Former gun group president says whistleblowers wanted to ‘destroy the NRA’

MANHATTAN (CN) — Whistleblowers questioning the errant spending of National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre were trying to “destroy the NRA,” according to one of the group’s former presidents.

Carolyn Meadows, a longtime National Rifle Association board member and president from 2019 to 2021, is one of LaPierre’s most fervent allies at the nonprofit. In an email shown to the court last week, a peer called her one of LaPierre’s “go-to storm troopers.”

Now, Meadows says she’s suffering from severe health issues. She couldn’t make the trip from Georgia to New York City to testify in the state attorney general’s case against LaPierre and the NRA, so state attorneys instead played video from her deposition to the courtroom on Monday.

In the hourslong clip, Meadows made clear her deference to LaPierre. She called him the “best CEO” she’s ever worked with and testified that she questioned the loyalty of some of his biggest detractors.

Among those detractors was Sean Maloney, a former board member who claimed that Meadows removed him from his committee assignments after Maloney took issue with LaPierre’s spending habits.

“He sided with other board members who favored the reorganization and destroying the NRA as it exists,” Meadows said of Maloney during the deposition. “I had the authority to appoint or not. In my mind, those were disqualifications.”

Meadows claimed that Maloney, along with other board members, pushed “wrong accusations” about LaPierre.

“He said that he mismanaged, that he stole money,” Meadows said. “He was very vocal in the press.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James is accusing LaPierre of doing just that. In her 169-page civil complaint, James claims LaPierre diverted “millions of dollars away from the charitable mission” of the NRA, using the group’s donor dollars to fund family vacations and other personal expenses.

She also accuses NRA leadership of trying to cover up complaints from whistleblowers like Maloney, who wanted the nonprofit to investigate those allegations. Instead, they claim, the organization retaliated against them for raising concerns. Maloney resigned in 2019 as a result.

Fellow board member Esther Schneider resigned alongside him after she was also stripped of her committee assignments. Schneider, too, raised issue with LaPierre’s spending, and testified earlier this month that she “was retaliated against for asking questions.”

But Meadows claimed that she stopped giving Schneider committee assignments because of personal issues. Meadows said that Schneider shouted profanity at her during an NRA dinner, an incident that stemmed from her unhappiness with Meadows’ leadership.

“She is an ill-tempered woman,” Meadows said. “In my early support of her for the board, if I could rescind it, I would now do it… I have a very poor opinion of her.”

Meadows has repeatedly refuted the claims from those NRA whistleblowers. When the attorney general filed her complaint against the nonprofit in 2020, Meadows called the lawsuit a “baseless, premeditated attack.”

But in her deposition, Meadows admitted that she “shredded” and “burned” some of her notes when the attorney general’s investigation began.

“You were told that your notes could be subpoenaed and used, correct?” a state lawyer asked Meadows on the tape.

“Correct,” Meadows replied, claiming that NRA’s general counsel John Frazer — a defendant in this case — told her so.

“Following that info from Mr. Frazer, you shredded and burned your notes, yes?” Meadows was asked.

“A portion of notes, yes,” she said.

Meadows claimed she torched three legal pads because they contained information about her now-late husband’s medical condition, which she wanted to keep confidential. She said some notes about the NRA were certainly mixed in, however, as separating them would have been “impossible.”

While she is still a member of the NRA board, Meadows is no longer the group’s president. That title now belongs to Charles Cotton, an attorney and gun rights activist who chaired the NRA’s audit committee. He was elected NRA president in 2021, and was twice reelected since, making him the first NRA president to serve three terms.

Cotton took the stand Monday afternoon after the conclusion of Meadows’ taped deposition. He’ll return on Tuesday to complete his testimony.

James’ case against the NRA, LaPierre and other former executives went to trial earlier this month. The jury trial is expected to last for approximately six weeks. After which, Judge Joel Cohen could oversee a bench trial to determine damages.

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