As we get ready for week two of the @NRA's bankruptcy trial, here's a thread recapping what we know and what we don't. One thing is clear: the NRA saw bankruptcy as a “get-out-of-jail-free” card, but it's looking more and more like a catastrophic mistake. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/11/us/nra-bankruptcy-wayne-lapierre.html?smid=tw-share
So, what did we learn this week at trial?
1) Wayne LaPierre admitted he made the decision to plunge the NRA into bankruptcy and he hid the bankruptcy from NRA leaders and board members. The only NRA employee who knew ahead of time was the staffer who wrote the press release.
2) LaPierre, the head of a "nonprofit," didn’t just retreat to a 100 foot yacht after shootings in Sandy Hook and Parkland, but took annual “security retreats” on not one - but TWO - yachts owned by a Hollywood producer and a part or full stakeholder of multiple NRA vendors.
LaPierre’s claims that the yacht was required for security was undercut by testimony that the NRA’s security team was not involved in securing or vetting the passengers on the yacht.
3) The NRA has compliance issues. Their lawyer testified that the NRA board president burned and shredded documents. Their CFO refused to sign NRA tax filings, and was subsequently fired. And LaPierre’s travel agent was asked to omit embarrassing details from travel invoices.
4) The NRA’s legal bills are worse than anyone imagined. Since 2018, the NRA reports paying its legal defense over $50M, including tens of thousands in 2020 for a “Russia” line item and some-$6M to defend the NRA from a $2M settlement with its former chief lobbyist Chris Cox.
5) And finally, LaPierre is the NRA’s weakest witness. His answers were meandering and unresponsive - the Judge instructed him over a dozen times in two days to listen to the question and answer. Even NRA lawyers moved to strike LaPierre’s testimony on multiple occasions.
This trial that could decide the future of the NRA, and no matter what happens, it’s all bad news:
1) The court could decide to appoint an independent investigator with total access to the NRA’s darkest secrets who could dig into everything that we can’t even get into in court.
2) The court could appoint an independent trustee who would run the organization, sidelining LaPierre entirely.
3) It could choose to throw out the NRA’s bankruptcy all together, viewing it as a sad attempt to avoid being held accountable by the New York Attorney General.
4) Or it could choose to allow them to continue filing for bankruptcy, which won’t impact Tish James’ lawsuit, and leaves the NRA still broken, and also still broke.
And there are the external implications of the trial on the NRA's reputation and power. It will be onerous - if not impossible - for the NRA to effectively oppose gun safety and lobby lawmakers while simultaneously stuck in bankruptcy court for weeks.
It’s unclear how much the NRA will be able, or even allowed, to spend to influence the Senate gun safety debate. Will they need court permission to access millions of dollars for lobbying just as they recently had to get to fix their dilapidated ceiling and pay their light bill?
And how will NRA members, and more specifically their small and big dollar donors, react to revelations of yachting endeavors, private jet travel and exotic vacations? They're probably less likely to donate knowing they funded LaPierre's travels to the Bahamas on a private jet.
The details coming out during this trial are revealing to the entire country, including Congress and NRA members, the depths of its leaders’ corruption. It's clear NRA leaders don’t care about public safety, policy or their members.

NRA leaders only care about money and power.
The NRA's finances are a mess.
-We recently learned they owe $3.4 million to the IRS;
-Revenue from membership dues is down;
-And they’ve been forced to lay off about 40 percent of their staff.
The NRA's political spending is down.
-In 2016, the NRA was Trump’s largest backer, spending more than $30 million;
-In 2020, it only spent half that on Donald Trump — and their bet did not pay off.
And the NRA's political losing streak gets longer with every election.
-They lost the U.S. House in 2018;
-They lost the Virginia legislature in 2019;
-They lost the White House in 2020;
-And they lost the Senate in 2021.
And there’s a grassroots movement going up against the NRA. @momsdemand volunteers have been involved in our organization's regulatory complaints, lawsuits and other efforts to expose NRA malfeasance, including proving the illegality of their now-defunct Carry Guard insurance.
So while the NRA is sidelined, our volunteers are strategically, effectively making the case for gun safety. The NRA may need to divert dollars from lobbying against background checks to legal fees. After years of grifting, the NRA is as bankrupt financially as it is morally...
And that’s bad news for the NRA, but great news for anyone who cares about gun safety in America. And we’re going to do everything we can NOW to get a background checks bill through the Senate and onto President Biden’s desk.

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