How Wayne LaPierre Survived a Revolt at the NRA

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 & 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, & 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.”

“Turned how?” Cooper replied.

“Badly,” Lehman wrote.

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.

“Donald Trump and Wayne LaPierre are made for each other,” said Peter Ambler, executive director of Giffords, the gun control group started by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. He called them “mirror images” engulfed in “allegations of corruption and mismanagement.”

But Todd Rathner, a member of the NRA’s board, said, “Wayne is leading and proving that he has the political juice to get the job done.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.