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NY Times, March 12, 2019
Incendiary N.R.A. Videos Find New Critics: N.R.A. Leaders
By Danny Hakim
The flash point was Thomas the Tank Engine.
Last September, the National Rifle Association’s famously combative
spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, provoked widespread outrage when she took to
the gun group’s streaming service to mock ethnic diversity on the
popular children’s program “Thomas & Friends,” portraying the show’s
talking trains in Ku Klux Klan hoods. Now, growing unease over the
site’s inflammatory rhetoric, and whether it has strayed too far from
the N.R.A.’s core gun-rights mission, has put its future in doubt.
The site, NRATV, is a central part of the organization’s messaging
apparatus. Since its creation in 2016, it has adopted an increasingly
apocalyptic, hard-right tone, warning of race wars, describing Barack
Obama as a “fresh-faced flower-child president,” calling for a march on
the Federal Bureau of Investigation and comparing journalists to rodents.
In recent weeks, in a rare airing of internal debate at the N.R.A., two
prominent board members expressed concerns about NRATV to The New York
Times. Their statements were released through the N.R.A. itself, amid
what was described as an internal review of NRATV and its future.
“Since the founding of NRATV, some, including myself and other board
members, have questioned the value of it,” Marion Hammer, the group’s
most formidable lobbyist and a key adviser to its chief executive, Wayne
LaPierre, said in a statement. “Wayne has told me and others that NRATV
is being constantly evaluated — to make sure it works in the best
interest of the organization and provides an appropriate return on
investment.”
The reassessment underscores a debate within the N.R.A. over how broad
its activism should be. And it comes as the organization faces a storm
of challenges, including a series of mass shootings that has created a
new generation of gun-control activists.
Congressional investigations into the N.R.A.’s possible Russia ties were
energized after Maria Butina, a suspected Russian agent, pleaded guilty
in December to using the N.R.A. in a political influence operation. And
the organization, incorporated in New York, may have a potent foe in
Letitia James, the state’s recently elected attorney general, who has
vowed to investigate the N.R.A.’s tax-exempt status.
As falling membership dues put the N.R.A. under further strain, board
members have also expressed concern about the size of payments to the ad
firm that produces NRATV, Ackerman McQueen. The firm and its affiliates
pocketed $40 million from the N.R.A. in 2017; billings directly to
Ackerman have increased nearly 50 percent since 2015. One prominent
host, Dan Bongino, left amid cutbacks at NRATV, but he said the site had
tried to retain him.
Ackerman, a partner to the gun group since the “I’m the N.R.A.” campaign
of the 1980s, runs the NRATV Twitter account, has done polling work for
the organization and revamped its gun safety program for children. It
has also been credited with a slick makeover of Mr. LaPierre — who, in
the words of one former N.R.A. lobbyist, previously resembled an
“introverted chess champion.”
Mr. LaPierre’s wife, Susan, has worked for an Ackerman subsidiary, and
there has come to be a revolving door between the two companies, with
many employees having worked by turns for both NRATV and Ackerman.
Dana Loesch, an N.R.A. spokeswoman, mocked ethnic diversity on the
children’s program “Thomas & Friends,” portraying the show’s talking
trains in Ku Klux Klan hoods.
Oliver L. North, the N.R.A. president, has a contract with Ackerman,
though the N.R.A. would not disclose its size. As part of the
relationship, Mr. North, a former Fox News pundit, hosts media
programming and special events, like the show “American Heroes,” which
recently began airing on NRATV.
The N.R.A., a nonprofit, has also directed $18 million since 2010 to a
private company jointly owned by executives of Ackerman and the N.R.A.,
according to records and interviews.
“It is clear to me that NRATV is an experiment and Wayne is evaluating
the future of the enterprise,” Willes K. Lee, a board member who leads
the N.R.A. Outreach Committee, said in a statement to The Times.
After the Thomas the Tank Engine video, he said, Mr. LaPierre appeared
“livid and embarrassed” in a meeting with the outreach group. “He
apologized to the entire committee and spent hours listening to our
concerns.”
‘Red Meat for the Hard Right’
Ms. Loesch has emerged as NRATV’s most visible host, deriding
gun-control advocates as “tragedy-dry-humping whores” and vowing to
combat the left with what she called the “clenched fist of truth” — a
body part that the comedian John Oliver said was located “a little past
the bent elbow of nonsense.” In one video, she warned The Times, “We’re
coming for you”; in another, she threatened to burn a copy of the newspaper.
Chuck Holton, an NRATV correspondent, attributed terrorist activity in
Europe to “the broader problem of multiculturalism and socialism” and to
“gender-bending.” He also claimed that left-wing groups, the billionaire
George Soros and the Venezuelan government were trying “to influence the
2018 midterms by sending Honduran migrants north in the thousands.”
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Grant Stinchfield, a host, claimed that “all radicalized terrorists are
Muslims,” overlooking mass shooters like Dylann Roof, who killed nine
black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., in 2015.
Such far-ranging commentary has raised questions among some N.R.A.
members about the scope of the organization’s messaging.
“The N.R.A. shouldn’t be putting this out,” said Jeff Knox, an N.R.A.
member who runs the Firearms Coalition, a smaller advocacy organization.
“It’s not gun rights; it’s red meat for the hard right.”
Mr. Knox’s father, Neal, was an N.R.A. board member who played a leading
role in an effort to fire Ackerman in the 1990s amid discontent over its
growing influence. A faction loyal to Mr. LaPierre ultimately prevailed,
leading to a purge of the board and allowing the two organizations to
become more deeply intertwined.
“Why are we getting so involved in left-right politics instead of
sticking close to our issue, the Second Amendment?” the younger Mr. Knox
asked.
Ackerman declined to comment, but in a recent interview in The
Oklahoman, Revan McQueen, the firm’s chief executive, said his company’s
approach was evolving from pure advertising to a “philosophy of branded
news.” As Ackerman’s website puts it, “Every brand must be its own media
company.”
To that end, the firm has created video networks for the Chickasaw
Nation and the Integris health care system of Oklahoma, though their
content is relatively benign. A recent episode of ChickasawTV, for
example, featured a visit to an art gallery. Over on NRATV, a host was
calling liberalism “a mental disorder.”
Beyond NRATV, the N.R.A. backed Ackerman’s performance.
“When Ackerman McQueen began working with the N.R.A., the association
was little more than a fledgling grass-roots operation,” Andrew
Arulanandam, an N.R.A. spokesman, said in a statement.
“The N.R.A. is now the most effective advocacy organization of its
kind,” he said, adding that the firm had created “a national platform
for the N.R.A.” and that it was “an important partner.”
Taxing Questions
During the N.R.A. power struggle in the 1990s, a board member filed a
complaint with the Federal Election Commission, claiming that an N.R.A.
contract with an Ackerman subsidiary “was done without any ‘request for
proposals’; any bidding process; and no competitive bidding.”
The commission decided in a 6-0 vote not to take action, but criticisms
have persisted.
“The N.R.A. is willing to play fast and loose with tax regulations,”
said Marcus S. Owens, a partner at Loeb & Loeb who served for a decade
as director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the Internal Revenue
Service.
Ms. James, the New York attorney general, presents a new threat. Last
year, she told Ebony magazine that the N.R.A. held itself “out as a
charitable organization” but was actually “a terrorist organization.”
The N.R.A. is reassessing its streaming service as it faces mounting
political pressure and other challenges. Letitia James, New York’s
attorney general, has promised to investigate the gun group’s tax-exempt
status.
William A. Brewer III, the N.R.A.’s outside counsel, said Ms. James had
given no indication when she was a candidate that “the N.R.A. had done
anything improper,” adding that she had instead promised “a
taxpayer-funded fishing expedition.”
A number of transactions could draw scrutiny. Since 2010, the N.R.A. has
paid $18 million to a company that produces “Under Wild Skies,” a
hunting show on NRATV. Tyler Schropp, the N.R.A.’s advancement director,
came to the organization in 2010 from Ackerman, and had a stake in the
production company until at least 2017, but “no longer holds any
interest,” Mr. Brewer said.
Federal rules restrict transactions that confer economic benefits on key
executives of tax-exempt organizations.
Mr. Brewer described Mr. Schropp’s stake as “a minuscule interest” that
the N.R.A. found not to be objectionable. Payments related to “Under
Wild Skies” emerged only recently in N.R.A. tax filings.
Other issues unrelated to Ackerman could also surface. The N.R.A. has
transferred more than $100 million since 2012 from an affiliated charity
that also lent the N.R.A. $5 million in 2017. Donations to the charity,
the N.R.A. Foundation, are tax-deductible, while those to the N.R.A. are
not.
“If you’re doing a program that’s charitable, you run it through the
charity,” said David G. Samuels, a partner at Duval & Stachenfeld who
served in the charities bureau of the New York Attorney General’s
Office, which oversees tax-exempt organizations. Such practices raise
“red flags,” he said.
Like some nonprofits, the N.R.A. has been lucrative for its top
executives. Mr. LaPierre’s compensation rose from less than $200,000 in
the mid-1990s to nearly $1.5 million in 2017. It spiked to more than $5
million in 2015, largely because of a retirement plan payout.
A review of public records found that the N.R.A., which has about 550
employees, has disclosed that 41 employees, contractors, vendors or
consultants have relevant family relationships to others connected to
the organization, including a “niece-in-law” of Mr. LaPierre who was
hired as a consultant.
“The N.R.A. strives to comply with all applicable regulations,” Mr.
Brewer said, adding that the organization has a “conflict-of
interest-policy” and that “vendor agreements are reviewed and approved”
by the board’s audit committee when appropriate.
With New York regulators circling, it’s no surprise that the state’s
politicians have become fodder for NRATV — particularly the governor,
Andrew M. Cuomo, whose administration is already engaged in a legal
fight with the gun group. Recently, the site even targeted Albany,
describing it as “Graft City.”
Whatever happens to NRATV, few expect the N.R.A. to become much less
combative. Mr. LaPierre, in a speech this month, described the
organization’s approach as “full-contact advocacy,” adding, “We are
going to fight back against anyone who attempts to silence us.”
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