Opinion
With Wayne LaPierre’s announced resignation as Executive Vice President and CEO of the National Rifle Association at the end of the month, the NRA Board of Directors has an opportunity to reverse course and revive the flailing organization.
Instead, there’s a move afoot, to keep the lunatics in charge of the asylum by replacing LaPierre with the one person on the Board who has done the most to enable LaPierre’s corruption and to protect him for the past several years – NRA President Charles Cotton.
Cotton is a Texas attorney who has served as the NRA’s Audit Committee Chairman for over the past decade. The Audit Committee is an incredibly important committee of the Board of Directors responsible for ensuring that the Association stays on the straight and narrow in all of its dealings. Along with working with outside auditors to ensure the Association’s books are in order, the Committee is responsible for reviewing all contracts, investigating all potential conflicts of interest, dealing with all whistle-blower complaints, and ensuring that the organization operates according to applicable laws and Association policies. In other words, the Audit Committee is supposed to be the watchdog that guards the NRA’s money and reputation.
It’s all too obvious that the Audit Committee, under the Chairmanship of Charles Cotton, has failed miserably in its duties.
Rather than holding Cotton and his committee responsible for their utter failure, Cotton was elected President of the NRA Board in 2012, after serving as 1st VP for a couple of years. The Audit Committee Vice Chair, David Coy, was promoted as the 2nd VP. They have held those positions for an almost unprecedented three terms, and now there is a push among some Board members to move Cotton into the EVP-CEO position being vacated by LaPierre.
This is absolute insanity.
For the past twenty years, Cotton and Coy have put their friendship with Wayne LaPierre over their fiduciary obligation to the NRA and its members. They’ve ignored or endorsed blatant violations of NRA policies, New York laws, and general good governance principles, and they’ve intentionally misled outside auditors to shield LaPierre and his cronies as they filled their pockets with NRA members’ money.
No single person on the NRA Board of Directors bears more responsibility and culpability for the NRA’s present dire circumstances than Charles Cotton.
The NRA is not a gun club or a Homeowners’ Association. It’s an almost half-a-billion-dollar-a-year corporation. Its Chief Executive Officer should not be the most popular or influential person on its ridiculously over-sized board of directors but should be a professional manager who understands the complexities of running a large corporation and has extensive experience with nonprofit management. Charles Cotton does not have any of the requisite qualifications.
During sworn testimony in the NRA’s failed bankruptcy case and the current New York lawsuit against the NRA, Cotton admitted that he had never reviewed New York laws regarding the legal responsibilities and obligations of members of a nonprofit’s audit committee. He also admitted that he had not reviewed the NRA Charter or the Association’s Bylaws regarding those duties and responsibilities. He expressed his opinion that the main job of the Audit Committee was to coordinate with outside auditors and report to the Board on those auditors’ reports. He also admitted to misleading the outside auditors regarding LaPierre’s involvement in the financial dealings of the Association, suggesting that LaPierre was more of a figurehead with little involvement in the Association’s finances. His reply to questions about this misrepresentation was to assert that he “trusts Wayne.”
Today, with the trial in New York in full swing and LaPierre’s retirement pending, it has become clear that trusting Wayne was a big mistake. The NRA’s current legal strategy is to claim victim status, arguing that the Association was the victim of some unscrupulous executives at the top, and that with LaPierre’s resignation, the Association is now on a new course, unencumbered by the failed policies and mismanagement of the past.
This is exactly the legal tack I suggested over four years ago, but the strategy requires more than just revising some policies and allowing the miscreants to walk away. It requires a thorough house-cleaning, removing everyone culpable in the corruption, and a thorough revamping of the Association’s governance structure, policies, and procedures.
Charles Cotton, David Coy, Tom King, Marion Hammer, Scott Bach, and all members of the Audit Committee, Finance Committee, all other past and present officers, and most of the Board of Directors should resign or be removed. These are the people who – at a minimum – stood by while Wayne LaPierre and company took advantage of their positions to pad their own pockets and use NRA resources for their own benefit. Many of these Directors had – and have – significant conflicts of interest and have personally benefited from some “creative” financial arrangements.
Since 2019, I have said the NRA Board had two choices: Either clean house, removing all who participated, or stand by and fail to call out financial and ethical improprieties, shunning even the appearance of evil, and stand repentant before the court as victims of avarice and betrayal, or they could circle the wagons around Wayne LaPierre and keep circling right down the drain. Up until the start of the trial last week, the Board chose to go with the second option.
For the past 5+ years, my reporting and predictions regarding this mess have proven accurate in almost every respect. Now, after reelecting Wayne LaPierre 5 times and spending well over $100 million on a failed legal defense of LAPierre and company, the Association has shifted to a watered-down version of the first option while still refusing to do any of the difficult house-cleaning work that has been so clearly needed – all while shoveling over $2 million per month directly into the pockets of Bill Brewer, the attorney LaPierre hired to “straighten everything out” back in 2017.
Every NRA Director needs to pause the “us versus them” paradigm they’ve been living in and ask themselves what they’ve gotten right and wrong over the past five years. They need to review what they’ve been told by their “friends” and “leaders.” Evaluate what has turned out to be inaccurate, incorrect, or flat-out lies, and decide for themselves who they’re going to trust and take counsel from going forward.
Ethics complaints should be filed and pursued against every NRA Director who has failed in their fiduciary duties, beginning with Charles Cotton and David Coy. A committee of independent Directors – if there are any – with specific experience in corporate governance and nonprofit management should be formed to hire head-hunter organizations to conduct a professional search for qualified candidates for the position of Executive Vice President and CEO of the NRA. An Interim CEO who doesn’t have ties or allegiance to LaPierre, Brewer, or any in the current regime should be appointed to guide the Association through the reorganization and transition period—someone with serious corporate experience like Ronnie Barrett or Buz Mills. Compensation for the CEO position and all subordinate positions should also be capped at $500k.
The NRA stands at the precipice. The right moves now could save the Association and start it on the road to revitalization and recovery. The wrong moves will almost certainly send the Association hurtling over the cliff to its destruction.
Get Ready to Bullet Vote for Reformers on the Upcoming NRA Board Ballot
Ballots for the election of one-third of the Board of Directors will be in the March issue of NRA magazines. My name will be on that ballot, seeking an unpaid position on the Board, along with my friends and fellow reformers Judge Phil Journey, Rocky Marshall, and Dennis Fusaro. There’s a good chance the current regime will use its control over the Association magazines to sway the election and keep the four of us from being elected, so we need your help. It’s imperative that every Voting Member of the Association mark only our four names on their ballot and return the ballot in the provided envelope with their signature. Only about 5% of ballots are ever returned, meaning 95% – almost 2 million ballots – go to waste. Please vote and make sure your eligible friends and family vote as well. Every vote does matter.
Read Related: 4 Outsider Reform Candidates Nominated by NRA Members, LFG!
About Jeff Knox:
Jeff Knox is a second-generation political activist and director of The Firearms Coalition. His father, Neal Knox, led many of the early gun rights battles for your right to keep and bear arms. Read Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War.
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs, and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition has offices in Buckeye, Arizona, and Manassas, VA. Visit www.FirearmsCoalition.org.
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