A Guide to Every Known Investigation of the NRA

A fourth investigation of the NRA’s nonprofit status is underway, this one initiated by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine. Racine’s office is seeking documents from the gun group and its affiliated foundation regarding “financial records, payments to vendors, and payments to officers and directors.” The NRA Foundation is chartered in Washington, D.C. NRA attorney William Brewer said in a statement that “the NRA has full confidence in its accounting practices and commitment to good governance.”

Amid the ongoing strife between the NRA and its former communications firm Ackerman McQueen, another congressional committee is attempting to determine whether the NRA has violated its tax-exempt status. In a letter to Wayne LaPierre, House Ways and Means Committee member Representative Brad Schneider demanded documents related to internal audits, financial misconduct, and conflicts of interest. It’s the third probe of the NRA’s finances launched since The Trace and The New Yorker first reported on alleged financial improprieties in April. In August, Schneider expanded the inquiry, sending a letter to Ackerman CEO Revan McQueen requesting documents related to the firm’s past relationship with the NRA.

Three Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees tax-exempt organizations, are probing alleged financial impropriety within the NRA. Letters addressed to NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and ex-President Oliver North request documentation of alleged financial misconduct raised by North during a public power struggle for control of the gun group, which culminated with North’s ouster from his leadership role. A third letter requests documentation from Revan McQueen, the CEO of top NRA vendor Ackerman McQueen, due to LaPierre’s claim that Ackerman had prepared a damaging memo in order to blackmail him. The feud erupted after reporting by The Trace and other news organizations revealed a culture of self-dealing and financial mismanagement within the NRA, particularly around its relationship with Ackerman. The NRA has refused to cooperate with the investigation, and a letter from Ackerman McQueen to the senators indicates that the NRA has not given the vendor permission to share relevant materials.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has opened an investigation into the NRA’s nonprofit status, asking the organization, its charitable foundation, and other affiliated groups to preserve financial records. The probe, first reported by The New York Times, also touches the gun group’s “related businesses,” although information about the parties involved is not yet public. James has jurisdiction because the NRA was chartered in New York in 1871. In August, the attorney general’s office expanded the inquiry, issuing subpoenas to more than 90 current and former NRA board members, including former president Oliver North. The probe follows a series of media reports about financial misconduct within the NRA, including a Trace investigation detailing allegations that former IRS official Marc Owens said “could lead to the revocation of the NRA’s tax-exempt status.” In December, the Times reported that James had issued another subpoena to the NRA for documents related to the group’s charitable foundation, as well as its dealings with two election contractors, the details of which were originally reported by The Trace.

The NRA is among more than 80 organizations and individuals that received requests for documents as part of a wide-ranging House Judiciary Committee probe which aims to establish whether President Trump and those in his orbit have engaged in “obstruction of justice, public corruption, and other abuses of power.” A letter from committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler to NRA boss LaPierre demands information on the gun group’s contacts with and about Russia and the Trump campaign during the run-up to the 2016 election. The NRA has reportedly submitted nearly 1,500 pages of documents in response to the request.

Representatives Ted Lieu and Kathleen Rice, concerned by a “lack of transparency” around the NRA’s 2015 visit to Moscow and its other ties to Russia, have launched a new investigation intended to illuminate those connections. Another probe of the gun group’s Kremlin connections is underway in the Senate, but House Democrats, unlike their counterparts in the Senate, hold the majority required to issue subpoenas.

A joint House-Senate probe is investigating possible “illegal, excessive, and unreported in-kind donations” made by the NRA to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and to several Republican Senate candidates. Sparked by The Trace’s reporting, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman Jamie Raskin have contacted NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and five campaign advertising vendors to request information about the groups’ relationships. “The evidence shows the NRA is moving money through a complex web of shell organizations to avoid campaign finance rules and boost candidates willing to carry their water,” Whitehouse told The Trace.

As part of a probe into security clearances issued by the Trump administration, House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings has requested documents from the NRA regarding Trump national security advisor John Bolton’s contacts with Russia. In 2013, Bolton appeared in a video for The Right to Bear Arms, the Russian gun-rights group linked to Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin. He also headed the NRA’s subcommittee on international affairs, which Cummings has also requested information about. The Oversight Committee investigation came months after Cummings and Representative Stephen Lynch first sought information from the White House about Bolton’s ties to Russia.

An NRA delegation’s trip to Moscow in 2015 is under the scrutiny of the Senate Intelligence Committee, headed by Senators Richard Burr and Mark Warner, which in November requested documents about contacts with high-profile Russians during the excursion. In January, investigators grilled former Trump aide Sam Nunberg about the links between the Trump campaign, the NRA, and Russian nationals including Maria Butina. Burr, the committee’s chair, has received ample campaign support from the NRA.

Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, has sent a series of requests to the NRA and the Treasury Department seeking information about the gun group’s financial ties to Russian official Alexander Torshin and other Putin-linked politicians. After the arrest of self-confessed Russian agent Maria Butina in July 2018, Wyden and committee members Sheldon Whitehouse and Bob Menendez followed up with the Treasury requesting further information about Butina’s financial links to the NRA. Butina later pleaded guilty to conspiring in the United States. In February, the Finance Committee launched a separate probe into a conservative think tank linked to Butina and Torshin. Senator Charles Grassley, who chairs the Finance Committee, has ties to the NRA. In September, the committee released a report which found that the NRA officials who made a 2015 trip to Moscow did so as an official delegation, contradicting the gun group’s claims.