Danny Hakim

Ackerman McQueen, the Oklahoma City advertising company that McQueen had long led, announced the death. He had had lung cancer.

McQueen’s death came amid a legal fight between the NRA and Ackerman McQueen that would have not long ago been considered inconceivable.

The two organizations had been so close for nearly 40 years that some of the most recognized faces associated with the NRA, including its former spokeswoman Dana Loesch and its former president Oliver North, were actually on Ackerman’s payroll, not the NRA’s.

But an NRA lawsuit this year against Ackerman over its billing practices led to infighting within the gun organization and threatened the leadership of its chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, who had been a friend and longtime client of McQueen’s. Moreover, it divided McQueen’s family and has put severe financial strains on his company.

McQueen cut his teeth as a director and producer for NBC affiliates and served in the Nixon administration, where he directed pool coverage of the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach in 1972.

He joined Ackerman McQueen in 1973, a company co-founded by his father, Marvin. After serving as creative director, Angus became president in 1984 and chief executive in 1987, helping to build it from a company of about 25 employees to one of about 250.

He was the agency’s creative director during the original pitch meeting to the NRA. The gun group saw Ackerman McQueen as more in sync with its values than ad firms on the East and West Coasts.

Ackerman was deeply involved in developing the NRA’s image over the years. It worked with actor Charlton Heston during his combative presidency of the organization. It devised the “I’m the NRA” ad campaign, which tried to humanize the group, and featured celebrities like Roy Rogers. And it gave LaPierre’s image a makeover, putting him in tailored suits.

The company also helped turn the NRA’s annual conventions into sprawling gatherings, with this year’s event, in Indianapolis, boasting of 15 acres of guns.

“I speak to Wayne almost every day,” McQueen said in a 2002 deposition, in litigation brought by the NRA and other groups against the Federal Election Commission. “On numerous occasions, we’ll speak throughout the day,” he added.

Describing how the NRA used advertising to influence voters, he said in the same deposition: “I tell people all the time: No voter is a light switch. No voter is on and off.”

Instead, he likened voters to a dimmer switch “that gets brighter and softer and that throbs throughout the process.”

“And so what you want, when you’re an advocate of the Second Amendment,” he added, “is for the citizenry to become as informed as they possibly can be on the issue.”

Angus Loren McQueen was born in 1944 in Superior, Wisconsin, to Marvin and Mary Louise McQueen. He did not attend college.

As a young man he was a writer and director with the Navy Office of Information in Washington during the Vietnam War. He was later a producer for an NBC television affiliate in Houston directing coverage of the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft missions.

He is survived by his son, Revan, who is the current chief executive of Ackerman McQueen; his daughters Skye Brewer and Loren Zanotti; and seven grandchildren. His wife, Jodi (Hetzke) McQueen, a former model and actress, died in 2013.

Over the years, Ackerman’s major clients included the Chickasaw Nation, for whom the agency developed an Oklahoma travel site that helped steer interest to the tribe. The Integris health care system of Oklahoma was another client. Stan Hupfeld, a former chief executive of Integris, said McQueen had focused on telling the stories of doctors and patients rather than solely on extolling the system’s technological abilities.

“You have to touch people on a personal basis, and I thought his organization was very skilled at that,” Hupfeld said.

Mark Keller, a music producer and voice-over specialist who once worked for McQueen and became a close friend, said, “It’s hard for me to think of anyone else more adept at putting together talented people.”

He recalled collaborating with McQueen on a campaign for a Texas company, Nocona Boots, that was criticized by environmentalists for magazine ads depicting boot-wearing ranchers battling the likes of rattlesnakes and Gila monsters.

“Big news — cowboys kill rattlesnakes, they don’t protect them,” Keller said in an interview, adding, “We were just trying to sell some cowboy boots, and it worked.”

McQueen championed building media platforms for his clients, none more high profile then NRATV, a live broadcasting arm that caused friction even within the NRA for straying beyond gun rights into right-wing politics.

Ackerman’s relationship with the gun group disintegrated over the last year, after the NRA had begun auditing its contractors amid an investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James into the NRA’s tax-exempt status.

By April, the NRA had sued Ackerman, alleging that it had concealed from the organization details about how the company had spent the roughly $40 million a year that the NRA had directed to Ackerman and its affiliates.

Ackerman insiders were shocked by the suit, which was led by William Brewer, the NRA’s outside counsel, who is a son-in-law of McQueen. Ackerman has contested the allegations, and its allies have depicted the legal fight as an effort to supplant Ackerman’s position within the NRA.

Days after the suit was filed, North led a failed effort to oust LaPierre, NRA officials have said, though North has disputed that account. By late June, the NRA shut down production at NRATV and ended its relationship with Ackerman.

Amid the turmoil, McQueen’s three children issued a joint statement this week. “Our father always reminded us, with unwavering commitment, that family is everything,” they said. “He knew that the love of family could weather any storm, conquer any evil.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/media/angus-mcqueen-dead.html" id="672a086e-7062-34be-a939-50692dd05492">The New York Times</a>.

Angus McQueen, whose Midwest advertising agency was a principal architect of the National Rifle Association’s modern image until the firm had a remarkable falling out with the gun group this year, died on Tuesday in Oklahoma City. He was 74.

Angus McQueen, the NRA's Adman, Dies at 74

Ackerman was deeply involved in developing the NRA’s image over the years. It worked with actor Charlton Heston during his combative presidency of the organization. It devised the “I’m the NRA” ad campaign, which tried to humanize the group, and featured celebrities like Roy Rogers. It gave LaPierre’s image a makeover, putting him in tailored suits. And it wrote provocative fundraising letters warning of “jackbooted government thugs” who wanted to “seize our guns.”

The moves ended a bitter internal fight that pitted North, a right-wing celebrity since he emerged in the Iran-Contra scandal, against LaPierre, the best-known face of the gun rights movement. They came as the NRA is facing an array of challenges, including an investigation by the New York attorney general into the group’s tax-exempt status, and the new financial strength of the gun control movement. In a statement Monday, LaPierre said he was “humbled by the board’s vote of confidence and its support of my vision for the future.”

North’s successor is Carolyn D. Meadows, a longtime member who was also elected unanimously, as the group did not seek to replace North with another celebrity. The NRA’s presidency historically has been a largely ceremonial post, though North had sought to make it a paid one.

The power struggle began Wednesday when North warned that unless LaPierre resigned, one of the NRA’s top contractors would release “a devastating account of our financial status, sexual harassment charges against a staff member, accusations of wardrobe expenses and excessive staff travel expenses,” according to details provided in a letter LaPierre sent the next day to the NRA board.

LaPierre viewed the threat as an extortion attempt, and the board sided with him in the brief internal battle. North and his allies have said he was trying to seek a needed review of allegations in recent news reports that the group had potentially violated its tax-exempt status.

The dispute was related to a bitter legal battle between the NRA and one of its largest contractors, Oklahoma-based advertising firm Ackerman McQueen. So intertwined has the firm been with the gun rights group that many of the most visible NRA personalities are Ackerman employees, including North.

Only hours before the leadership votes Monday, President Donald Trump tweeted that the NRA “must get its act together quickly, stop the internal fighting, &amp; get back to GREATNESS — FAST!”

He also complained that the group, a critical ally, was “under siege” by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, whose administration is in the midst of a legal battle with the NRA over an insurance program offered to gun owners. Trump said the officials were “illegally using the state’s legal apparatus to take down and destroy this very important organization.”

Cuomo, for his part, said New York would keep the NRA “in our thoughts and prayers” while James’ office, in a statement, said she was “focused on enforcing the rule of law.” It continued, “We wish the president would share our respect for the law.”

The NRA was chartered in New York, and the attorney general’s office has broad authority over tax-exempt groups registered in the state. An investigation by the office recently forced the closure of Trump’s charitable foundation.

In a letter sent Friday to the NRA, the attorney general’s office said it was investigating “transactions between the NRA and its board members, unauthorized political activity, and potentially false or misleading disclosures in regulatory filings.”

Trump also called on the NRA to leave New York and “fight from the outside of this very difficult to deal with (unfair) State!”

Tax experts said it could be difficult for the NRA to move its charter and assets to another state while under investigation.

Marcus S. Owens, a partner at Loeb &amp; Loeb who for a decade served as director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the Internal Revenue Service, said in an email that such a move would “require the approval of the NY Attorney General and approval by the NY courts, both of which are almost certainly not going to concur.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/us/nra-wayne-lapierre-oliver-north.html" id="9df4442e-2ff8-3617-a380-abce3f3189f4">The New York Times</a>.

INDIANAPOLIS — After a power struggle roiled the National Rifle Association’s annual convention over the past few days, the group’s board unanimously re-elected Wayne LaPierre as chief executive Monday and selected a new president to replace Oliver L. North, attendees at its annual board meeting said.

Wayne LaPierre Prevails in Fierce Battle for the NRA

He made the announcement as the NRA faced a challenge from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who had opened an investigation into the gun group’s tax-exempt status.

On Friday, James’ office sent letters instructing the NRA and affiliated entities, including its charitable foundation, to preserve relevant financial records. Some of the NRA’s related businesses also received subpoenas, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry. Both the attorney general’s office and a lawyer for the NRA confirmed the investigation.

The move by James came amid a stunning internal power struggle that took a major turn Saturday when North, in a letter that was read on his behalf at the NRA’s convention, said he would not be renominated. He and insurgents in the NRA this past week had been trying to oust Wayne LaPierre, the group’s longtime chief executive.

“It was a great privilege to serve as your president this past year,” North said in the letter. He added that the NRA had “a clear crisis” that it needed to deal with “immediately and responsibly” and that he had recently created a committee to investigate financial improprieties.

His move appeared to end the struggle against LaPierre, although there will likely be more clarity after the NRA’s board meets Monday. Supporters of North spoke up during a contentious gathering after his statement, but LaPierre appeared to hold substantial support in the room.

Their standoff began Wednesday, when North urged LaPierre to resign. On Thursday, LaPierre sent a letter to the board in which he accused North of threatening to release damaging information about him and other executives if he refused to step down.

The shadow cast by James’ looming action had in some ways spurred the confrontation unfolding at the NRA’s annual convention.

Even before her election in 2018, James had promised to investigate the organization’s tax status, and had told Ebony magazine that the NRA held itself “out as a charitable organization” but was actually “a terrorist organization.”

She has special jurisdiction over the group because it was chartered in New York. Her office has broad authority to investigate nonprofits and can seek a number of potential remedies against them in court; a previous inquiry by James’ predecessors led to the shuttering of President Donald Trump’s charitable foundation, a far smaller enterprise.

“The NRA will fully cooperate with any inquiry into its finances,” said William Brewer, the NRA’s outside counsel, in a statement Saturday. “The NRA is prepared for this and has full confidence in its accounting practices and commitment to good governance.”

In a statement Saturday evening, James’ office said it had “launched an investigation related to the National Rifle Association” and had issued subpoenas. “We will not have further comment at this time,” the office said.

Brewer has assailed James in the past for threatening to investigate the NRA before she was elected, saying she was embarking on “a taxpayer-funded fishing expedition.”

But such warnings were taken seriously, and in August the NRA embarked on a review of its relationships with all of its contractors.

NRA officials, including LaPierre, have said that its most prominent contractor, the Oklahoma ad firm Ackerman McQueen, did not comply with its requests to turn over financial records, a contention that Ackerman has contested.

The dispute led the NRA to sue Ackerman this month, and the lawsuit is at the heart of the infighting. North is an employee of Ackerman and is paid “millions of dollars annually” by the company, LaPierre told the board Thursday night. North had sided with Ackerman in the legal battle, alarming some board members.

The legal fight has crippled a long-standing relationship between the NRA and Ackerman, two organizations that are tightly intertwined. Ackerman came up with memorable lines such as Charlton Heston’s proclamation that his gun would have to be pried “from my cold, dead hands.” Ackerman also developed NRATV, a controversial online streaming network that had aroused concerns among some board members for straying too far from gun rights. The network’s personalities warned of race wars and portrayed the talking trains in the children’s show “Thomas &amp; Friends” in Ku Klux Klan hoods.

There are a number of potential issues that could arise in James’ inquiry. Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that the NRA’s affiliated charity, the NRA Foundation, had transferred more than $100 million since 2012 to the NRA and that it also lent the NRA $5 million in 2017. Donations to the NRA Foundation are tax-deductible, while those to the NRA are not, and the transfers concerned some tax experts.

The Times also reported that the NRA had paid $18 million since 2010 to a company that produces “Under Wild Skies,” a hunting show on NRATV. Tyler Schropp, the NRA’s advancement director, had a stake in the production company until at least 2017; nonprofit rules require a cautious approach for transactions that benefit key executives.

The Wall Street Journal has reported on multiple transactions benefiting firms with ties to NRA officials, while The New Yorker further scrutinized internal conflicts within the organization.

North cited reporting by all three organizations as the impetus for actions he had recently taken, saying “these allegations of financial improprieties could threaten our nonprofit status.”

The latest developments come amid a variety of challenges for the NRA, including lagging contributions and an increasingly well-financed gun-control movement, motivated by a string of mass shootings.

And the attorney general’s inquiry is not the only threat the gun group faces in New York. The NRA is already in a legal battle with the administration of Gov. Andrew Cuomo over insurance it offers to gun owners.

Speaking at the convention Saturday, LaPierre lashed out at Cuomo, saying he “hates the NRA and he hates our freedom.” He also asked how James’ description of the NRA as a “terrorist organization” made its members feel. The crowd answered with a cascade of boos.

Going back to the late 1970s, the NRA has had upheavals every couple of decades that have altered the organization’s trajectory. Board members see their meeting Monday as the latest such defining battle.

North, who was recently installed as president, was the central figure in the Reagan-era Iran-Contra affair and remains a hero to many on the right.

His announcement caught high-ranking members of the organization off guard. One member approached a reporter Saturday outside a ballroom where the group was meeting and asked, “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/us/oliver-north-nra.html" id="46300863-c51d-3c0c-a33f-e7faaeb5e13c">The New York Times</a>.

NRA President to Step Down as New York Attorney General Investigates

INDIANAPOLIS — Oliver North announced Saturday that he would not serve a second term as the National Rifle Association’s president, deciding to step down as the organization grappled with a bitter dispute over its future and its worst leadership crisis in decades.

On Friday, James’ office sent letters instructing the NRA and affiliated entities, including its charitable foundation, to preserve relevant financial records. Some of the NRA’s related businesses also received subpoenas, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry. A lawyer for the NRA confirmed the investigation.

“It was a great privilege to serve as your president this past year,” North said in the letter. He added that the NRA had “a clear crisis” that it needed to deal with “immediately and responsibly,” and that he had recently created a committee to investigate financial improprieties.

His move appeared to end the struggle against LaPierre, though it was likely that their dispute would be fully resolved at a board meeting Monday. Supporters of North spoke up during a contentious gathering after his statement, but LaPierre appeared to hold substantial support in the room.

“The NRA will fully cooperate with any inquiry into its finances,” said William Brewer, the NRA’s outside counsel, in a statement Saturday. “The NRA is prepared for this, and has full confidence in its accounting practices and commitment to good governance.”

James’ office declined to comment.

NRA officials, including LaPierre, have said that its most prominent contractor, the Oklahoma ad firm Ackerman McQueen, did not compy with its requests to turn over financial records, a contention that Ackerman has contested.

The dispute led the NRA to sue Ackerman this month, and the lawsuit is at the heart of the organization’s infighting. North is an employee of Ackerman and is paid “millions of dollars annually” by the company, LaPierre told the board Thursday night. North had sided with Ackerman in the legal battle, alarming some board members.

There are a number of potential issues that could arise in James’ inquiry. Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that the NRA’s affiliated charity, the NRA Foundation, had transferred more than $100 million since 2012 to the NRA, and that it also lent the NRA $5 million in 2017. Donations to the NRA Foundation are tax-deductible, while those to the NRA are not, and the transfers concerned some tax experts.

The latest developments come amid a variety of challenges for the NRA, including lagging contributions and an increasingly well-financed gun control movement, motivated by a string of mass shootings.

His announcement caught high-ranking members of the organization off guard. One member approached a reporter Saturday outside a ballroom where the group was meeting, and asked, “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

NRA President to Step Down From Group in the Grip of a 'Crisis'

NRA's President to Step Down As New York Opens Tax Inquiry

NRA officials, including LaPierre, have said that its most prominent contractor, the Oklahoma ad firm Ackerman McQueen, had not complied with its requests to turn over financial records, a contention that Ackerman has contested.

The latest developments come amid a variety of challenges for the NRA, including lagging contributions and an increasingly well-financed gun control movement, motivated by a string of mass shootings. And the attorney general’s inquiry is not the only threat the gun group faces in New York. The NRA is already in a legal battle with the administration of Gov. Andrew Cuomo over insurance it offers to gun owners.

North Says He Won't Serve a 2nd Term as NRA Chief

The confrontation pits LaPierre, the organization’s longtime CEO, against its recently installed president, Oliver North, the central figure in the Reagan-era Iran-Contra affair, who remains a hero to many on the right.

Behind it is a widening crisis involving a legal battle between the NRA and its most influential contractor, Ackerman McQueen, amid renewed threats from regulators in New York, where the NRA is chartered, to investigate the group’s tax-exempt status. With contributions lagging, the NRA is also facing an increasingly well-financed gun control movement, motivated by a string of mass shootings.

North asked LaPierre to resign Wednesday, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. He said he had also created a committee to review allegations of financial improprieties that threaten the NRA’s status as a nonprofit organization.

But LaPierre, in a stinging letter sent Thursday night to the NRA’s board, accused North of threatening to leak damaging information about him and other NRA executives unless he stepped down.

“Yesterday evening, I was forced to confront one of those defining choices — styled, in the parlance of extortionists — as an offer I couldn’t refuse,” LaPierre wrote. “I refused it.”

Even as the NRA’s leadership tussled behind the scenes, President Donald Trump addressed the NRA faithful at the convention Friday and proclaimed himself a champion of gun rights. In a speech that was part political rally and part pep talk, he said his administration would not ratify an arms treaty designed to regulate the international sale of conventional weapons.

The power struggle within the NRA is an abrupt escalation of a legal battle between the organization and Ackerman McQueen. The Times reported earlier this year that prominent members of the NRA board had grown dismayed at the performance of Ackerman because of its NRATV online media service, which has drifted into right-wing politics far beyond gun rights. Ackerman employs North, who hosts an NRATV series called “American Heroes.”

It is not clear whether North has the board support to oust LaPierre, who has led the NRA for decades. Previously, the presidency has been a ceremonial position, although North, in documents reviewed by The Times, has asked for it to be a paid post. A key factor will be Chris Cox, who runs the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action and is effectively the group’s second-ranking official.

The dispute represents the NRA’s deepest internal crisis since a struggle for control of the board in the late 1990s, when LaPierre and Ackerman were on the same side.

The crisis has led to the splintering of a more than three-decade relationship between the NRA and Ackerman, which crafted such memorable lines as Charlton Heston’s proclaiming that his gun would have to be pried “from my cold, dead hands.” Ackerman’s NRATV has taken on an apocalyptic tone, warning of race wars, calling for a march on the FBI and portraying the talking trains in the children’s show “Thomas &amp; Friends” in Ku Klux Klan hoods.

A lawsuit recently filed by the NRA against Ackerman raised concerns that the company might have overbilled the NRA and that North was conflicted in his duties as NRA president because Ackerman paid him. North, it said, had refused to provide his contract with Ackerman to the NRA.

In the lawsuit, the NRA claimed that Ackerman had resisted providing financial records as part of a review of contractors it was conducting amid the threats of aggressive regulatory action.

“As you know, the NRA has over this past year taken steps to strengthen its efforts to document and verify compliance by our vendors with our purchasing practices and their contracts,” LaPierre wrote in his letter Thursday to the board. “We’ve met extraordinary resistance from one vendor — Ackerman McQueen.”

He noted that Ackerman paid North “millions of dollars annually” and that Ackerman, via North, was threatening to release a letter that would be “a devastating account of our financial status, sexual harassment charges against a staff member, accusations of wardrobe expenses and excessive staff travel expenses.”

He also wrote that “North explained that the letter would not be sent — if I were to abruptly resign,” adding, “He stated that he could ‘negotiate’ an ‘excellent retirement’ for me.”

Later Thursday, close to midnight, in his own letter to the board, North said he was creating a special committee to investigate allegations of financial impropriety reported by The Times, The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. “I did this because I am deeply concerned that these allegations of financial improprieties could threaten our nonprofit status.”

He also said he tasked the special committee with “investigating allegations of financial misconduct related to Mr. LaPierre” that have been made by Ackerman in the wake of the lawsuit.

In a statement, a lawyer for the NRA, William Brewer, said the organization had been reviewing many of the issues raised by North since 2018.

“In our view,” Brewer said, “the items involving Mr. LaPierre may reflect a misinformed view of his and the NRA’s commitment to good governance.”

Ackerman McQueen declined to comment.

With the NRA’s board due to meet Monday, the crisis could come to a head soon.

“All of this is painful for me,” LaPierre wrote. “I will not judge Col. North, but must report what many of you already know: He has contractual and financial loyalties to AM.”

North, for his part, wrote, “We are facing a serious crisis,” adding, “To date, my repeated efforts to inquire about the propriety of management’s financial decisions have consistently been rebuffed.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/business/nra-wayne-lapierre-oliver-north.html" id="14226c98-e22c-3f65-a2e7-b36babb9fbc9">The New York Times</a>.

INDIANAPOLIS — Turmoil wracking the National Rifle Association is threatening to turn the group’s annual convention into outright civil war, as insurgents maneuver to oust Wayne LaPierre, the foremost voice of the U.S. gun rights movement.

NRA President Tries to Oust Wayne LaPierre in Widening Crisis

Behind it is a widening crisis involving a legal battle between the NRA and its most influential contractor, Ackerman McQueen, amid renewed threats from regulators in New York, where the NRA is chartered, to investigate the group’s tax-exempt status. With contributions lagging, the NRA is also facing an increasingly well-financed gun rights movement, motivated by a string of mass shootings.

Even as the NRA’s leadership tussled behind the scenes, President Donald Trump addressed the convention Friday and proclaimed himself a champion of gun rights. In a speech that was part political rally and part pep talk, he said his administration would not ratify an arms treaty designed to regulate the international sale of conventional weapons.

In a statement, a lawyer for the NRA, William Brewer, said the organization had been reviewing many of the issues raised by North since 2018, and added, “In our view, the items involving Mr. LaPierre may reflect a misinformed view of his and the NRA’s commitment to good governance.”

Last September, the National Rifle Association’s famously combative spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, provoked widespread outrage when she took to the gun group’s streaming service to mock ethnic diversity on the popular children’s program “Thomas &amp; Friends,” portraying the show’s talking trains in Ku Klux Klan hoods. Now, growing unease over the site’s inflammatory rhetoric, and whether it has strayed too far from the NRA’s core gun-rights mission, has put its future in doubt.

The site, NRATV, is a central part of the organization’s messaging apparatus. Since its creation in 2016, it has adopted an increasingly apocalyptic, hard-right tone, warning of race wars, describing Barack Obama as a “fresh-faced flower-child president,” calling for a march on the FBI and comparing journalists to rodents.

In recent weeks, in a rare airing of internal debate at the NRA, two prominent board members expressed concerns about NRATV to The New York Times. Their statements followed a round of cutbacks that claimed one prominent host, Dan Bongino, and were released through the NRA itself, amid what was described as an internal review of NRATV and its future.

“Since the founding of NRATV, some, including myself and other board members, have questioned the value of it,” Marion Hammer, the group’s most formidable lobbyist and a key adviser to its chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, said in a statement. “Wayne has told me and others that NRATV is being constantly evaluated — to make sure it works in the best interest of the organization and provides an appropriate return on investment.”

The reassessment underscores a debate within the NRA over how broad its activism should be. And it comes as the organization faces a storm of challenges, including a series of mass shootings that has created a new generation of gun-control activists.

Congressional investigations into the NRA’s possible Russia ties were energized after Maria Butina, a suspected Russian agent, pleaded guilty in December to using the NRA in a political influence operation. And the organization, incorporated in New York, may have a potent foe in Letitia James, the state’s recently elected attorney general, who has vowed to investigate the NRA’s tax-exempt status.

As falling membership dues put the NRA under further strain, board members have also expressed concern about the size of payments to the ad firm that produces NRATV, Ackerman McQueen. The firm and its affiliates pocketed $40 million from the NRA in 2017; billings directly to Ackerman have increased nearly 50 percent since 2015.

The firm, a partner to the gun group since the “I’m the NRA” campaign of the 1980s, runs the NRATV Twitter account, has done polling work for the organization and revamped its gun safety program for children. It has also been credited with a slick makeover of LaPierre — who, in the words of one former NRA lobbyist, previously resembled an “introverted chess champion.”

LaPierre’s wife, Susan, has worked for an Ackerman subsidiary, and there has come to be a revolving door between the two companies, with many employees having worked by turns for both NRATV and Ackerman.

Oliver North, the NRA president, has a contract with Ackerman, though the NRA would not disclose its size. As part of the relationship, North, a former Fox News pundit, hosts media programming and special events, like the show “American Heroes,” which recently began airing on NRATV.

The NRA, a nonprofit, has also directed $18 million since 2010 to a private company jointly owned by Ackerman and NRA executives, according to records and interviews.

“It is clear to me that NRATV is an experiment and Wayne is evaluating the future of the enterprise,” Willes K. Lee, a board member who leads the NRA Outreach Committee, said in a statement to The Times.

After the Thomas the Tank Engine video, he said, Wayne LaPierre appeared “livid and embarrassed” in a meeting with the outreach group. “He apologized to the entire committee and spent hours listening to our concerns.”

— ‘Red Meat for the Hard Right’

Loesch has emerged as NRATV’s most visible host, deriding gun-control advocates as “tragedy-dry-humping whores” and vowing to combat the left with what she called the “clenched fist of truth” — a body part that comedian John Oliver said was located “a little past the bent elbow of nonsense.” In one video, she warned The Times, “We’re coming for you”; in another, she threatened to burn a copy of the newspaper.

Chuck Holton, an NRATV correspondent, attributed terrorist activity in Europe to “the broader problem of multiculturalism and socialism” and to “gender-bending.” He also claimed that left-wing groups, billionaire George Soros and the Venezuelan government were trying “to influence the 2018 midterms by sending Honduran migrants north in the thousands.”

Grant Stinchfield, a host, claimed that “all radicalized terrorists are Muslims,” overlooking Stephen Paddock, who killed 58 people in Las Vegas in 2017, or Dylann Roof, who killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.

Such far-ranging commentary has raised questions among some NRA members about the scope of the organizations messaging.

“The NRA shouldn’t be putting this out,” said Jeff Knox, an NRA member who runs the Firearms Coalition, a smaller advocacy organization. “It’s not gun rights; it’s red meat for the hard right.”

Knox’s father, Neal, was an NRA board member who played a leading role in an effort to fire Ackerman in the 1990s amid discontent over its growing influence. A faction loyal to LaPierre ultimately prevailed, leading to a purge of the board and allowing the two organizations to become more deeply intertwined.

“Why are we getting so involved in left-right politics instead of sticking close to our issue, the Second Amendment?” the younger Knox asked.

Ackerman declined to comment, but in a recent interview in The Oklahoman, Revan McQueen, the firm’s chief executive, said his company’s approach was evolving from pure advertising to a “philosophy of branded news.” As Ackerman’s website puts it, “Every brand must be its own media company.”

To that end, the firm has created video networks for the Chickasaw Nation and the Integris health care system of Oklahoma, though their content is relatively benign. A recent episode of ChickasawTV, for example, featured a visit to an art gallery. Over on NRATV, a host was calling liberalism “a mental disorder.”

Beyond NRATV, the NRA backed Ackerman’s performance.

“When Ackerman McQueen began working with the NRA, the association was little more than a fledgling grassroots operation,” Andrew Arulanandam, an NRA spokesman, said in a statement.

“The NRA is now the most effective advocacy organization of its kind,” he said, adding that the firm had created “a national platform for the NRA” and that it was “an important partner.”

— Taxing Questions

During the NRA power struggle in the 1990s, a board member filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, claiming that an NRA contract with an Ackerman subsidiary “was done without any ‘request for proposals’; any bidding process; and no competitive bidding.”

The commission decided in a 6-0 vote not to take action, but criticisms have persisted.

“The NRA is willing to play fast and loose with tax regulations,” said Marcus Owens, a partner at Loeb &amp; Loeb who served for a decade as director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the IRS.

James, the New York attorney general, presents a new threat. Last year, she told Ebony magazine that the NRA held itself “out as a charitable organization” but was actually “a terrorist organization.”

William A. Brewer III, the NRA’s outside counsel, said James had given no indication when she was a candidate that “the NRA had done anything improper,” adding that she had instead promised “a taxpayer-funded fishing expedition.”

A number of transactions could draw scrutiny. Since 2010, the NRA has paid $18 million to a company that produces “Under Wild Skies,” a hunting show on NRATV. Tyler Schropp, the NRA’s advancement director, came to the organization in 2010 from Ackerman, and had a stake in the production company until at least 2017, but “no longer holds any interest,” Brewer said.

Federal rules restrict transactions that confer economic benefits on key executives of tax-exempt organizations.

Brewer described Schropp’s stake as “a minuscule interest” that the NRA found not to be objectionable. Payments related to “Under Wild Skies” emerged only recently in NRA tax filings.

Other issues unrelated to Ackerman could also surface. The NRA has transferred more than $100 million since 2012 from an affiliated charity that also lent the NRA $5 million in 2017. Donations to the charity, the NRA Foundation, are tax-deductible, while those to the NRA are not.

“If you’re doing a program that’s charitable, you run it through the charity,” said David Samuels, a partner at Duval &amp; Stachenfeld who served in the charities bureau of the New York Attorney General’s Office, which oversees tax-exempt organizations. Such practices raise “red flags,” he said.

Like some nonprofits, the NRA has been lucrative for its top executives. LaPierre’s compensation rose from less than $200,000 in the mid-1990s to nearly $1.5 million in 2017. It spiked to more than $5 million in 2015, largely because of a retirement plan payout.

A review of public records found that the NRA, which has about 550 employees, has disclosed that 41 employees, contractors, vendors or consultants have relevant family relationships to others connected to the organization, including a “niece-in-law” of LaPierre who was hired as a consultant.

“The NRA strives to comply with all applicable regulations,” Brewer said, adding that the organization has a “conflict-of interest-policy” and that “vendor agreements are reviewed and approved” by the board’s audit committee when appropriate.

With New York regulators circling, it’s no surprise that the state’s politicians have become fodder for NRATV — particularly Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose administration is already engaged in a legal fight with the gun group. Recently, the site even targeted Albany, describing it as “Graft City.”

Whatever happens to NRATV, few expect the NRA to become much less combative. LaPierre, in a speech this month, described the organization’s approach as “full-contact advocacy,” adding, “We are going to fight back against anyone who attempts to silence us.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/us/nra-video-streaming-nratv.html" id="e9cf212a-b986-3eaf-a46a-5ce3f1d944b8">The New York Times</a>.

Where Incendiary NRA Videos Are Finding New Critics: Inside the NRA

The flash point was Thomas the Tank Engine.

He faced a revolt from the NRA’s top lobbyist, its president, its longtime advertising firm, and several board members and donors that quickly became public. New documents reviewed by The New York Times show that the effort against him was even wider in scope, drawing in three outside law firms working for the NRA and at least one in-house attorney. A wave of embarrassing leaks showed that LaPierre billed an NRA contractor hundreds of thousands of dollars for bespoke suits and foreign travel, as well as some of his wife’s makeup costs.

Then this month, two mass shootings galvanized the gun control movement and prompted President Donald Trump to float the possibility of expanded background checks, which is anathema to the gun lobby.

But LaPierre, who has run the NRA since 1991, has so far survived all the internal challenges. And he has continued to successfully advance his group’s uncompromising agenda. This week he appeared to personally persuade Trump to resist significant measures sought by Democrats and gun control advocates.

Now LaPierre is continuing to purge opponents. On Thursday, the NRA dismissed its longtime outside counsel, Charles J. Cooper, the chairman of the Washington law firm Cooper &amp; Kirk, people with knowledge of the decision said. A second outside counsel and a top in-house counsel resigned. The departures come after an internal NRA inquiry showed that the lawyers were involved in an effort to undermine LaPierre.

The NRA is also considering halting payments to its former second in command, Christopher Cox, who left the NRA in June but is still on the payroll, said the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal matters.

The NRA’s apparent success in fending off stricter gun regulations represents an important show of strength for LaPierre after months of damaging turmoil. And it shows that even in a diminished state, the group wields vast influence over the Republican Party, and particularly Trump, after spending more than $30 million to help get him elected.

NRA officials have said the rebellion was sparked by LaPierre’s decision to pursue an internal audit of contractors. The infighting became public in April, when Oliver North departed as the group’s president after seeking his own financial review and being accused by LaPierre of trying to extort him. Trump urged the group to “stop the internal fighting, &amp; get back to GREATNESS — FAST!”

Previous reporting by The Times and others has chronicled the internal tumult around North’s departure. But the new documents show a deeper level of coordination than was previously known in the effort against LaPierre, with extensive discussions between North’s allies and the NRA’s own outside counsels. Cooper and other lawyers exchanged emails urging leaks and countermeasures that would undermine LaPierre’s strategy. At one point in April Cooper wrote another lawyer in frustration, saying, “No one on our side will leak.”

The documents also show how LaPierre scrambled to shore up his standing, reaching out to board members for support. And handwritten notes taken by an aide to LaPierre, scrawled on a yellow legal pad, detailed what the NRA says were threats made by North to force LaPierre to resign. There would be revelations about “sexual offenses” by one of LaPierre’s colleagues, about spending on “Wayne/clothing” and luxury travel. North sought the “immediate resignation of Wayne,” the notes said, adding, “Window is short.”

Cooper, in a statement Thursday, said, “Throughout the over three decades in which I have represented the NRA, I have adhered to the highest standards of professionalism.” He added that he owed an “ethical duty of loyalty to the NRA itself” and not to “any individual officers or directors.”

Michael Volkov, an outside counsel who resigned Thursday, declined to comment, as did Brendan Sullivan, a lawyer for North.

In legal filings, North’s lawyers have said that suggestions he took part in a coup attempt against LaPierre are “fictitious,” and that he had legitimate concerns about “potential financial misconduct” and was thwarted by LaPierre’s “total dictatorial control.”

LaPierre said in a statement that he was disturbed “that the NRA’s supposed ‘friends’” engaged in what he called a “scheme to harm our Association,” and said North “abused the trust” of the NRA.

A spokeswoman for Cox referred to an earlier statement, when he said allegations that he was complicit in a coup attempt against LaPierre were “offensive and patently false.”

LaPierre, 69, evolved from a wonky and introverted lobbyist to become the unyielding face of the gun rights movement in America. Married without children, he has made the NRA his life’s work, framing it as a civil rights issue, and has been reluctant to step aside. But the leaks have taken a toll: Even Fox News, a reliable sanctuary, attacked him this week, with a host describing him as “an odious little grifter.”

In the aftermath of the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, this month, LaPierre reverted to a familiar NRA playbook: The group focused on issues like mental health rather than guns themselves. LaPierre lobbied Trump behind the scenes, including in a 30-minute phone call Tuesday after which Trump also referred to the shootings as “a mental problem” and accused Democrats of wanting to “give up the Second Amendment.”

Still, LaPierre’s influence will continue to be tested. The Republican-controlled Senate remains a reliable ally in fighting off new restrictions. But the gun control movement has begun to catch up, with well-funded backers like Michael Bloomberg, and in the 2018 midterm election cycle, gun control groups outspent the NRA.

The rebellion inside the NRA was ultimately about money and power. And it featured a high-stakes tussle between LaPierre and North — an icon of the right who was involved in one of the most notorious political scandals of the 1980s — for control of one of the country’s most influential, and incendiary, lobbying groups.

At the center of the revolt was the group’s advertising firm, Ackerman McQueen, which had advised the organization for decades.

Both LaPierre and North had financial ties to Ackerman. LaPierre was billing the firm for hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses, while North had a contract worth millions of dollars to appear on an online documentary series.

New documents show how a dispute over the NRA’s access to Ackerman’s financial records escalated tensions between LaPierre and North. Though the NRA’s presidency is ceremonial, North began requesting documents related to Ackerman. In February, LaPierre essentially told North to stay in his lane. In a previously undisclosed letter he wrote, “Because you are an employee of Ackerman McQueen, and have a conflict of interest, I request again that you kindly cease and desist from any further involvement.”

Dividing lines took shape as Ackerman and North aligned with Cooper and other outside counsels. By early April, LaPierre was moving to consolidate support. Another prominent outside NRA lawyer, J. Steven Hart, warned Cooper and others in an email that “Wayne is making calls to board members at a rapid pace,” adding that North should do the same.

On April 12, the NRA sued Ackerman, saying it had concealed details about its spending. Many insiders were caught off guard. After an Ackerman attorney sent the lawsuit to Cooper, he responded, “OMG.”

Allies of Ackerman hatched countermoves, including a plan to create a committee to investigate the NRA’s finances and expose LaPierre’s billing practices.

The documents reviewed by The Times also show the extent to which a second rivalry was brewing, between Cooper and William A. Brewer III, a Democrat whom LaPierre had hired a year earlier. Brewer ascended quickly and began getting all the significant legal work, including several congressional and state inquiries.

North has said that Brewer’s bills were “draining NRA cash at mind-boggling speed.” But Cooper is also expensive, charging $1,350 an hour, compared with $1,400 for Brewer, people with knowledge of the billing said.

Before proposing the special committee, North called a close aide to LaPierre, urging her to tell her boss that he needed to resign. If he did not, North warned that damaging information would be released about LaPierre’s spending. If he did, North would help arrange an “excellent retirement” package, according to the aide’s handwritten notes. A second NRA official also overheard the call.

LaPierre refused to resign, viewing the call as an extortion attempt. Later that day, the aide emailed North with a blunt response.

“This note confirms that he will not endorse you for another term as NRA president,” she told him.

With the board lining up behind LaPierre, the effort to remove him quickly stalled. In a text message later that evening, David Lehman, Cox’s in-house counsel, wrote to Cooper: “You should call Ollie this evening. Things have turned.”

Two days later, on April 26, with the NRA’s annual convention underway in Indianapolis, Cox texted Cooper, all but conceding failure in the effort to weaken LaPierre. “I fear we are not changing the tides,” he wrote.

The next day, The Times reported that Letitia James, the New York attorney general, had opened an investigation into the NRA’s tax-exempt status.

“This is a debacle,” Hart, who had just been dismissed by the NRA, wrote in an email to Cooper. “Is Brewer a moron or a Manchurian candidate?”

Cooper replied by saying of Brewer: “He is kicking our side’s ass because no one on our side will leak AckMc’s info.”

The unraveling of lawyers, guns and money coincides with the departures of half a dozen board members in recent weeks. But LaPierre remains center stage, as polarizing as ever.

Danny Hakim

Articles written by the author

Angus McQueen, the NRA's Adman, Dies at 74

Angus McQueen, the NRA's Adman, Dies at 74

Wayne LaPierre Prevails in Fierce Battle for the NRA

NRA President to Step Down as New York Attorney General Investigates

NRA President to Step Down From Group in the Grip of a 'Crisis'

NRA's President to Step Down As New York Opens Tax Inquiry

North Says He Won't Serve a 2nd Term as NRA Chief

NRA President Tries to Oust Wayne LaPierre in Widening Crisis

NRA President Tries to Oust Wayne LaPierre in Widening Crisis

Where Incendiary NRA Videos Are Finding New Critics: Inside the NRA

How Wayne LaPierre Survived a Revolt at the NRA

New York Says Sacklers Shifted About $1 Billion

NRA Files Suit Against San Francisco

NRA shuts down production of NRATV

Wife's failure to save college is still looming over sanders

NRA sues longtime contractor, claiming smear campaign

Sanders Institute suspends operations as senator runs for president

Where incendiary NRA videos are finding new critics: Inside the NRA

NRA seeks distance from Russia as investigations heat up