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The deposition, which emerged as part of a closely watched bankruptcy hearing for the NRA in Dallas this week, noted that LaPierre had used the vessel for a “security retreat” multiple times between 2013 and 2018.
LaPierre, the longtime head of the gun-rights group, said that deadly shootings in Parkland, Fla., and Newtown, Conn., had left him feeling unsafe anywhere with his family. So in the summers following both massacres, he borrowed the yacht — which comes with a cook and two water scooters — from a Hollywood producer.
Shannon Watts, the founder of the gun control group Moms Demand Action, first called attention to LaPierre’s testimony on Twitter on Monday. While slamming his testimony, she turned to his oft-cited defense that “a good guy with a gun” is the only way to prevent mass shootings.
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun,” Watts asked, “is a good friend with a yacht?”
In a statement to The Washington Post, NRA spokesperson Andrew Arulanandam said those comments were “all part of a ‘smear campaign’ by anti-NRA activists and those who oppose the NRA’s plan to reorganize in Texas,” calling it “stale news.”
LaPierre’s admission about his stays on the yacht is one of several revelations that are likely to emerge this week as a federal court decides whether the NRA will be allowed to declare bankruptcy.
The hearing follows a sweeping lawsuit last August from New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), in which she alleged that LaPierre and other top NRA executives took advantage of the group’s nonprofit status and diverted tens of millions of dollars to pay for their luxury lifestyles.
The organization has said it has confronted its past fiscal issues, committing itself to “good governance” and replacing top officers. And the NRA’s lawyers have accused James’s suit of being politically motivated, seeking out bankruptcy protection in Texas to avoid her case in a “corrupt political and regulatory environment” in New York.
But so far, filings connected to the bankruptcy process have already included embarrassing details about the group’s spending habits — including, for instance, $65,000 in Christmas gifts from LaPierre or mosquito control treatments at his home for “security purposes.”
James’s office also investigated his attempts to purchase a $6 million, 10,000-square-foot estate at a gated golf club near Dallas in 2018. According to The Post, he had told associates he was worried about being targeted after a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.
It was the same fear that LaPierre said propelled him to seek refuge on the yacht, according to the deposition he gave last month.
Following the shootings in both Parkland and Newtown, “I was under all kinds of threats. I did not feel safe anywhere with myself or my family,” he said. “This was offered as a security retreat where we could be safe and feel safe.”
Named “Illusions,” the vessel boasts “two or three or four staff people” and a cook, LaPierre acknowledged, as well as two wave runners, a 16-foot jet boat, and a “hydraulic swim platform.” On at least one of his stays, LaPierre traveled aboard the yacht to the Bahamas.
Pressed by lawyers, LaPierre said he did not offer to pay for using the yacht and did not disclose it as a potential conflict of interest. He also acknowledged that his security director did not review the boat’s security measures or conduct background checks on the Illusion’s employees.
Both James and the NRA’s former ad agency, Ackerman McQueen, have asked a federal court to reject the NRA’s Texas bankruptcy petition, accusing the group of trying to avoid the New York lawsuit, which seeks to dissolve the organization.
As the NRA fights back, its attorneys have acknowledged there could be some public embarrassment along the way.
“Are there going to be facts that are moderately cringeworthy?” NRA lawyer Greg Garman said in his opening remarks, according to the New York Daily News. “The answer is yes. We’re not going to run from them.”
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