In act of heresy, NRA’s former No. 2 calls for increased gun control

The National Rifle Association’s former second-incommand is breaking with the group’s orthodoxy and calling for universal background checks and so-called red flag laws in a new book assailing the organization as more focused on money and internal intrigue than the Second Amendment, while thwarting constructive dialogue on gun violence.

The former executive, Joshua Powell, who was fired by the NRA in January, reinforces the kind of criticism made of the organization by gun control groups and state regulators, but it is the first critical look at its recent history by such a high-ranking insider.

He describes the NRA’s longtime chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, as an inept manager, but also a skilled lobbyist with a deft touch at directing President Donald Trump to support the group’s objectives, and who reeled in the president’s flirtations with even modest gun control measures.

The book, “Inside the NRA: A Tell-All Account of Corruption, Greed, and Paranoia Within the Most Powerful Political Group in America,” is to be published this month, the latest calamity for an organization that has faced years of headlines detailing allegations of corruption, infighting and infiltration by a Russian agent.

The attorney general of New York, Letitia James, is also seeking to dissolve the group, in a lawsuit filed last month that names LaPierre and Powell among four individual defendants from whom it is seeking millions of dollars in restitution.

Much of the book centers on LaPierre, who Powell says “couldn’t run an organization on a fiscally sound basis to save his life,” and who filled the NRA’s coffers by catering to “the extreme fringe.” So pervasive were the organization’s troubles, Powell says, that LaPierre confided in him last year that he was thinking about quitting and possibly asking Mike Huckabee, the former GOP presidential candidate, or Jason Chaffetz, a former House member from Utah, to replace him.

Powell’s book has drawn scathing reactions from the NRA. Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman, said that LaPierre spoke to many people about succession planning “if, and when, he ever left the NRA” and that Powell “knows full well that the most serious ‘financial issues’ the NRA confronted were the abuses of now terminated employees and vendors who abused the trust placed in them.”

In his book, Powell calls Arulanandam “the guy who became my best friend at the NRA.”

Documents show that weeks before Powell was fired, he was accused of i mproperly charging roughly $58,000 in personal expenses to the organization, a nonprofit, including airfare for himself or his family to Palm Beach, Florida; San Antonio; Phoenix; and Dallas, among a number of other destinations — accusations that echo those made by the attorney general against LaPierre. Powell agreed to repay about $40,000 to the organization, though the NRA has not cashed his check as its review continues.

A statement through Powell’s lawyer called the matter “a nonissue.”

“Josh’s business expenses were approved by the NRA and reimbursed in the ordinary course for more than three years,” the statement said. “Expenses only became a controversy once he began to point out some of the problems in the organization. Josh hoped to just put it to rest — and so he wrote a check for more than $40,000.”