Judge Deals Blow to NRA as Lib State Seeks to Put Gun Rights Group Out of Business
A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed the National Rifle Association’s bankruptcy case, leaving the powerful gun rights group to face a New York state lawsuit that accuses it of financial abuses and aims to put it out of business.
The case was over whether the NRA should be allowed to incorporate in Texas instead of New York, where the state is suing in an effort to disband the group. Though headquartered in Virginia, the NRA was chartered as a nonprofit in New York in 1871 and is incorporated in the state.
Judge Harlin Hale said in a written order that he was dismissing the case because he found the bankruptcy was not filed in good faith.
“The Court believes the NRA’s purpose in filing bankruptcy is less like a traditional bankruptcy case in which a debtor is faced with financial difficulties or a judgment that it cannot satisfy and more like cases in which courts have found bankruptcy was filed to gain an unfair advantage in litigation or to avoid a regulatory scheme,” Hale wrote.
His decision followed 11 days of testimony and arguments.
Lawyers for New York and the NRA’s former advertising agency grilled the group’s top executive, Wayne LaPierre, who acknowledged filing the group for bankruptcy without the knowledge or assent of most of its board and other top officers.
“Excluding so many people from the process of deciding to file for bankruptcy, including the vast majority of the board of directors, the chief financial officer, and the general counsel, is nothing less than shocking,” the judge added.
Phillip Journey, an NRA board member and Kansas judge who had sought to have an examiner appointed to investigate the group’s leadership, was concise about Hale’s judgment: “1 word, disappointed,” he wrote in a text message.
Lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James argued that the case was an attempt by NRA leaders to escape accountability for using the group’s coffers as their personal piggy bank. But the NRA’s attorneys said it was a legitimate effort to avoid a political attack by James, a Democrat.
LaPierre testified that he kept the bankruptcy largely secret to prevent leaks from the group’s 76-member board, which is divided in its support for him.
The NRA declared bankruptcy in January, five months after James’ office sued seeking its dissolution following allegations that executives illegally diverted tens of millions of dollars for lavish personal trips and other questionable expenditures.
“The NRA does not get to dictate if and where it will answer for its actions, and our case will continue in New York court,” James tweeted after the ruling was made. “No one is above the law.”
#BREAKING: A judge has ruled in our favor and rejected the @NRA‘s attempt to claim bankruptcy and reorganize in Texas.
The @NRA does not get to dictate if and where it will answer for its actions, and our case will continue in New York court.
No one is above the law.
— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) May 11, 2021
James has regulatory power over nonprofit organizations incorporated in New York. She sued the NRA last August, saying at the time that the “breadth and the depth of the corruption and the illegality” at the NRA justified its closure.
James took similar action to force the closure of former President Donald Trump’s charitable foundation after alleging he used it to advance business and political interests.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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