News / Society

NRA racked up $24 million in legal bills: Leaked documents show

Sunday, 12 May 2019 4:48 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 12 May 2019 5:01 AM ]

Wayne LaPierre, NRA vice president and CEO attends the NRA annual meeting of members at the 148th NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits on April 26, 2019 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by AFP)

Leaked documents show that the National Rifle Association (NRA) has racked up $24 million in legal bills over the last year.

The documents posted anonymously online have been written by the group’s ex-president Oliver North and NRA official Richard Childress, media reports show.

The two leaked the information in a letter to the NRA’s general counsel and audit committee chairman, expressing deep concern “about the extraordinary legal fees the NRA has incurred” from attorney Bill Brewer.

“The amount appears to be approximately $24 million over a 13-month period,” said the nine-page letter, dated April 18, 2019, one week before North was sacked as the organization’s leader after clashing with CEO Wayne LaPierre.

“The Brewer invoices are draining NRA cash at mindboggling speed,” North and Childress wrote in the memo, whose authenticity was verified by the Daily Beast. “This is a fiscal emergency.”

North and Childress said the NRA has been spending $100,000 a day on lawyers “seven days a week, every day of every month.”

“$97,000+ a day is a stunning amount of money for any organization to pay,” they wrote. “It cries for an outside, independent review.”

Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Letitia James has launched an investigation into the lobbying group’s finances and tax-exempt status.

PressTV-NY Attorney General launches probe into NRA finances

The New York attorney general's office has launched an investigation into the National Rifle Association.

This came after the gun-safety group, Everytown for Gun Safety, said it had lodged a complaint about the NRA's tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service.

Last year, the NRA became the focus of a growing movement by activists demanding enactment of tougher gun control laws in wake of a mass shooting at a US public school that killed 17 and injured 14 people in Parkland, Florida on February 14.

Days after the school massacre, a student survivor blasted President Donald Trump and many US lawmakers for receiving money from the NRA, which fervently opposes gun control across the nation.

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