NRA ‘fraud’ may go deep:
Ex-official at powerful gun lobby says corruption worse than NY AG has uncovered.
The NRA’S former second-in-command has a message for the New York attorney general who has launched an investigation into the powerful gun lobby: It’s worse than she thinks.
“She’s only at the tip of the iceberg,” said Joshua Powell, former chief of staff to Wayne Lapierre, longtime head of the National Rifle Association. “When she sees below the water line, what she’ll find is decades of fraud, corruption, nobid contracts to the tune of not tens of millions but hundreds of millions.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James last month filed a lawsuit demanding the dissolution of the NRA, the nation’s leading gun-rights group and an influential ally of President Donald Trump. She also sued four current or former NRA executives, including Powell, seeking millions in restitution.
Powell wrote a book, “Inside the NRA: A Tell-all Account of Corruption, Greed, and Paranoia within the Most Powerful Political Group in America,” being published by Twelve on Tuesday. In an interview with USA TODAY, he said he wants to cooperate with James’ investigation. The lawsuit accuses Powell of misusing NRA funds, including hiding payments of $30,000 a month in consulting fees to his wife. Powell denied financial improprieties, saying he was “very confident and comfortable with the truth” about his own actions.
Powell depicted the NRA as raising millions by stoking fears of looming gun restrictions, then squandering that money on contracts, consultants and what he called Lapierre’s “billionaire lifestyle” of private planes and designer clothes. Among other things, the NRA explored buying a $6 million mansion in a gated community when Lapierre became concerned about his safety after a school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam depicted Powell as a marginal figure, one who had “zero input or influence” on strategy and was rebuffed when he tried to attend key meetings.
“This is a fictional account of the NRA, period,” he said. “Mr. Powell was effusive in his praise of NRA leadership and the association’s mission – right up until the day he was fired.”
When news of the massacre at Sandy
Hook Elementary School broke in 2012, NRA leaders began running through the standard checklist.
“What kind of gun was it?” Powell said. “If it was an AR-15, that’s going to be worse than if it’s a pistol. Was the gun obtained legally? Was it stolen? Was the guy an NRA member? That was always an important one.”
Not on the checklist was a discussion of the lives lost. At the school in Newtown, Connecticut, the shooter murdered 20 children, ages 6 or 7, and six adults. Powell called a top aide to Lapierre as news reports were unfolding about the tragedy.
“This is going to be the mother of all gunfights,” the aide told him. “Watch and learn, and, you know, we’re going to rain members and money down on the association.”