NY Vs. NRA: Transcript Of Final Arguments

The transcript has been released. All the arguments seem good, but then John Frazer’s attorney had an easier job of it than Wayne LaPierre’s attorney did. At one point, he tried to respond to the extensive use of $1,000 a day “black car services”, with “How do you get from point A to B without car service? And does the law require that it be a white car or a blue car or a red car? No. People travel. They use whatever ground transportation is available.” (P. 4561).

New York had the easiest job of all:

“Well, let me tell you something, this case is about corruption. It is. It is about the misuse of charitable funds that we’ve proven were spent for things, like, private jets — and we’ll talk about why that was wrong — limousines and black cars, Glam Squad, meaning hair and makeup expenses, up to see $60,000 expenses that we can document. Five-star hotels, hundreds of thousands of dollars of suits from a store in Beverly Hills, million dollar deals to insiders, payments to loyal board members and pervasive violations of internal controls.” (p. 4614)

As to the “course correction,” if that is true, why did they purge everyone who called for honesty?

“She (Carolyn Meadows) had no obligation under the whistleblower policy. She didn’t believe that she did, and maybe that’s why she sent letters to the entire board calling Judge Journey, essentially, a liar, impugning his reputation he said. Maybe that’s why she sent a letter to Timothy Knight, Esther Schneider and Sean Maloney stripping them of their committee assignments.“

“Carolyn Meadows said, Hey, it is my prerogative to give you an assignment and I — if you, if you do the wrong behavior, like, make accusations against Wayne, you’re not getting assignments.”

“If you recall, Marion Hammer sent an e-mail to the whole board and to much of the board saying, yeah, they’re disloyal. They joined in attacks. They were stripped of their committee assignments, and it was understood as punishment. Esther Schneider understood it as such.

Other board members suffered similar retaliation. Rocky Marshall who had been found highly qualified by the nominating committee the first time he ran for the board; after he raised complaints was found not qualified.” (P. 4675).

“LaPierre caused the NRA to pay vendors for hair and makeup for his wife in the amounts of at least $41,876 between May 2017 and 2018 alone. No written approval, no contract signature sheet, no business case analysis. But, more importantly, no approval by the Audit Committee. That’s a related-party transaction.

Mr. Phillips, post employment consulting agreement. This is outrageous. He is a CFO and treaurer during the course correction. He signs an agreement to which he’s entitled to a flat rate of $30,000 a month, plus $3,500 for office rental; and he has to deliver nothing in exchange.” (P. 4680).

“Mr. LaPierre admits that he traveled by private plane without NRA approval and in violation of NRA policies from 2014 to 2019. That’s the relevant period of time we’re asking for damages for. That total $10,455,307 from May 15th to December of 2019 the NRA paid $3,222,358 for flights that Mr. LaPierre either was going as a passenger or where the flights stopped in the Bahamas, Nebraska. These flights had a personal component and had no security justification.” (P. 4687).