New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking to dissolve the National Rifle Association (NRA) over a multitude of alleged violations of state law governing charities.
In a press release, James accused the NRA of “[the] diversion of millions of dollars away from the charitable mission of the organization for personal use by senior leadership, awarding contracts to the financial gain of close associates and family, and appearing to dole out lucrative no- show contracts to former employees in order to buy their silence and continued loyalty.”
The Attorney General is expected to file the civil lawsuit at the Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday. The defendants are NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre and three other NRA executives, John Frazier, Woody Phillips and Joshua Powell.
Besides removal from their current positions, the Attorney General also wants to bar them from ever sitting on a New York-based nonprofit board.
The NRA executives “failed to fulfill their fiduciary duty to the NRA and used millions upon millions from NRA reserves for personal use, including trips for them and their families to the Bahamas, private jets, expensive meals, and other private travel.”
James wants to see the NRA, a 150-year-old organization chartered in New York, “shutter its doors.”
“The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets. The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law,” James said in a statement.