Washington D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, another partisan Democrat, has decided he doesn’t want New York Attorney General Letitia James to have all the fun with the National Rifle Association.
The NRA Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization incorporated in D.C., now finds itself in Racine’s crosshairs. Like his New York counterpart Racine is investigating the non-profit and has subpoenaed a variety of financial records of both the National Rifle Association and the NRA Foundation.
The Washington Post reported on it today.
D.C’s attorney general issued subpoenas Friday to the National Rifle Association and its charitable foundation, putting additional pressure on the embattled gun rights organization from nonprofit regulators.
The office of Attorney General Karl A. Racine is seeking financial documents from the NRA and its foundation. The NRA Foundation is chartered in the District and the NRA is registered as a nonprofit and does business there.
“The Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia has issued subpoenas to the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) and the NRA Foundation, Inc., as part of an investigation into whether these entities violated the District’s Nonprofit Act,” Racine said in a statement.
He continued: “We are seeking documents from these two nonprofits detailing, among other things, their financial records, payments to vendors, and payments to officers and directors.”
While the NRA Foundation remains a 501(c)(3) charity, there are documents that suggest it has been donating to some of Wayne LaPierre’s wife Susan’s pet charities. And at least one outlet reports that the donations went un-reported on financial disclosure forms.
From The New Yorker:
The NRA Foundation describes itself as “America’s leading charitable organization in support of the shooting sports.” Each year, the foundation — which is a nonpolitical arm of the National Rifle Association and can accept tax-deductible contributions — takes in tens of millions of dollars, mostly from small donors. Of that, it steers about $20 million to the NRA’s own gun-safety, training, and hunting programs. The rest goes to gun clubs and ranges, youth shooting groups, and organizations researching the Second Amendment. In a “letter of appreciation” that appeared in the foundation’s 2017 annual report, Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice-president of the NRA and an ex-officio trustee of the foundation, wrote, “On behalf of the entire NRA family, thank you for your dedication and for your generous contributions that keep America safe and free.”
Like all charitable groups, the NRA is required to describe the amount, nature, and recipients of its grants on its annual tax filings. But between 2013 and 2017, the NRA did not disclose payments to at least one charity — a Christian organization called Youth for Tomorrow, which provides outpatient and inpatient services for children with acute psychological and behavioral problems. Founded in 1986 by the former football coach Joe Gibbs, the charity, which is based in Northern Virginia, is a favorite of conservative elites. It is not an obvious match for the NRA Foundation. But the two groups do have one point of overlap: Wayne LaPierre’s wife, Susan LaPierre, is a longtime member of the YFT board and, until very recently, was its president.
Susan LaPierre joined the YFT board in 2009, and served as its president from 2013 to last December, when, according to Gary Jones, YFT’s chief executive officer, she chose not to stand for re-election. She remains “admired and respected by everyone on the board for her genuine commitment to our vulnerable children,” Jones told me. During the time of her involvement with the charity, the NRA Foundation has sponsored at least seven of its events, including its annual Heart 2 Heart Gala. A formal affair held at the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner, Virginia, the gala features conservative luminaries such as Taya Kyle, the widow of the American sniper Chris Kyle, and performances by celebrities, including the country singer Alan Jackson and the comedian Jeff Foxworthy. In 2011, the NRA Foundation was described on Facebook as one of the event’s two leading sponsors. According to publicly available YFT newsletters and fundraising brochures, the NRA Foundation served as one of the gala’s top-tier sponsors on at least three more occasions: in 2013, for $25,000, and in 2016 and 2017, for $50,000.
Susan LaPierre has served on the board of a non-profit Youth for Tomorrow. YFT’s work apparently includes housing illegal alien children that are unaccompanied by adults.
Follow this link to 82 pages of promotional materials indicating NRA Foundation sponsorship of a host of YFT’s programs and events. Sponsorships totaling well over a hundred thousand dollars. Not one has to do with youth shooting programs. In fact, at least one is geared towards getting young people NOT to shoot.
Looking a little deeper at Ackerman-McQueen corporate bios, what do we find?
Nader Tavangar
EVP / Managing Director
Since 1999, Nader has risen through the ranks with Ackerman McQueen, from driver to lead account man. He has managed the agency’s D.C.-based operation since 2009.
In 2003, Nader transferred to London to open and operate an international office for AM clients functioning in Europe. He has worked on several major accounts over the course of his career including Six Flags and the National Rifle Association, cultivating longstanding relationships with each.
Outside of work hours, Nader can be found chasing dragons and saving princesses with his two daughters. He has appeared in, produced and directed several film, TV and theater productions, and is highly involved with the Catholic church. Nader also serves on the board of trustees for Youth for Tomorrow as marketing committee chairman, and, time permitting, he holds a new fervor for hunting Asian mountainous game and spear fishing.
It looks like Mr. LaPierre and the NRA have yet another a new enemy on their flank.
Wayne didn’t take any rides on Epstein’s jet did he?
I can’t see why they wouldn’t have at least crossed paths at a party at some point. LaPierre seems perfectly capable of finding his own good time (or…intern, rather) so it seems doubtful he’d rely on that scumbag for ‘entertainment.’ Apart from the illegal/monstrous stuff, I suspect Epstein mostly just made a living throwing good parties for lame rich people.
epsten apparently made money by extorting the truly wealthy to “invest” in his offshore “hedge fund”, which apparently never traded stocks.
in other words, he has pictures on the powerful in “lolita situations” and the price of his silence is a fat account, of which he gets commissions
The DC political system should be shut down and returned to the state of Maryland as the City of Washington. Let them operate on the property taxes they collect on the ghettoes there instead of the national pubic tit.
Either that, or let the NRA clean up it’s own mess…
it all seems to revolve around wayne and his cronies…they’ve got to go….
Depends on how it’s done! Does the NRA Rankin File Members make that call, or is there an Mediation Board that make that call, acting as proxies by the rankin file members. Or in other word is the NRA Voting System like an Onion, peeling back one layer just to expose another layer and so on and so on. Until nobody actually knows what really happened or what was actually voted one…
Or both. Both is good.
Yes, I’m sure the NRA can clean up on its own. LaPierre is trying soooooo hard.
The NRA might well be dirty to some extent. We’ll see. But compared to some of the other politically active orgs? Come on. The orgs that get chosen for scrutiny are chosen for political reasons.
It’s much like the DOJ conducting fishing expeditions on Trump associates. Of course some of them are going to come up dirty. Stick your finger in the swamp anywhere and it’s going to come up with some goo stuck to it. The issue is how they are selected and why.
What about the NRA’s planned cruise/fishing trip coming up for their meeting in Alaska?
Is that normal for American charities? Is that an ethical use of funds?
“..Is that normal for American charities? Is that an ethical use of funds?”
Normal is a subjective term.
As someone upstream in the comments said, which charities get targeted is politically motivated. You won’t see any charities that support and/or parrot the Democrat politicians get audited in the same manner as the NRA is about to be. I seem to remember there being some hubbub around one of the Breast Cancer charities a year or two ago…. don’t remember any State AG sending subpoenas about it.
Are you okay with corruption? Are Americans used to this level of immorality? Wny are you not happy when people are held accountable for their crimes/sins? Why when another type of American does the right thing it isn’t welcomed?
Democrats hold Republicans accountable while Republicans do the same for Democrats. Would you rather Republicans hold each other to a better standard? Do you want Republicans to go after the corruption in the NRA or should they do nothing?
That’s just another reason the NRA should’ve been working to be ‘cleaner than clean’. They had been targeted by political harassment in the past and knew it was likely to recur in the future… but especially they’re headquartered and incorporated in a state that hates their very existence.
Instead you have ‘clothing allowances’ and shenanigans with expense accounts and legal fees.
If the NRA dies here, it’ll be the NRA that killed it. The corrupt politicians will just be burying the corpse.
@User 1
Actually the Republicans do a very poor job holding the Democrats accountable. They are generally whipped as a party.
@User1….
“..Are you okay with corruption?”
So the only two options are ‘normal’ or ‘corrupt’? Seems like a simplistic view of things.
“… Are Americans used to this level of immorality?'”
You haven’t yet demonstrated anything to actually be immoral. You have made an accusation of something being corrupt, but the accusation was not accompanied by anything close to supporting evidence.
“… Wny are you not happy when people are held accountable for their crimes/sins?”
Why do you think that I am not happy when people are held accountable?
“… Why when another type of American does the right thing it isn’t welcomed?”
Again, you failed to provide examples of the wrong-thing you claim is happening. A problem not solved to your satisfaction does not mean the problem wasn’t solved, it means only that you had expectations not met in the solution. You might want to do a self-assessment of what you expect from others and pay special attention to things like ‘immorality’ and ‘responsibility’ and realize those are things that apply to you, not to the things that are not you.
What is normal is for you to lie and falsify facts and this is like the 100th falsehood you have written in TTAG comment section. That trip is NOT by the NRA’s c3 (charity, tax deductible donations) but by the NRA’s c4 (not for profit, not tax deductible donation entity).
By the way please point us to GOA or for that matter any of the gun control groups c3 or c4 full breakdown of all activity — oh wait they will not provide them.
A couple of decades ago I worked for a major US non profit c4, that had, like the NRA, and like all the gun control lobby groups, one or more associated c3, along with associated pac and 527. The meetings with leadership and or donors were always at the most desirable destinations.
It is VERY common to have destination meetings for board members and or major donors in the non profit world. Orlando and Las Vegas for example are the TOP destinations for meetings for non profits. Have you ever been to Scottsdale? Do you think no one is golfing?
WTF, NRA has a few serious issues, but holding NRA as some kind of outlier in the non profit world is just a display of ignorance.
Please provide the expenses for GOA, GOA’s c3, Bloomberg’s, Soros’, etc innumerable non profit and charity groups before running your mouth.
The entire “March for Our Lives” march was run through c3’s with all kinds of luminaries and celebrities staying at the top hotels in DC, complete with spas and top amenities.
This is entirely true. Spend 100k on a fancy trip to get 2 million in donations back, it’s basically Fundraising 101.
It’s rather pathetic that you pick on my usage of certain words rather than the context of my post. I am sure you are more intelligent than to focus arguments on semantics.
I used the word “charities” because that is what was in my mind as I typed, which is understandable seeing the story is about charities and I can’t edit the post afterwards to fix my usage of certain words. It’s wasn’t the best choice of words, but I do think of the NRA as a charity due to the fact people give them money to help other people protect their rights and learn to use firearms. The law defines things more precisely.
The meeting in Alaska is supposed to be for the board members to deal with NRA issues, but they will probably combined it with the “Friends of NRA.” So it appears the whole point of going to Alaska is to hangout and get money. Their focus isn’t to fix the NRA rather to raise money for the NRA (which they like to use for themselves). The annual NRA’s members meeting was also not about fixing the NRA, it was about hanging out with buddies and fondling guns.
I seen people complain (I think they were board members) about having to go all the way to Alaska to have a board meeting when the NRA isn’t in the place to have such adventures. NRA members have complained about Wayne using a lot of money to travel to “Friends of NRA” trips, such as trips to the Bahamas during Christmas. Wayne spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to travel to such “meetings” in a month. The NRA also spends a bunch of money on wine for such things. Like I said, these meetings are not focused on the core mission the NRA claims to have instead it’s about hanging out and making money.
I find it disconcerting that one would defend corruption just because others do it too. Which leads me to question if you are part of the NRA’s structure. Do you work for the NRA?
Don’t forget that we care about the NRA not about all the other non gun related non for profits that are misusing the money given to them for specific purposes. We are here to fight for our rights, not corruption in America. Having to fight the NRA’s corrupt members is a total distraction from the mission, which is why we call for change, so we can go back to being effective.
Raising hundreds of millions of dollars a year to pay NRA workers’ huge salaries, give money to Republicans that want gun control, setup wine clubs, etc, is not what NRA members signed up for. Those hundreds of millions have not been spent wisely nor properly for the stated purpose of the NRA. This behavior gave the government the opportunity to mess with the NRA’s existence.
Just one more item in the dem/prog/lib/soc traitors agenda to destroy the NRA. Not going to happen.
Is it just me or does anyone else see this blowing up in the Dems face at some point. Rather it be from a right leaning AG doing the same thing or another group starting up and taking the place and the donations that the NRA has been receiving all these years…..but having a backbone to go with it. Maybe that is just wishful thinking.
Your comment assumes that there actually are conservative AGs that would be willing to investigate the NRA. AGs are political creatures that try to appease their base like any other politician.
One of george soros’ front groups spends $$$ to get “friendly” AGs elected.
It’s a standard tactic.
Bloomie was shooting his mouth off a couple years back about getting the right A Gs installed, since he couldn’t get the state laws he wanted passed. Or tip the legislatures generally. (Places he doesn’t live, or generally even visit. But he’s not just trying to install their laws, he’s pissed off when that doesn’t work.) And yeah, later he bragged about how much money he’d deployed to do this.
A Gs making law is like “law enforcement” making policy — not their job. They do like giving themselves field promotions, though.
Kamala Extract is a good example. Given all the “the law is what I say it is” when she was enforcing, making her head of the executive would be … a poor choice.
I hate to say it, but this may be one way to ‘clean house’ at the highest levels in the NRA…
I am thinking that too. Might be enough to get Lapaire to step down maybe even all the top people involved too.
Clean your mess up NRA. WE need a drama-free NRA not the sh”tstorm we have…
Personally I don’t trust the DC to handle this with anything other than the aim to make this as partisan against 2A supports as they can. But at this point we all know that the NRA is rotten to the core with graft and political corruption. And if we have to burn this proverbial village down to save it then so be it. Whatever is left will be fertile ground for a new generation of actual gun rights supporters and not just a vehicle for a bunch of neo-con slime to mooch off of 2A supports.
Imagine if they put they Clinton Foundation under this much scrutiny!!
This is no doubt politically driven.
You bet your sweet bippy it’s politically driven. The so-called liberals have been waiting for decades to take their pound of flesh from the NRA. Now there’s blood in the water and the sharks are circling. Sad thing is, it’s all from self-inflicted wounds.
I wouldn’t worry about every members name and number and address made public, it’s just the Democrats. Next will be the GOA, etc…etc then your local gun shops, but I wouldn’t worry, every man for himself
There is this TV show I like to watch called “The Untouchables”. They even made a movie out of it. The Feds in the end put criminals in jail who thought they could never get caught. It took a long white but in the end they heard the door slam shut on their prison cell.
I hope the NRA has extremely good accountants.
BTW
Al Capone didn’t go to prison for the 10 or 12 murders he personally committed. Nor did he go to jail for the 100 or more murders he ordered his assassins to do. He when went to jail for not paying his taxes.
Just as Eric Garner was arrested for not paying taxes.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/eric-garner-was-choked-to-death-for-selling-loosies
The mob had good accountants.
All the NRA has to do is give the government what it wants. Then they can go back to doing business as usual.
Eventually the unlawful gangsters get put down by the legal gangsters in the government.
What a nonsense post
Crooked Trump is probably instructing the NRA, et al., how to lie and delay in accepting any subpoenas. L&D, L&D, L&D and time goes on.
TDS big time!! I love it. Any more words of wisdom?
Here’s some for you G.F.Y.
No joke; Trump couldn’t give a crap what happens to the NRA
that didn’t even make sense in your own drug addled mind.
I have to wonder how the Clinton Foundation gets away without being investigated while the NRA is. That said I think that it stinks to high heaven.
I’m sure any day now Trump will lock up the Clintons. Just trust in the plan. Give him another term so he can do it. He will lock up Hillary for her emails and Bill for his underage relations. Sure, Trump was good friends with Hillary and gave her money but that was in the past; it’s different now. Trump never lies to get what he wants. He always does the right thing.
I dunno about always doing the right thing. That said, I am really curious as to if the Democrats are gonna take care of Bill for him accidentally tbh…..
Snrk
No AG would ever go after the Clinton foundation, Bloomberg’s C3 or Soros c3 even if they are 100x worse.
The Democrat AGs are highly partisan in this aspect.
Trump was with epstein kissing an underage girl. So that tells you alot about his character.
you already know the answer.
globalist pols and orgs get a free pass. nationalist pols and orgs get targeted.
the “elites” have no loyalty to a particular country. they make billions, maybe trillions, every year off of various forms of arbitrage, whether it’s immigrant labor wage rate arbitrage or financial arbitrage. they don’t want their “fungible labor” to be armed, and they don’t give a sh** about the American constitution.
organizations such as the NRA, or SAF, or GOA, are impediments to the globalosts, not because of “gun violence” or “crime” (because their gun control proposals are irrelevant to those topics), but because the globalists know that “fungible labor” with guns are more difficult to oppress.
Might be good for the NRA. Wipe the NRA’s butt for them and get all the NRA/GOP kool-ade drinkers riled up and loyal.
Not surprising. The political elite on the US left love the NRA, it’s part of the left-right political theater that keeps you all dazzled and ineffectual.
If the NRA survives all of this, the Left won’t like the new NRA.
To survive, the NRA will need to become a huge and more diversified version of the GOA.
I suspect the GOA’s membership has grown because of the current NRA scandal. But I don’t suspect that people will sign up in droves to become GOA Members either. If the NRA is the Poster Child of what Gun Ownership Guardianship should be, is the GOA’s any better, just because we’ve haven’t heard any scandals coming from them. Maybe their just better at Damage Control than the NRA is…
This is all thanks to Mr. Wayne LaPierre’s mismanagement of the organization and sounds as if some of what the problem is,is attributable to La Pee Pee’s days as a Demo Crat lobbyist,more wine anyone.
Not One Penny More Until All Of Upper Management And The BOD Has Been Replaced,they created this and fostered it,”Freedoms Safest Place” my @zz.
All investigations into the corrupt dealings of LaPierre and his cronies are a good thing. Whatever the sting now, if it forces LaPierre out the end result can only be positive for gun owners. Take the beating, get the rotten apples tossed out and rebuild cleanly.
Not One Penny More Until Wayne Is Gone!!!
Except for the fact that the NRA will bankrupt itself defending ole Wayne.
That is possible. But there are two many millions for it simply to go away. No matter the injury the struggle to remove these traitors may be, the NRA will be rebuilt in the end. Millions of pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment Americans will tolerate nothing less.
We need to be clear about what the problem is here. It IS NOT that the Youth for Tomorrow is bad or corrupt – it appears to be a very worthy cause. The problem is that the NRA Foundation, like all charities, has a stated purpose. Funds are raised with the expectation that they will be used for that purpose. Likewise, Youth for Tomorrow has a statement of purpose. Chances are that these two purposes are not in any way similar. I am a Christian minister, but I am deeply troubled that the NRA would direct funds given to promote the shooting sports to a Christian organization. That is not what the donors expected to be done with their money.
So LaPierre is pro-Illegal Alien too? And people called me crazy for speculating he was a Democrat plant/useful idiot when I noted they never attacked him personally.
Wayne has always had good relations with the establishment. His wife is like most women in terms of her political leanings. They both think of themselves as being better than others and they socialize with like minded people.
Americans don’t seem to understand that women are Democrat leaning in their political beliefs and actions. Most of them, including the ones married to Republican men, will support socialist policies for the sake of the unfortunate and children. They want to nurture like a woman knows how, thus they don’t mind doing that at the extreme levels [government].
The NRA hasn’t been a civil rights organization, it was never founded as one. They market themselves as such because that is what brings in the dollars from fake patriots. Now that those people are old and soon gone, the establishment it going after the NRA knowing it can’t withstand an attack by the entity they so love.
Both parties are moving away from their BS rhetoric of being for freedom and liberty. They are now moving in for the transition to religious statism where you will be a slave in some form without the ability to fight back mentally or physically.
Both GOA and Bloomberg army of groups are LESS transparent than the NRA.
As far as the GOP vs the Democrats, the voting on 40,000 different votes and legislative actions in the past three years shows GOP oppose additional gun control 95% of the time and the Democrats virtually never do.
It is idiotic and a display of total ignorance to imply they are equalt he issue, when there has never in history been a more stark differences in the two parties on any issue more than there is on gun control.
There are 99 state legislative bodies in the US. All but one state have two houses in their state legislatures. Then there is the US congress and Senate. That is 8,000 state and federal legislators. There are more than 40,000 bill sponsorship positions, amendment sponsorship positions, subcommittee vote positions, committee votes and full votes positions in all those bodies in the last three years. There are even gubernatorial bench nominations (eg state supreme courts) and state legislature votes on those judicial nominations .
Learns some civics before making a fool of yourself.
The Republicans are socialists who are very nationalist. They want the same things Democrats want, which is making the citizens work for them. Republicans are no friends to liberty, they always talk as if they are, but their actions are clearly opposed to a free society. They don’t even want other countries to live as they please.
Recently a bunch of Republicans signed or introduced gun control and pre crime bills. Sure, they don’t go crazy with the gun control like the Democrats, but they do sign bills if it benefits them personally. The Republican party’s platform is to oppose Democrats on most things, so they can’t just go around taking guns away. However, as we have seen, Republicans don’t care for your liberty just as much as Democrats, they just want a different setup with them ruling. For instance, they created the horrible DHS and now say the idea to get rid of it is anti American.
Republicans have no intent to defend the Bill of Rights against the Democrats. They just talk big and pass more anti Bill of Rights laws. They are more committed to their religion than human rights. They lose on purpose, they are ineffectual by design. It’s not hard to stand up to Democrats if they wanted to, eventually it will be if they continue to willfully sit on their hands when they still have a chance.
We know behind closed doors they all hang out and have a nice time laughing at Americans who don’t know any better.
The Senate should subpoena the AG’s taxes.
the nra has fucked itself.
i’ll never give the corrupt a penny more
This is La Pierre’s Legacy. You own this Wayne. It’s not too late to do the right thing and step down. Before it all goes down the tubes.
Actually the NRA Legacy’s, believing that the NRA’s BoD were above suspicion and acting for the betterment of the NRA and not for themselves using NRA donated funds and dues…
“District of Columbia AG Subpoenas NRA Foundation Financial Records”
And yet they won’t touch the clinton foundation…
Congress won’t give DC statehood so your complaint is misplaced. Taxes from ghettos full of rich white people you must be referring to?
The NRA caused its own problems. Why not be clean and above reproach? The AG doesn’t have to be partisan to check for wrong doing. Defending them is ridiculous because they haven’t represented us for years. They’ve caved on serious issues and have spoken out when they should have been quiet.
The dumbass freshman Dems are learning this lesson too. There is stupid everywhere.
No “complaint”, just an observation…
amazing the double standards NRA is being held too that would NEVER be applied to Bloomberg or Soros groups, Planned Parenthood or the 75,000 tax deductible US foundations currently involved in policy issues advocacy as 100% of their mission and activity.
I don’t like LaPierre (or North), I want them out. But the double standards are amazing — even by many here.
Has GOA given its expense report? I don’t mean its 990 but it s entire breakdown? Looks like relatives of board member are employees of GOA. How about Soros groups? Or bloomberg’s?
Do we really think Shannon Watts, a former top paid advocate for Monsanto, is simply a “stay at home mom” “volunteer” for Bloomberg’s groups? Think any of her relatives might be getting sweetheart deals or that she herself maybe having other paying gigs thrown at her so she can claim “volunteer” status. Anyone asking if a “charity” bought up bunches of David Hogg’s books or tosses him paid “speaking” gigs?
Has nothing to do with the article but,
I love seeing pictures/videos (like the pic atop this article) of kids shooting guns in a safe and responsible manner. It just gives me hope for the future. Kinda like how I enjoy watching my 2 oldest shoot (10&13) at LEAST as much as shooting myself (for myself, I don’t actually enjoy putting bullet holes in my body).
So, the DC A G is gonna clean up a gun rights advocacy org that can’t clean up itself?
I don’t think the A G thought this through.
clean up? no.
extirpate? if DC and NY can engineer it, yes.
The NRA Foundation is very important to the shooting sports nationally.
Second Amendment supporters can be hostile towards the NRA and the NRA-ILA due to possible corruption and being weak-kneed but we must defend the NRA Foundation.
The NRA Foundation is our form of indoctrination of youth into the gun culture. Without it, thousands of youth shooting sports programs will not have the funds or equipment to operate effectively.
It is absolutely necessary to defend the NRA Foundation. We cannot let Leftist prosecutors shut it down because of misuse of funds. If necessary, we’ll have to act against the LaPierres and associates by any means available.