Longtime National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre has announced that he will resign from the gun group, just days before it 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.
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 gun group.
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, LaPierre 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 time.
Gun control activists were ecstatic at 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.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
Source link: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/wayne-lapierre-resigns-nra-corruption-trial-1234941163/
