Recently, New York Democrat Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit attempting to dissolve the NRA. At the time, James said that “The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets. The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law.”
James also accused the NRA of diverting its funds toward personal expenses, such as private jets and vacations, calling the spending “illegal, oppressive, and fraudulent.”
But, interestingly, support for the NRA in their fight against the suit has come from both sides of the political aisle.
Both conservative and liberal legal experts spoke to the Washington Free Beacon, telling the outlet that James’s attempt to dismantle the NRA looks political.
For example, Walter Olson, legal fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, said:
“Closing down opposition organizations, traditionally, was something that you heard of going on in strongman regimes and you did not have going on in the United States. And that’s what she’s asking for is for: a major opposition organization to be closed down.”
Olson also said that James’s attempt to completely destroy the NRA “could taint an otherwise legitimate investigation.”
Left-leaning law professor Philip Hackney, formerly of Office of the Chief Counsel of the IRS presiding over nonprofits, said that James’s investigation was called for and that the NRA’s spending habits should be scrutinized, but implied that trying to shut it down entirely reaches too far.
Hackney compared the case against the NRA to the cases against Kamehameha Schools and Adelphi University, saying that both of those organizations had their entire governing boards removed by government mandate and had to pay millions in back taxes, but both are still in operation.
Other Leftists that have been supporting the NRA in this case include Washington Post editor Ruth Marcus, Harvard Law Professor and Trump impeachment witness Noah Feldman, and University of Minnesota law professor Alan Z. Rozenshtein, all of which have written op-eds warning that trying to dissolve the NRA can lead to “disturbing implications” (according to Marcus) and that it “threatens democratic norms” (according to Rozenshtein).
Who would’ve ever thought that we’d see a world where Leftists are defending the NRA?
