The New York Times reports:
Turmoil wracking the National Rifle Association is threatening to turn the group’s annual convention into outright civil war, as insurgents maneuver to oust Wayne LaPierre, the foremost voice of the American gun rights movement.The confrontation pits Mr. LaPierre, the organization’s longtime chief executive, against its recently installed president, Oliver L. North, the central figure in the Reagan-era Iran-contra affair, who remains a hero to many on the right.
Mr. North asked Mr. LaPierre to resign on Wednesday, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. He said he had also created a committee to review allegations of financial improprieties that threaten the N.R.A.’s status as a nonprofit organization. But Mr. LaPierre, in a stinging letter sent on Thursday night to the N.R.A.’s board, accused Mr. North of threatening to leak damaging information about him and other N.R.A. executives unless he stepped down.
OMG, hit that link! Whee!
The NRA is tearing itself apart.
NRA leader Wayne Lapierre says he is being extorted and pressured to resign by the org’s president https://t.co/kr3bx3thoK
— Tim Mak (@timkmak) April 26, 2019
Oliver North, president of @NRA, is seeking to oust Wayne LaPierre, it CEO, in widening crisis at the gun group. https://t.co/xzv3wrV51G
— Danny Hakim (@dannyhakim) April 26, 2019
“Yesterday evening, I was forced to confront one of those defining choices — styled, in the parlance of extortionists — as an offer I couldn’t refuse,” @NRA president Wayne LaPierre wrote last night in letter to NRA board. “I refused it.”
— Danny Hakim (@dannyhakim) April 26, 2019
“We are facing a serious crisis,” @NRA president Oliver North wrote in his own letter to board last night, adding, “To date, my repeated efforts to inquire about the propriety of management’s financial decisions have consistently been rebuffed.”
— Danny Hakim (@dannyhakim) April 26, 2019
Oliver North, @NRA president, has also created a special committee of the NRA board to investigate “allegations of financial improprieties” that he said were laid out in @nytimes, @WSJ and @NewYorker.
— Danny Hakim (@dannyhakim) April 26, 2019