CNN received quotes from the book by publisher Twelve, a division of the Hachette Book Group, and did not fully review the book.
The reflexes in his book include the organization’s goal of spreading fear of losing gun rights and pouring metaphorical fuel over those fears of raising money.
The appointed narrative — everything also delved into how, in Powell’s words, “gun-toting ‘deplorables'” – fueled by fear “deep in her bones” and fueled by LaPierre that then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton would steal her guns from the polls to turn down the vote for President Donald Trump.
Carolyn Meadows, the president of the NRA, told CNN in a statement “It is not surprising that Mr. Powell would have saved his failed career by peddling fiction about the NRA. I doubt this is a book that people will read, much less faith. “
Book ready for publication after suitcase aims to dissolve NRA, author of names
The book’s news comes after Powell and LaPierre were named in a lawsuit filed by New York’s attorney general with the intent to dissolve the NRA.
The case of Attorney General Leticia James of New York leveled accusations against her senior leadership for violating laws that governments have for nonprofit groups and use millions from the organization’s reserves for personal use and tax fraud and around the silence and continued loyalty of former employees to buy.
James calls on Powell and NRA leadership to no longer be allowed to serve on the boards of charities in New York State. The suit also calls for the removal of LaPierre from the lead. Powell, fired in January after 3.5 years with the group, was no longer with the NRA at the time of the suit.
The lawsuit also accuses Powell and others of instilling a culture of “self-treatment of mismanagement and negligent oversight at the NRA.” Powell, it claims, received wage increases in the direction of LaPierre who squandered his salary in less than three years “despite complaints of abusive behavior, and evidence of illegal behavior and adverse spending.”
It also claims that he secured contracts that benefited family members without revealing that they were related to him. He was fired from the NRA, according to the suit, about a year after he was appointed a senior strategist, for alleged falsification of travel expenses, according to the suit.
Powell declined to discuss the lawsuit with the New York Times. His attorney made the statement earlier this month in a statement that Powell was “fired by Wayne LaPierre and NRA attorneys for his attempt to correct much of the misconduct mentioned in the attorney general’s complaint. ”
At the time of the case, representatives of the NRA called it “a baseless, premeditated attack on our organization and the freedoms of the Second Amendment that it fights to defend.”
The NRA then filed a countersuit in federal court claiming that the attorney general was violating the organization’s right to free speech in a way that “threatens to destabilize the NRA and the NRA’s speech. , chill their members and other constituencies. “
Powell told CNN Tuesday in an email: “As advised by my attorneys, I will not be able to respond to any pending legal action with the AG.”
CNN reached out to LaPierre and the NRA for comment.
After Sandy Hook, donations were ‘open spigot’; ‘To sell’
After the shooting of the elementary school, in which 20 students and six adults were shot and killed, Powell writes, “membership and donations were an open spigot,” and “if we needed more, Wayne would just put gasoline on the fire. throw, ‘as he put it. “
Powell said the group had one speed and direction: “Sell the fear. Gasoline goes on fire.”
“It worked to awaken the most extreme faction of our membership – they ate it up.”
NRA in financial shambles
Powell writes “the NRA’s finances are in shambles; it has been in the red for the past three years, despite annual revenues of about $ 350 million a year,” according to the bids.
“The waste and dysfunction at the NRA has been amazing, and the organization and its members have cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the years.”
Trump’s election
Powell writes that NRA membership “deep in her bones” believed that then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton “would come for her guns” and “take away her right to protect herself.”
“Wayne and the senior NRA leadership had that answer in them like Pavlov’s dogs twenty years ago.”
“For them, it was a choice between Lord Don or Lucifer Hillary. It was an easy choice for them,” Powell wrote, according to quoted sources.
“The simple truth was that a whole bunch of ‘threats’ with guns did just that. They voted.”
In a quote provided to CNN by the publisher, Powell says he hopes to show what the NRA could be like under better leadership, and out of “a sense of hope for the future, for a better organization that can make both gun owners more effective. serve and America. “
CNN’s Monica Serrano and Melanie Schuman contributed to this report.
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