Something That’s Flown Under The Radar

Most people who know about NRA’s problems/corruption know of Ackerman McQueen, the PR contractor that was LaPierre’s handler, “Wayne’s Brain,” and so in fact ran NRA and its board for years, in the process grabbing tens of millions a year for very little worthwhile.

But there’s another contractor out there who’s worth looking at, and who was scooping up millions a year for little if anything of value, and who is continuing at it to this day.

Let’s look at a film producer who goes by Stanton McKenzie, David McKenzie, and David Stanton. He’s the one who lent his huge and fancy 108-yacht to the LaPierres each summer. Whose companies have received over $100 million from NRA, to whom the LaPierres sent over $6,000 in gifts (paid for by NRA). $14 million of that was for producing a radio show, “The Wayne LaPierre Show” (ever hear of it? We haven’t). More was for producing some sort of video, “Crime Strike,” starring Wayne LaPierre (again, ever hear of that?), produced by Associated Television, of which McKenzie is an owner.

When the NRA “whistleblowers” prepared a memo for the Audit Committee (which ignored it and never told the board), they pointed out that NRA had paid a bill of $1.8 million, to rent a house owned by McKenzie, for filming of some scenes of “Crime Strike.” Asked to explain, Associated Television’s attorneys explained,

“The invoices in question were all for refurbishing episodes after completion of the original episodes of ‘Crime Strike,’” adding, “the invoiced amounts include not only the house but also various production-related items such as lights, props, and some crew.” Donaldson told me that ATI has “stopped rendering services for the NRA for some time.” “In fact,” he said, “they are now focused on working on an independent documentary called ‘Inside the NRA.’”

Biting that hand that fed them, we guess. So you’d suppose that NRA leadership broke all ties with the double-crossers and certainly with their treacherous ownership. Guess again; those Bahamas yacht vacations must be very nice.

Associated TV is not the only NRA vendor in which McKenzie owns an interest (and maybe all the interest). There’s also Member Marketing Partnerships, LLC, and several companies with similar names, and which strangely list their addresses as NRA headquarters, at 11250 Wamples Mill Road in Fairfax. In 2019 (after the above quotation), those companies drew $21 million from NRA. In April 2021, in the bankruptcy suit, NRA was required to list its current debtors, likely meaning, its invoices for the last month. It listed $1.4 million owned to Membership Marketing Partners, and another $700,000 owed to the other mysterious companies.

Very strange. And the NY Attorney General is onto this, her people have subpoenaed loads of records related to all these arrangements, and probably has forensic accountants going over them with a fine-toothed comb. Were the yacht stays the only kickbacks? What else is going on under the table?

This will be added to what they already think they can prove. We are looking at disaster.

UPDATE: For more on how NRA fundraising has been turned into a very profitable racket and payola scheme, look here, and here, and here. “From 2008 to 2018, InfoCision raised $113.5 million for the NRA. Of that, it kept a cut of $64.3 million, or 56.6 percent— sort of like a commission. On top of that, the NRA paid InfoCision a whopping $210 million over that same time period for its services. The bottom line is that the NRA paid over $200 million so that it could raise less than $50 million.”

Still more: NRA is paying nearly a million a year for “fundraising consulting” to a place called Allegiance Creative Group. They don’t raise money, they just give advice on doing that. As that article reveals, Allegiance has the same management as Membership Marketing Partners, which calls it “our fundraising affiliate.” And guess what? Allegiance lists its address as NRA HQ on Waples Mill Road in Fairfax. So NRA leadership is paying millions to one firm fundraising, more money to the same people for advising on that fundraising, and all the firms have addresses in NRA HQ. This isn’t fishy, it’s far beyond that.