NY trial could end longtime NRA leader Lapierre’s reign
NEW YORK — For decades, Wayne Lapierre has been a survivor. He has endured waves of palace intrigue, corruption scandals and embarrassing revelations, including leaked video that captured the longtime National Rifle Association leader’s inability to shoot an elephant at point-blank range while on a safari.
But now, Lapierre, 74, faces his gravest challenge, as a legal showdown with New York Attorney General Letitia James goes to trial in a Manhattan courtroom. James, in a lawsuit filed amid an abrupt effort by the NRA to clean up its practices, seeks to oust him from the group after reports of corruption and mismanagement.
Much has changed since James began investigating the NRA four years ago.
The organization, long a lobbying juggernaut, is a kind of ghost ship. After closing its media arm, NRATV, in 2019, it has largely lost its voice, and Lapierre rarely makes public pronouncements.
Membership has plummeted to 4.2 million from nearly 6 million five years ago. Revenue is down 44% since 2016, according to its internal audits, and legal costs have soared to tens of millions a year.
When the NRA filed for bankruptcy in Texas nearly three years ago, the step was part of a strategy to move to the state amid the New York investigation. But a Texas judge dismissed the case, saying the NRA was using the filing “to address a regulatory enforcement problem, not a financial one.”
Even with the NRA moribund, Lapierre’s legacy as a lobbyist remains intact. The gun rights movement has become a bulwark of red-state politics during his 30-plus years at the group’s helm. In recent years, significant federal gun control measures have been a nonstarter for Republicans despite a proliferation of mass shootings.
Lapierre is among four defendants in the suit brought by James in 2020. Two others are John Frazer, the NRA’S general counsel, and Wilson Phillips, a former finance chief.
The fourth defendant, Joshua Powell, was the organization’s second-incommand for a time, but he later turned against it and even called for universal background checks for those buying guns and red-flag laws that allow the police to seize firearms from people deemed dangerous.
The attorney general’s office has had settlement talks with Powell, a person with knowledge of the case said, but no deal has been announced.
The NRA was founded in New York state in 1871 by Civil War veterans who wanted an organization that would help gun owners improve their marksmanship. In the modern era, it has been the face of resistance to efforts to regulate weapons.
James seeks to use her regulatory authority over nonprofit groups to impose a range of financial penalties against the defendants and to remove Lapierre; any money recovered would flow back to the NRA.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday, with state Supreme Court Justice Joel M. Cohen presiding. The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.