DALLAS: After school shootings that left dozens dead in recent years, National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre said the resulting outrage put him in such danger that he sought shelter aboard a borrowed 108-foot (32.92-meter) yacht.
During a deposition, the head of the powerful gun-rights group’s acknowledged sailing in the Bahamas with his family as a “security retreat” in the summers following a 2012 school shooting in Connecticut and a 2018 massacre in Florida.
“I was basically under presidential threat without presidential security in terms of the number of threats I was getting,” LaPierre said, according to a transcript of the deposition filed in court over the weekend. “And this was the one place that I hope could feel safe, where I remember getting there going, ‘Thank God I’m safe, nobody can get me here.’”
The testimony emerged in a federal bankruptcy trial over whether the NRA should be allowed to incorporate in Texas instead of New York, where a state lawsuit is trying to put it out of business. LaPierre is scheduled to take the witness stand in the case, which is being conducted virtually before a court in Dallas, this week.
The NRA declared bankruptcy in January, months after New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, sued seeking the group’s dissolution over claims that top executives illegally diverted tens of millions of dollars for lavish personal trips, no-show contracts for associates and other questionable expenditures.
The allegations include that LaPierre repeatedly sailed in the Bahamas on the yacht of Hollywood producer David McKenzie, whose company has done business with the NRA, but did not mention the trips on financial disclosures. McKenzie is not named in the suit but both it and LaPierre’s deposition include the name of his yacht: Illusions.
In the deposition, LaPierre said he did not pay to use McKenzie’s yacht, which came with a cook, a motor boat and a pair of Sea-Doo personal watercraft. He said he did not think using the vessel violated the NRA’s conflict-of-interest policy because the summer sailing trips were for security. Nonetheless, LaPierre said he stopped using it in 2019 as part of the NRA’s “self-correction.”
The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut left 20 first graders and six educators dead in December 2012. The February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killed 17 people.
The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on LaPierre’s testimony.
McKenzie did not immediately respond to voicemail and email messages to his company seeking comment. He told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported LaPierre ‘s use of his yacht last year, that he hadn’t read New York’s lawsuit and couldn’t discuss any litigation.
Shannon Watts, the founder of the gun control group Moms Demand Action, highlighted LaPierre’s testimony on Twitter Monday, mocking his argument that it takes “a good guy with a gun” to stop a mass shooting. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good friend with a yacht?” she wrote.
The group’s bankruptcy trial began Monday with a lawyer for New York arguing that LaPierre put the NRA into Chapter 11 bankruptcy despite its financial strength to escape accountability for his own spending abuses. He made the move largely by himself and kept the plan secret from the group’s board, its general counsel and treasurer at the time, New York Assistant Attorney General Monica Connell told Judge Harlin Hale.
Though headquartered in Virginia, the NRA was chartered as a nonprofit in New York in 1871 and is incorporated in the state. Its bankruptcy filing listed between $100 million and $500 million in assets and placed its liabilities in the same range.
NRA lawyer Greg Garman said during opening statements that LaPierre did nothing wrong and made the decision to put the group into bankruptcy to avoid New York authorities having it placed in a receivership. The NRA has cast a court appointing a receiver to oversee the organization as a potential death blow and argued that it’s looking for a more politically favorable environment in gun-friendly Texas.
“I think it will help us flourish to get out of that environment and get into a state that really wants us here,” NRA First Vice President Charles Cotton testified Tuesday.
US gun lobby NRA’s exec sheltered on borrowed yacht after mass shootings
https://arab.news/ru2h6
US gun lobby NRA’s exec sheltered on borrowed yacht after mass shootings
- The National Rifle Association declared bankruptcy in January, months after New York state sued seeking the group’s dissolution
- State Attorney General Letitia James sued over claims that top NRA executives illegally diverted tens of millions of dollars for lavish personal trips
Pakistani fighter jet crashes in Jalalabad, pilot captured: Afghan military, police
- Fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban military entered its third day on Saturday
- Pakistan’s strikes on Friday hit Taliban military installations and posts, including in Kabul and Kandahar
JALALABAD: A Pakistani jet has crashed in Jalalabad city and the pilot captured alive, the Afghan military and police said Saturday, with residents telling AFP the man parachuted from the plane before being detained.
"A Pakistani fighter jet was shot down in the sixth district of Jalalabad city, and its pilot was captured alive," police spokesman Tayeb Hammad said.
Wahidullah Mohammadi, spokesman for the military in eastern Afghanistan, confirmed the Pakistani jet was downed by Afghan forces "and the pilot was captured alive".
The AFP journalist heard a jet overhead before blasts from the direction of the airport in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, which sits on the road between Kabul and the Pakistani border.
Fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban military entered its third day on Saturday, following overnight clashes as the international community expressed increasing concern about the conflict and called for urgent talks.
Pakistan’s strikes on Friday hit Taliban military installations and posts, including in Kabul and Kandahar, in one of the deepest Pakistani incursions into its western neighbor in years, officials said.
Islamabad accuses the Taliban of harboring Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants, who it claims are waging an insurgency inside Pakistan, a charge the Taliban denies.
Pakistan described its actions as a response to cross-border assaults, while Kabul denounced them as a breach of its sovereignty, saying it remained open to dialogue but warned any wider conflict would result in serious consequences.
The fighting has raised the risk of a protracted conflict along the rugged 2,600-kilometer frontier.
Diplomatic efforts gathered pace late on Friday as Afghanistan said its foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, spoke by telephone with Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal bin Farhan about reducing tensions and keeping diplomatic channels open.
The European Union called for both sides to de-escalate and engage in dialogue, while the United Nations urged an immediate end to hostilities.
Russia urged both sides to halt the clashes and return to talks, while China said it was deeply concerned and ready to help ease tensions.
The United States supports Pakistan’s right to defend itself against attacks by the Taliban, a State Department spokesperson said.
Border fighting continues
Exchanges of fire continued along the border overnight.
Pakistani security sources said an operation dubbed “Ghazab Lil Haq” was ongoing and that Pakistani forces had destroyed multiple Taliban posts and camps in several sectors. Reuters could not independently verify the claims.
Both sides have reported heavy losses with conflicting tolls that Reuters could not verify. Pakistan said 12 of its soldiers and 274 Taliban were killed while the Taliban said 13 of its fighters and 55 Pakistani soldiers died.
Taliban deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said 19 civilians were killed and 26 wounded in Khost and Paktika. Reuters could not verify the claim.
Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said “our cup of patience has overflowed” and described the fighting as “open war,” warning that Pakistan would respond to further attacks.
Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani said in a speech in Khost province that the conflict “will be very costly,” and that Afghan forces had not deployed broadly beyond those already engaged.
He said the Taliban had defeated “the world, not through technology, but through unity and solidarity,” and through “great patience and perseverance,” rather than superior military power.
Pakistan’s military capabilities far exceed those of Afghanistan, with a standing army of hundreds of thousands and a modern air force.
In stark contrast, the Taliban lacks a conventional air force and relies largely on light weaponry and ground forces.
However, the Islamist group is battle-hardened after two decades of insurgency against US-led forces before returning to power in 2021.
