According to the 164-page civil suit filed Thursday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, longtime NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre and three other current or former NRA leaders misused charitable funds for their own personal gain, including on lavish travel, excessive expenses, and contracts benefiting relatives and close associates. The suit characterized “a culture of self-dealing, mismanagement, and negligent oversight” that contributed to the organization’s loss of more than $64 million over a three-year period, in violation of state nonprofit laws.
The NRA, denying any impropriety, hit back with a federal lawsuit charging political motivations by Ms. James’s office and claiming a violation of its First Amendment rights. A separate suit against the NRA and its charitable foundation was brought by D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine, also a Democrat. Concerns about political motivations cannot be dismissed. But the financial misconduct alleged in the lawsuit is vast, going well beyond the already disturbing earlier revelations by The Post and other newspapers. It justifies, it demands, legal action from officials charged with enforcing the rules that apply to all charities. Those rules endow the NRA with certain benefits as a nonprofit but obligate it to use its funds to further its mission and serve the interests of its members.
Whose interests were served when, according to the lawsuit, Mr. LaPierre put his niece up at a Four Seasons hotel for eight nights at a cost of more than $12,000? What mission was furthered when, the lawsuit alleges, Mr. LaPierre took eight trips since 2015 to the Bahamas by private air charter, often stopping off in Nebraska to pick up relatives, at a cost of more than $500,000?
If it is proved that Mr. LaPierre and the other three executives violated their fiduciary duties, Ms. James is right in wanting them to make restitution and be banned from any nonprofit boards. And if she thinks state and federal laws have been broken, she should make criminal referrals to the proper authorities.
But dissolution? We have been vehement critics of the NRA — of its dangerous stances against any sensible gun-safety measures and its heavy-handed tactics — and we would not mourn its demise. But other nonprofits that have had corrupt leadership were given the chance to clean house and institute reforms. A 148-year-old organization with, it claims, 5 million members would seem to merit a similar second chance.
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