NRA implodes
Russian spy Maria Butina was sentenced to prison today after having reportedly cooperated with the federal government on, among other matters, the NRA’s criminal ties to the Russian government. Today also happened to be the big NRA convention, and one would think that the group’s leaders would be focused on trying to survive the criminal scandal. Instead, they’re focused on taking each other out.
NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, an unstable gun nut who has long been in control of the group, used his speech today to accuse new NRA President Oliver North and others of trying to force him out of power. North, whose criminal antics go back to the Iran Contra days, has accused LaPierre of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of NRA money on his wardrobe, according to the Wall Street Journal. That’s right, they’re fighting over clothes.
What the NRA should really be worried about is that, despite widespread media reports that Robert Mueller investigated the NRA’s financial ties to Russia, the group doesn’t play a meaningful role in the redacted version of the Mueller report that’s been publicly released. And despite Butina having flipped on the NRA, none of that has come out in the court filings in her case. This suggests that there is an active federal criminal investigation into the NRA, and perhaps multiple investigations.
As so often tends to happen when a group like the NRA is under criminal investigation for its activities, its leaders are focused on trying to take each other down, instead of trying to protect the group. We’ll see where the NRA-Russia scandal goes, but in the meantime, the NRA appears intent on taking itself down before investigators can.
