Longtime NRA Chief Resigns Ahead of Corruption Trial
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Longtime National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre has announced that he will resign from the organization days before the organization is scheduled to stand trial on civil corruption charges in New York.
“The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) announced today that Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre announced he is stepping down from his position as chief executive of the organization, effective January 31. Long-time NRA executive and Head of General Operations Andrew Arulanandam will become the interim CEO & EVP of the NRA,” the organization wrote in a statement on Friday.
The resignation marks a seismic shakeup of the nation’s most formidable gun lobby. LaPierre first took power in 1991 and has been the unflappable public face of the NRA through six presidencies, guiding the group to historic victories in Congress, the Supreme Court, and state legislatures — vastly expanding the rights of gun owners, and entrenching firearms in American public life.
As head of the NRA, LaPierre has led conservative opposition to national gun control legislation, even as the United States is continuously rocked by an epidemic of mass shootings. The organization was criticized in the aftermath of several of the deadliest mass shootings in recent memory. Following the murder of 58 people by a gunman at Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, the NRA quickly reaffirmed its opposition to additional gun control laws, and its support for concealed carry laws.
Following the 2018 mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School, the NRA called for an increase in the number of firearms in schools. In 2022, the organization went forward with its annual convention just days after a gunman killed 19 children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The conference, held in Houston, Texas, was subjected to protests and widespread criticism.
In December, a judge ruled against the NRA’s bid to have New York Attorney General Letitia James’ probe into the organization dissolved, the trial is set to begin on Jan. 8. Among the remediations sought by James was the removal of LaPierre from his position as a chief executive of the anti-gun control organization.
In 2020, James filed a lawsuit against the NRA alleging that LaPierre and other top-level executives at the organization had engaged in “illegal conduct because of their diversion of millions of dollars away from the charitable mission of the organization for personal use by senior leadership.” The lawsuit sought the full dissolution of the NRA, as well as restitution payments for violations of New York tax laws.
In her original complaint, James accused LaPierre of having “routinely abused his authority as Executive Vice President of the NRA to cause the NRA to improperly incur and reimburse LaPierre for expenses that were entirely for LaPierre’s personal benefit and violated NRA policy, including private jet travel for purely personal reasons; trips to the Bahamas to vacation on a yacht owned by the principal of numerous NRA vendors; use of a travel consultant for costly black car services; gifts for favored friends and vendors; lucrative consulting contracts for ex-employees and board members; and excessive security costs.”
Three other members of the NRA’s executive board, former Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer Wilson “Woody” Phillips, former Chief of Staff and Executive Director of General Operations Joshua Powell, and Corporate Secretary and General Counsel John Frazer, are also named as defendants in the lawsuit.
In November of 2020 La Pierre paid back $300,000 to the NRA for illicit “excess benefits” he’d received, reportedly for personal travel expenses incurred between 2015 and 2019. LaPierre also came under fire for reportedly securing luxury Italian Zegna suits on the NRA’s dime.
The wheels began to fall off at the NRA in 2019, when the gun lobby underwent a ugly breakup with its longtime public relations firm Ackerman McQueen, amid the high-profile collapse of the gun lobby’s expensive media venture, NRATV. At the time, LaPierre fended off a coup attempt by then-NRA president Oliver North, who was reportedly in league with the PR firm. But dueling lawsuits and countersuits between the gun lobby and the PR firm ended up airing decades of dirty laundry, providing ammunition to prosecutors like James.
The NRA annoucement of LaPierre’s departure cited unspecified “health reasons” for his resignation. NRA president Charles Cotton vowed that the “NRA will continue to thrive” without its longtime leader. But the gun lobby LaPierre leaves behind is also ailing. The NRA has seen a precipitous decline in membership dues, while IRS documents indicate that the organization’s overall budget shrank from $358 million in 2018 to just $227 million in 2021, the last year on record.
Gun control activists celebrated the news of LaPierre’s resignation. “WE DID IT!!!” wrote Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts. “NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre is forced to resign after @momsdemand shined a light on his unethical, immoral and corrupt misdeeds for over a decade. We broke the powerbroker of the most powerful, wealthy special interest that’s ever existed.”
John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety “another massive setback for an organization that’s… been in a doom spiral for years.” LaPierre’s legacy, he added, “will be one of corruption, mismanagement, and the untold destruction gun violence has brought to every American community.”
For her part, James reacted to LaPierre’s resignation by calling it an “important victory in our case.” The attorney general insisted that the departure by the NRA honcho “validates our claimes against him, but it will not insulate him from accountability.”
James added: “We look forward to presenting our case in court.”
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