stop supporting the NRA and its fight to defend the freedom of the Second Amendment [which enshrines the right to bear arms].
“My passion for our cause burns as deeply as ever.”
When announcing his resignation, LaPierre cited health reasons as the cause, but the truth is that prosecutor James had requested that he be removed from office.
The case was also originally intended to completely disband the NRA, but that goal was dismissed last year.
According to the jury, John Frazer, current secretary and general counsel of the NRA, did not harm the organization financially.
Despite the group's notable decline, its spending of hundreds of millions of dollars on legal services to challenge gun control measures across the country has not stopped.
The group's major legal victories include a Supreme Court decision last year that struck down New York state's gun regulations and led to a flurry of legal challenges against similar gun control measures in dozens. Of states.
The NRA supported the lawsuit that overturned the New York law.
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