Wayne LaPierre: America’s Hired (and Fired) Gun | 179

Wayne LaPierre spent decades at the helm of the National Rifle Association, transforming it into one of the most powerful lobbying groups in America. But behind his carefully crafted image as a gun-toting cowboy was a man who barely knew how to fire a weapon. LaPierre’s true loyalty was never to guns—or even to the NRA—but to himself. He raised millions from devoted members, then siphoned off the organization’s funds to bankroll his own life of luxury. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Sarah Hagi?

  Audible subscribers can listen to all our episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.

• 0:14Scaachi Koul?

  Sarah?

• 0:15Sarah Hagi?

  Yes?

• 0:18Sarah Hagi?

  I'm scared.

• 0:20Scaachi Koul?

  You know a lot about me, but do you know that I love guns? I love shooting guns.

• 0:28Sarah Hagi?

  You know, I didn't know that about you, but I really want to try shooting a gun.

• 0:33Scaachi Koul?

  Yes.

• 0:33Sarah Hagi?

  And no one will take me to a shooting range.

• 0:35Scaachi Koul?

  Oh, I will take you. I will take you.

• 0:38Sarah Hagi?

  Politics aside, they're cool.

• 0:40Scaachi Koul?

  Yes, listen, to be clear, I don't think anyone should own a gun. They are awful death machines, but they are so cool.

• 0:47Sarah Hagi?

  I know. There's a reason why they're in video games.

• 0:51Scaachi Koul?

  Well, as a gun expert, I'm here today to take you into the heart of gun culture and how one lobbyist built one of the biggest, most powerful advocacy groups in the world, and then almost brought it down because he was so needy and so greedy.

• 1:09Scaachi Koul?

  It's early 2018, and Wayne and Susan Lapierre are house hunting in the Dallas suburbs. Wayne and Susan are a rich, white, married couple in their late 60s. So unsurprisingly, they're looking at a 10,000-square-foot mansion in a gated community. It's a huge property with four bedrooms, nine bathrooms, high ceilings, and plenty of natural light. There's a fireplace in the kitchen and an elevator. It backs onto a man-made lake that's in the middle of a golf course. And the homeowners' association provides security. That last perk is important for the couple because lately Wayne has been feeling unsafe. Wayne is the CEO of the National Rifle Association, the country's most influential gun rights lobby, and one of the most influential organizations

• 1:53Scaachi Koul?

  in American politics for decades. Over the 27 years Wayne has held this position, gun violence has surged. Just a month ago, 17 people were killed in the shooting at Parkland High School in Florida. And as the public face of the biggest organization promoting gun ownership, Wayne has been getting a lot of flak. He's been confronted by protesters and even swatted. It's been a really scary time for him. I mean, what if someone came to his house with a gun?

• 2:21Sarah Hagi?

  Oh my god. Ugh, I love a clear villain. He's rotten, hate his guts.

• 2:27Scaachi Koul?

  Mm-hmm. Well, this house would be the perfect fortress for Wayne to hide from his enemies. But it costs about $6 million. And while Wayne is doing pretty well for himself, he doesn't have that kind of money, at least not in his personal bank account. So Wayne does something he's done countless times before. He decides that this mega mansion counts as a business expense. He's been making huge luxury purchases on the company dime for decades, pulling millions of dollars from the organization's budget to buy expensive suits, pay for private flights, and even cover summer vacations on enormous yachts. For Wayne, this house would be the perfect place to monitor the political world he helped build and defend himself against all these lunatics who want to do insane things like ban assault rifles.

• 3:12Scaachi Koul?

  But Wayne will never actually move in. In fact, this era of his life is about to end. A series of investigations, lawsuits, and eventually a major court case are going to expose his fraud and reveal to the world that his entire public persona is bullshit. Wayne is an opportunist, but worse, he's a coward. And when the world finally sees who he really is, Wayne won't have anything left in the chamber.

• 3:42Speaker 02

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• 4:44Scaachi Koul?

  From Wondery, I'm Saachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Haggie. And this is Scamfluencers.

• 4:57Scaachi Koul?

  Wayne Lapierre was the face of the National Rifle Association for decades and one of the most influential figures in American politics. As CEO, he transformed the NRA into one of the most feared lobbying forces in the world. But his image as a macho, gun-toting cowboy was a sham. Wayne barely knew how to use a cellphone, let alone an AR-15. He wasn't even a Second Amendment diehard. The only thing Wayne believed in was Wayne. He used the NRA's reputation to maintain proximity to power and raise millions from its devoted members. Then, he pilfered that war chest to live in the lap of luxury. This is a story where everybody loses, especially America. I'm calling it Wayne Lapierre: America's Hired and Fired Gun.

• 5:46Scaachi Koul?

  Before we talk about Wayne's role in bringing gun rights activism into the mainstream, we need to get into the history of the NRA. The National Rifle Association is founded in 1871. At first, it's mostly an organization for hunters and marksmen. They advocate for things like additional gun safety laws and firearm regulations. In the '60s, they actually support California Governor Ronald Reagan when he signs a law banning the open carry of firearms. Of course, the law was passed in response to a Black Panther protest where participants marched through the state Capitol with loaded guns.

• 6:21Scaachi Koul?

  Huh, funny how that works. It's an interesting coincidence, don't you think? Interesting, interesting. Throughout the '60s, high-profile assassinations of figures like John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X lead to increased calls for gun control. This culminates in a 1968 bill that restricts firearm sales in a bunch of ways, including adding serial numbers to guns and requiring a minimum age for gun buyers. These measures are popular. By the '70s, the NRA starts to consider dropping the word "rifle" from its name altogether. And they make plans to move their headquarters from Washington, DC to Colorado Springs, so they can focus less on politics and more on sportsmanship and outdoor activities. But a more radical group of NRA members

• 7:05Scaachi Koul?

  wants to double down on the Second Amendment. They want the organization to fight to ensure everyone in the country can own guns and take them virtually anywhere. And they have a plan to get their way.

• 7:18Scaachi Koul?

  In May 1977, the NRA hosts its annual board meeting in Cincinnati. On the first day, a stream of activists in bright orange hunting caps march into the meeting holding walkie-talkies and carrying guns. One of the architects of this protest is Neil Knox. Neil is in his early 40s. He's a jowly guy with a wide forehead and big aviator glasses. He's a journalist who writes for hunting magazines, loves guns, and hates the government. And these orange-hat NRA members agree with him. They're the type of people you might associate with the NRA now: hardcore Second Amendment fanatics who think the government is about to take away their sacred right to bear arms. Right now, Neil and the orange caps are still on the fringes of the organization.

• 8:03Scaachi Koul?

  But Neil is ready to change that. He thinks if enough hardline members show up, they can overwhelm the NRA establishment. Then, they can vote out the more moderate board members and replace them with people who want to move the organization further to the right. Neil's plan works. He swarms the board meeting with his crew, and they refuse to leave, even when the organizers turn off the air conditioning and transform the conference room into a sweltering mess. After an all-night voting session, Neil and his allies replace most of the existing NRA board members with their own faction of right-wing, pro-gun activists. This event becomes known as "The Revolt at Cincinnati", and it clears the path for Neil to be appointed chief lobbyist of the new NRA.

• 8:47Scaachi Koul?

  He's about to change the trajectory of the organization and American politics forever. But he needs someone to help him push his new agenda. And he's about to find the perfect partner in the place he'd least expect: across the aisle.

• 9:03Scaachi Koul?

  It's 1978, about a year after the revolt in Cincinnati. 29-year-old Wayne Lapierre is wandering around the imposing NRA headquarters in Washington, DC. He's here to interview for a job, but honestly, it seems like kind of a weird fit. Wayne is a rumpled, unassuming guy who really looks like a gopher. He's absent-minded and eccentric. He volunteered for a progressive Democrat, George McGovern, and has no interest in guns. Wayne grew up in the small city of Roanoke, Virginia, about a four-hour drive from DC. It's the type of place where you might expect to find some gun enthusiasts, but no one in Wayne's household cared much about guns or hunting. What Wayne does care about is politics. He got into it early.

• 9:47Scaachi Koul?

  When he was in high school, he would go out canvassing for his parents' friends who were running for city council. Then he got a master's degree in political science from Boston College, and he started working as a legislative aide for a Democrat in the Virginia State House. Wayne's boss was really into hunting, fishing, and guns, and he's the one who heard the NRA was looking for a lobbyist to help them make inroads with Democrats and recommended Wayne for the gig.

• 10:12Sarah Hagi?

  It never ceases to amaze me how lobbyists and people in politics work, where there comes a point where I don't think they actually believe in anything. It's just about what will be beneficial for who hired me, or what evil thing I want to do. It's crazy.

• 10:29Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, well, we don't know exactly what draws Wayne to the NRA, but we do know that before interviewing for the NRA job, Wayne turned down an offer to work as a legislative aide for Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill. This would have been more in line with Wayne's previous work. But being a legislative aide is kind of a grind, and it means you actually have to focus on policy. Lobbying, on the other hand, puts you in the room where all the big decisions are made. It could give Wayne access, power, and maybe even wealth. In the end, Wayne takes the NRA job. He'll be working under Neal, the architect of the Cincinnati revolt, helping him enact his vision for a more militant, right-wing NRA. In other words, Wayne is fully ready to sell out.

• 11:14Scaachi Koul?

  But though Wayne is ready to dive headfirst into the far right, he isn't a perfect fit. For all that he doesn't know about guns, Wayne does know politics, and Neil is impressed. Over the next two years, Neil promotes Wayne up through the ranks at the NRA, eventually naming him head of the group's federal lobbying arm. This rapid rise is pretty surprising, because, as Neil quickly realized, Wayne is not a typical lobbyist. He's nerdy, clumsy, and socially inept. According to Misfire: The Downfall of the NRA by Tim Mack, Wayne has a weak handshake, doesn't drink, and he's so awkward that colleagues say the only way to make eye contact with him is to lie on the floor. His clothes are basic and ugly,

• 11:58Scaachi Koul?

  and Mack adds that on Capitol Hill, people literally call Wayne "shoes" because he always wears the same pair of scuffed, black wingtips. Wayne hates technology and refuses to use the computer. He writes all of his notes by hand on yellow legal pads using an unreadable shorthand. Then, he puts all of the legal pads in a suitcase. He frequently forgets to close the suitcase, since he's always dropping his notes all over the floor.

• 12:25Sarah Hagi?

  Oh my god. Why is this not adapted to a sitcom? Wayne is perfect. He's kind of Mr. Magoo.

• 12:34Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 12:34Sarah Hagi?

  He's disheveled.

• 12:35Scaachi Koul?

  Isn't that right, though?

• 12:36Sarah Hagi?

  Well, he's the brains and, you know, Neil's the brawn.

• 12:40Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. Well, maybe Neil figures that his star employee needs encouragement to just come out of his shell. Because one day, he offers to take the NRA's golden boy on a skeet-shooting field trip. Neil hops in his 1978 Cadillac Seville and heads off to the range in rural Maryland. But when he meets up with Wayne, Neil is shocked to see that his star employee is carrying a crappy, old shotgun that's so rusted, it's basically unusable. Neil promptly pops open the hood of his Cadillac and cleans up Wayne's busted-ass gun with oil. Neil probably had an inkling that Wayne wasn't a gun guy, but now, he knows just how clueless he really is. And Neil isn't the only person at the NRA to notice.

• 13:23Scaachi Koul?

  People start telling a joke about Wayne's aim at the office. The safest place you can be when Wayne has a gun is between Wayne and the target.

• 13:32Sarah Hagi?

  This guy is so incredible. Like, he's just kind of a muse for insults. You know what I mean? People are coming up with their best work. This is incredible work.

• 13:42Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 13:42Sarah Hagi?

  I mean, they really got his ass.

• 13:44Scaachi Koul?

  They really did. Neil might find Wayne's lack of gun knowledge and interpersonal skill off-putting, but there's no denying he's a great lobbyist. He's a political strategy savant. And in an organization filled with big personalities, Wayne's blandness might actually be his secret weapon. In 1991, the NRA's chief executive leaves after being accused of harassing a female staffer. He was the third guy to have the job in the last six years, including someone who fired an entire division without consulting the board. The NRA needs someone steady and boring to keep things calm for a while. So, of course, they give the job to Wayne.

• 14:24Scaachi Koul?

  Neil has found a perfect, unassuming, politically savvy avatar to lead the NRA. Now, he just needs to make sure Wayne can play the part. And that means someone needs to put some lipstick on this Wayne-sized pig.

• 14:39Scaachi Koul?

  Putting Wayne in charge of the NRA is a bit of a gamble, but to Angus McQueen, it's also a golden opportunity. Angus is the head of an advertising firm called Ackerman McQueen, which everyone calls AKMAC. His father founded AKMAC in the early 70s. Angus started his career in news media and then worked for the Nixon administration. But then, he came to AKMAC and started running the family business. Right away, he identified the NRA as a very important client. He grew the firm's relationship with the gun lobbying group into its most lucrative account. Wayne seems like the world's least likely poster boy for Second Amendment warriors, which suits Angus just fine. He sees something he knows a lot about: a marketing opportunity.

• 15:24Scaachi Koul?

  Angus is in his mid-40s, with a soft, round face, close-cropped hair, and frameless glasses. He looks like he could be a kindly elementary school principal, except for his hard eyes and his intense and terrifying personality.

• 15:39Scaachi Koul?

  His colleagues say he's ruthless with, quote, "a violent uncontrollable temper." Years later, some of them will tell a reporter about an incident where an IT expert tried to set Angus up with a new laptop. When Angus couldn't figure out how to use it, he got so frustrated that he grabbed a pair of scissors, cut through every cable, took the whole mess to the office lobby, and slammed it down on the marble floor. His employees were too scared to clean up the wreckage. But Angus gets away with this bad behavior because he's good at his job. In the 80s, he masterminded some very successful ad campaigns for the NRA. Sarah, do you want to take a look at some of Angus's work?

• 16:17Sarah Hagi?

  These ads are very hard to miss. They're all black and white. There's a big text at the top, followed by an image. And one of them says, "If you're attacked on your porch, do you want your neighbors to be opposed to gun ownership or members of the NRA?" Another one says, "What does a convenience store clerk think just before he is attacked?" At the bottom of the ads, it says, "Defend your right to defend yourself," which I guess is exactly what they're doing. You know, it's like, anything can happen. The world's crazy. Don't you want to defend yourself? Just in case something happens, you know, like, making it seem like, no matter what, they're the victim of something.

• 16:55Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, these ads are like the template for every right-wing ad trying to scare you about, like, the rise of crime.

• 17:01Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah.

• 17:02Scaachi Koul?

  Angus is so successful that by the 90s, Acmac is in charge of all PR at the NRA. From ads to research to crisis management. They literally have their own floor in the NRA's Washington offices. Acmac employees are living well off the account. They travel on private jets, wine and dine their clients at expensive restaurants, and smoke fancy cigars at private clubs. Of course, as their CEO, Angus leads by example. He wears bespoke suits, drives a Bentley, and wears $250 ties, which he often throws away after wearing once.

• 17:38Sarah Hagi?

  I think this is gonna be one of those episodes where I'm like, oh, who's the craziest person? It's hard to pick.

• 17:43Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 17:44Sarah Hagi?

  Throwing away a tie is so stupid. Like, what are you trying to prove here? That you could buy another one? We know you're rich.

• 17:49Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, well, some of these purchases might seem like they ride the line between personal and business expenses. But the Akmac guys have developed a trick to cover this up. Allow me to explain. Let's say, for example, that Angus wants to buy a brand-new $250 single-use tie. When he's at the expensive tie store, instead of using his own personal credit card, he pulls out his Akmac Amex and pays for it out of the company's expense account. After all, he's gonna wear it at work. At the same time, other Akmac guys are doing this with other questionable expenses: cigars, fancy dinners, private cars, whatever. And when the Akmac finance team sees these charges, they put them all together in an invoice for the NRA.

• 18:34Scaachi Koul?

  But these invoices are extremely vague. Instead of breaking down each item and its associated cost, or including any receipts, they just add it all up and put the total under a vague heading like "Expenses." Then, they invoice the NRA for one huge lump sum that covers everything. Angus never has to justify whether his tie counts as a business purchase, because no one at the NRA even sees that he bought it. And the NRA always pays the bill. Akmac executives call this the "out-of-pocket project." It's one of the job's special perks.

• 19:10Sarah Hagi?

  I'm not even sure if I consider this a scam. I'm like, rob them, I don't care, you guys are all evil.

• 19:15Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. Well, Angus really wants the NRA to continue to grow. So when Wayne becomes the head of the organization, Angus has to work his magic and rehab Wayne's public image. Luckily for Angus, Wayne is a pushover, which makes him pliable and easy to manipulate. Angus makes Wayne his main focus. They talk every day. Angus teaches Wayne how to speak in public. They even start a two-hour call-in radio show called "The Wayne Lapierre Show" to help grow Wayne's confidence and his brand. Wayne calls Angus his Yoda. They get close enough that Angus fills Wayne in on the out-of-pocket project. And when he tells Wayne to use it to buy some nice new clothes, instead of being mad that Angus is ripping them off,

• 19:58Scaachi Koul?

  Wayne decides he wants to do it too. Angus's plan works. Wayne's public profile starts to rise. In 1994, Angus has another stroke of genius: having Wayne write a book called Guns, Crime and Freedom, with an introduction by Tom Clancy. The book actually makes it on to the New York Times Bestseller list, and Wayne goes on a three-month tour to promote it. The tour is extremely hard on poor Wayne's sensitive nerves, but it helps establish him as a national political figure.

• 20:30Sarah Hagi?

  This is the plot of many movies: hot person turning someone into a star.

• 20:35Scaachi Koul?

  This is Miss Congeniality.

• 20:37Sarah Hagi?

  I mean, it's the plot of any teen movie where there's a bet involved.

• 20:41Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 20:42Sarah Hagi?

  But it's also really interesting because it's so clear that Angus believes that investing in Wayne will help him. Like, that's the potential everyone sees in him, which I find so fascinating, because by all accounts, he's such a dork.

• 20:55Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. Well, Angus has managed to turn that political dork into a right-wing celebrity, poised to lead the NRA into its new era. But his obsession with image and skimming money off the top is about to clash with another powerful figure inside the NRA: Neil, who's not so easy to manipulate. And when Wayne is forced to choose between them, his decision will change the landscape of right-wing politics forever.

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• 22:13Scaachi Koul?

  It's 1996, and Neil is at the NRA's offices staring at a stack of paper. Five years ago, Neil and the rest of the NRA board voted to make Wayne the organization's chief executive. And while Wayne has become a national figurehead, Neil is growing impatient with his lack of aggression. Just last year, he told the LA Times that Wayne was "too nice." But now, Neil's starting to think Wayne's bland exterior is hiding something darker. The NRA's finances have been shaky ever since Wayne took over. And last year, they got so bad that the board's finance committee did a comprehensive review. Neil's reading their report, and it's not pretty.

• 22:58Scaachi Koul?

  Mac reports in Miss Fire that the audit shows Wayne's been throwing millions of dollars at Acmac, as well as at a bunch of other vendors, to help improve his public image. And to make things worse, he didn't have written contracts with most of them. This makes the details of his spending even harder to track. And the impact on the organization's bottom line is staggering. Since Wayne took over, the NRA has lost more than $85 million in assets. Under his direction, the organization has also quietly taken another $51 million out of the NRA's long-term investments. Technically, they are on the verge of bankruptcy.

• 23:36Sarah Hagi?

  There is something about Neil where, forgetting how I feel about their opinions, he's kind of true to what he claims to be true to. He's maybe more of a hardcore crazy person, and they're more opportunistic?

• 23:52Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, it's an interesting distinction. Well, Neil is furious. He spent the last 30 years rebuilding this organization from the ground up. The rest of the board is equally pissed. Wayne scrambles to respond to the audit. He fires 20% of the NRA's employees, and even tells Neil he'll stop working with Acmac. Now, Sarah, Neil doesn't know this, but Wayne is actually still pulling one over on the NRA. The PR firm he hires to replace Acmac is one of Acmac's subsidiaries. He's pulling the exact same scheme, but trying to hide it from the board. But even without this knowledge, Neil has had enough. He wants Wayne to step down entirely.

• 24:33Scaachi Koul?

  When it becomes clear this isn't going to happen, Neil resorts to what he does best: guerrilla tactics. In the months before the 1997 board meeting, Neil goes to war with Wayne and the press. They both take out ads and write open letters. Neil calls Wayne and his allies, quote, "self-serving, irresponsible, and incompetent," while Wayne says Neil is a fringe, right-wing nut job. Pretty soon, Wayne takes things even further by starting a campaign to vote Neil off the board entirely and replace him with the actor Charlton Heston. Charlton used to be a Democrat who supported strict gun control back in the 60s. But by the 90s, he was giving speeches about reverse racism and Second Amendment rights. Charlton's a famous firebrand

• 25:18Scaachi Koul?

  who Wayne and his allies are betting they can use to get NRA members on their side.

• 25:24Sarah Hagi?

  It's really interesting, through this scam, seeing how the NRA is changing with society, almost where it's being provocative in a very obvious way to really be famous. And also, even just the idea of having a celebrity be the new face of it, it's so current compared to what Neil does.

• 25:43Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. Well, when the board finally convenes at the Seattle Convention Center for the 1997 meeting, they face a vote for Neil or Charlton. Neil, the man who once orchestrated his own coup against the NRA's old guard, watches helplessly as the votes are tallied. In the end, he loses his spot on the board to Charlton Heston by just four votes. Now Neil's gonna have to sit back and watch as his former protege starts shooting from the hip and treating their precious NRA as his personal piggy bank.

• 26:16Scaachi Koul?

  It's 1998, one year after Wayne and Charlton Heston seize control of the NRA. And in Washington DC, Susan Marries Dorca, an ambitious blonde in her late 40s with a tight, tense smile, has decided she wants to marry her boyfriend, Wayne Lapierre. Some women might start dropping hints. Others might pop the question themselves. But Susan isn't some woman. She just sends out the invitations to their wedding without even telling Wayne. It's aggressive, but Susan knows her boyfriend better than anyone. He's a pushover. Years later, talking to a reporter about the situation, a coworker will say that Wayne has, quote, "the backbone of a chocolate eclair."

• 26:59Sarah Hagi?

  Oh my god, what is up with this guy?

• 27:02Scaachi Koul?

  His insults are crazy.

• 27:03Sarah Hagi?

  You know what it is? Wayne is smart, maybe technically.

• 27:07Scaachi Koul?

  Hmm.

• 27:08Sarah Hagi?

  But he is the definition of an empty vessel.

• 27:11Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 27:11Sarah Hagi?

  And everyone knows they could just put whatever they want into that and he will do it because he's actually really competent, which is pretty rare because usually empty vessels aren't really that smart.

• 27:22Scaachi Koul?

  Yes, competent but with no thoughts of his own in his head. The perfect husband. In the lead up to the wedding, Wayne asks everyone from his coworkers to his secretary if he should go through with it. And he's still wrestling with it minutes before the ceremony. His best man even offers to drive him away from the venue, but Susan and the priest convince him to go through with it. As usual, Susan gets what she wants. Susan grew up in a working-class family in Wisconsin, and she's ashamed of it. Ever since college, she's been working hard to distance herself from her upbringing by wearing expensive clothes and saying cruel things about poor people. In the 80s, Susan started working as a political fundraiser in DC. About a decade later,

• 28:07Scaachi Koul?

  she did some work for one of the NRA's biggest vendors. And that guy introduced her to the organization's rising star, Wayne. From the outside, they might seem like a weird match. But like Angus, Susan sees Wayne as an easily moldable vehicle for her own ambition. They both like power and having access to the NRA's expense account. After the wedding, people start calling Susan the first lady of the NRA. She's outspoken, loud, and wears flashy designer clothes to the office. Her perfume is so strong that everyone smells her before they see her. Susan tells people that she's just a volunteer at the NRA. And technically, that's true. She doesn't draw a paycheck, but she doesn't need to.

• 28:51Scaachi Koul?

  Ever since Wayne learned about the AKMAC out-of-pocket project, she's used it to pay for whatever she wants, like her own professional security detail and a car service she uses while traveling. Susan's taste for luxury is rubbing off on Wayne. The couple regularly flies private to places like Lake Como, Budapest, and the Bahamas. Susan finally has the life that she always wanted. She's got money, power, and popularity. But being married to a pushover like Wayne isn't easy. Susan is basically his assistant. She answers his emails, makes important political decisions when he can't pick a side, and takes pictures with his cellphone when he needs them. She's tied to him and the NRA for better or for worse.

• 29:34Scaachi Koul?

  And things are about to get much, much worse.

• 29:40Scaachi Koul?

  In December 2012, the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut shakes America to its core. Citizens and elected officials grieve the deaths of 20 first graders and six school employees. Stronger gun control laws could prevent this from happening again, but Wayne has other ideas. After hours of meeting with the brain trust at Ackerman McQueen, Wayne holds an official NRA press conference a week after the shooting. The conference room at DC's Intercontinental Hotel is packed full of reporters and news cameras, all waiting to hear how the NRA will respond to this moment. Looking stiff and defensive, Wayne gives a career-defining speech.

• 30:18Speaker 07

  The only way, the only way to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

• 30:40Sarah Hagi?

  It's beyond sickening. I feel like Sandy Hook was such a shift in how people talked about gun violence. It's not even worth rebuking because it's so obviously a lie and so evil, but it just shows how I don't think these people care about anything at all.

• 31:00Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, and it actually wasn't always this craven. Thirteen years earlier, after the mass shooting at Columbine High School, Wayne held a similar press conference. Back then, he said the NRA believed in, quote, "absolutely gun-free schools." Now, it's a different story. In response to the shooting, a bipartisan group of senators develops a bill that would require background checks for guns purchased at gun shows or on the internet. It's a pretty modest response to America's gun violence problem. But everyone knows that any gun-related bill needs NRA approval to get through Congress. Wayne has supported background checks since the late 90s. And the NRA's lobbyists even get to help write the legislation, which means they can add pro-gun provisions,

• 31:45Scaachi Koul?

  like banning the creation of a national gun registry. But it's still not enough. The gun rights movement's rank and file has become more extreme than its leaders. Now, the most hardcore members of the NRA are opposed to anything that even looks like compromise. Rival groups like the National Association for Gun Rights and Gun Owners of America start sending out mass emails telling their members to flood Wayne with calls until the NRA backs off. After that, the NRA's lobbyists straight up stop communicating about the bill. When one of the senators they were working with finally manages to get an NRA lobbyist on the phone, all they can say is that the organization now fully opposes the legislation.

• 32:28Sarah Hagi?

  Just the fact that this all has to happen with the participation of the NRA is so backwards. And these leaders, they have the backbones of a Claris, really.

• 32:41Scaachi Koul?

  Well, a few days later, the NRA not only withdraws their support for the bill, they mobilize their base against the very law they helped write. Pretty soon, senators are fielding phone calls and emails in huge numbers from angry gun owners. The pressure works, and even this limited background check mandate fails. This feels like a tipping point. Even after the horror of Sandy Hook, Wayne and the NRA have made it clear that they will unequivocally defend access to guns, no matter who gets hurt. In the decade following the tragedy at Sandy Hook, there were 189 school shootings in the US, resulting in 279 casualties. Wayne has successfully used his influence to push for one of the worst causes imaginable

• 33:26Scaachi Koul?

  and help pave the way for hundreds of deaths over the years to come. And now, he's free to focus on the most important thing in his life: his own image.

• 33:37Scaachi Koul?

  Just a few months after the Sandy Hook shooting, Wayne and Susan take a much-needed break from all that stressful political stuff by going on safari. Along with a production crew, they're filming a big game hunting show called Under Wild Skies. And it just so happens that the host of the show is both the head of the production company and the head of Acmac subsidiary, The Mercury Group. The whole show is, of course, sponsored and funded by the NRA.

• 34:07Sarah Hagi?

  Let me guess, this is a tactic to get them back to the, "Oh, we use rifles in so many ways" kind of vibe and not just about killing people?

• 34:15Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, distract and deflect. It works every time. And Wayne and Susan have been taking these safari trips for years. Wayne's shot episodes of the show all across Africa, Europe, and the US. It's a great situation for everyone involved, except, of course, the animals being hunted on camera and maybe the NRA's donors. Susan gets an exotic vacation. Wayne gets to bill tens of thousands of dollars in travel and lodging to the NRA. And the producers of Under Wild Skies make good money, too. Between 2010 and 2021, the NRA will spend $18 million on the show. Sometimes Wayne and Susan bring their friends, and the NRA pays for all of their expenses, too. But most of all,

• 34:59Scaachi Koul?

  the NRA gets footage of Wayne staring over the horizon and looking like he knows how to shoot a gun. You know, real macho hero stuff. In the years following Sandy Hook, Wayne and the NRA go right back to business as usual. And in the lead-up to the 2016 election, the organization makes its boldest electoral play yet, going all-in on Donald Trump. The NRA spends more than $30 million backing Trump's candidacy. So when the infamous Access Hollywood tape leaks, featuring Trump making vulgar comments about women, the NRA goes out on a limb to defend their candidate. The organization buys up a ton of ad time on Access Hollywood itself to run ads like this one, targeted specifically at women.

• 35:44Speaker 08

  She'll call 911. Average response time, 11 minutes. Too late. She keeps a firearm in this safer protection, but Hillary Clinton could take away her right to self-defense. Don't let Hillary leave you protected with nothing but a phone.

• 36:01Sarah Hagi?

  Wow. They're saying like, you can only really defend yourself. 911 takes too long and this is all we have. And Hillary Clinton is going to take that away. It's just such a fear mongering distraction from everything that Trump said and all the issues with the NRA and gun laws and everything. It's honing in once again on this fear that gets people so mobilized that you're the only defense you have and Hillary Clinton wants to make you defenseless.

• 36:29Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, you might say it worked shockingly well. We all know how the 2016 election turns out. After Trump is elected, Susan even gets appointed to the board of the Parks Foundation and for a minute, everybody's happy. But things aren't going to stay blissful for long. In fact, the Trump election might actually be the worst thing that could happen to the NRA. The organization is spending way more than it's taking in and attracting tons of attention from Democrats who want nothing more than to take it down. And it turns out that after decades of scamming, Wayne, Susan and Angus are going to be shooting blanks.

• 37:09Speaker 09

  A trucker merges onto the I-10 in New Orleans. He checks his mirrors. The lane is clear and then boom, impact. A pickup truck, seemingly out of nowhere, scrapes down the side of his 18-wheeler, multiple passengers inside. One man flees the scene and the driver of the pickup, he doesn't seem all that upset. It didn't feel like a regular accident because it wasn't. Across the city, truckers are getting sideswiped, all on the same stretch of the same freeway. And behind many of the cases is one person, a Hollywood stunt woman turned personal injury lawyer named Vanessa Moda. This podcast is a story about fake accidents that lead to real consequences and a scheme that ends in betrayal and murder.

• 37:54Speaker 09

  Listen to Over My Dead Body: Operation Sideswipe wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

• 38:09Speaker 10

  I'm Gemma Whelan and in the new season of The Spy Who, we tell the story of the original femme fatale, the spy who was Mata Hari. A famous dancer turned World War I secret agent, accused of seducing Allied officers to uncover their plans. But was she a temptress or a scapegoat for French failures? Follow The Spy Who now, wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also listen to the full season of The Spy Who Was Mata Hari, early and at free on Audible.

• 38:47Scaachi Koul?

  In November 2018, Letitia James gets elected Attorney General of New York. Letitia has straight, shoulder-length hair, and when she smiles, her grin is warm and toothy. There are a lot of people Letitia would like to prosecute, and one of her biggest targets is the NRA. Letitia thinks the NRA is willfully abetting gun violence. During the campaign, she gives an interview in Ebony magazine where she calls the NRA "a terrorist organization." Soon after she takes office, she opens an investigation into the group's finances. Letitia subpoenas NRA leadership and demands records. And as she goes through the documents, she's shocked. For an organization that throws its weight around so publicly, the NRA is broke as hell. Since Trump's election,

• 39:32Scaachi Koul?

  there's been an immediate, sharp decline in memberships and donations. In one way, this is pretty normal. The NRA always suffers during Republican presidencies since its members don't feel as fired up or threatened by the government. But Letitia notices that the NRA isn't just in a financial slump, they're struggling to pay their staff. They've stopped keeping coffee in their office kitchens. They've been pulling money from different sources to stay afloat, including a nearly maxed-out line of credit and their charitable foundation. But amidst all of this, one number is still going up: Wayne's salary. He actually took a raise this year, bringing his total take-home pay to more than $2 million. Wayne also got the NRA to sign a contract guaranteeing

• 40:17Scaachi Koul?

  that they'll keep paying him over the next 10 years, even if he stops working for them.

• 40:24Scaachi Koul?

  As Letitia reads through the company's internal memos, she learns she isn't the only person who has beef with Wayne. Oliver North spent the 80s brokering illegal weapons deals for the US government, and that apparently qualifies him for his new job as president of the NRA. The president is usually just a figurehead, while the EVP runs the show. But Oliver wanted to take a more hands-on approach. He came in with plans for how the group could expand its reach, but when he started trying to implement them, he quickly realized they had no money. So he started looking into the NRA's spending on big-ticket items, including tens of thousands of dollars paid to an outside law firm run by Angus McQueen's son-in-law.

• 41:06Scaachi Koul?

  Eventually, he asked the board to perform an audit of Ackerman McQueen.

• 41:11Sarah Hagi?

  Wow, once again, a clearly evil guy, but who is very real about his intentions, can see right through these people.

• 41:19Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, it takes someone evil, competent, and committed to the ideology to see that Wayne is evil, competent, and just a flat-out grifter. And then the lawsuits started flying. The NRA sued AKMAC for refusing to comply with the audit. Then they sued again for defamation, which was followed by an AKMAC countersuit. In June of 2019, after decades of working side by side, AKMAC cuts ties with the NRA altogether. Just a month later, Angus dies of lung cancer. In his New York Times obituary, his son calls the NRA, quote, "repugnant and cowardly."

• 41:57Sarah Hagi?

  You know, once again, in one of these stories, all it took was one person checking the books to unravel decades of lies. And it's interesting to think, like, if they hadn't done this audit, would it just have gone on forever? Maybe.

• 42:12Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, maybe. And as all of this is happening, Letitia just keeps building her case. It's clear that the NRA is already falling apart. All she needs to do is deliver the final push. This happens on August 6, 2020. Letitia holds a press conference for a sparse audience of socially-distanced journalists. Here's what she says.

• 42:32Speaker 11

  Just a few minutes ago. My office filed a lawsuit against the National Rifle Association to dissolve the organization in its entirety for years of self-dealing and illegal conduct that violate New York's charities law and undermine its own mission.

• 42:52Scaachi Koul?

  Trying to fully dissolve the NRA is a huge task, even for someone this dedicated. But while Letitia might not be able to fully end the NRA, she can at least take down its most high-profile executive.

• 43:06Scaachi Koul?

  It's April 2021, and Wayne Lapierre is on the stand in a New York courtroom. He's been on trial for four days, and the judge is absolutely fed up with him. Sarah, can you read what he says to Wayne?

• 43:19Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, he says, "Can you answer the questions that are asked? Do you understand that I've said that to you more than a dozen times over the last day?" So he's talking to him like he's a toddler.

• 43:31Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, he is. And the thing is, this isn't even Wayne's big New York State trial. That one hasn't even started yet. This is a bankruptcy hearing. When New York State filed its lawsuit against the NRA, Wayne put on his tough guy act in public, calling it, quote, "an affront to democracy and freedom." But in private, he was scrambling. The NRA filed for bankruptcy as a way to try to weasel out of the New York suit. It was a rogue move. Wayne did it without telling the NRA lawyers, his top lobbyist, or most of the board. It also doesn't seem like it's gonna work. Wayne is, to put it mildly, not great on the stand. He gives long, rambling answers that run way off-topic.

• 44:16Scaachi Koul?

  He blurts out incriminating evidence about himself, and his lawyer has to make him stop talking. At one point, he tells the court that he doesn't know his own phone number. And when he does figure out how to answer a question, it doesn't exactly help his case. Wayne sees himself as a perpetual victim who needs all of his crazy expenses for security reasons. For example, it comes out that every summer for the last five years, Wayne and Susan have hidden out in the Bahamas on a Hollywood producer's 108-foot yacht.

• 44:49Sarah Hagi?

  Sarah, do you want to read Wayne's testimony about the yacht?

• 44:52Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, he says, "I was basically under presidential threat without presidential security in terms of the number of threats I was getting. And this was a one place that I hope could feel safe, where I remember getting there going, 'Thank God I'm safe. Nobody can get me here.'"

• 45:08Sarah Hagi?

  What? Oh my. He's so out of touch.

• 45:12Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 45:12Sarah Hagi?

  You're just kind of like, "Do you understand what is happening around you and the situation you're in at all?"

• 45:19Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, delusional. And after six days of Wayne's brutal testimony, the judge dismisses the NRA's bankruptcy claim, saying it was filed in bad faith. The legal process drags out until January 2024, when the NRA's New York corruption trial is finally set to begin. Just three days before it starts, Wayne finally quits as EVP of the NRA. And he says it's because he has chronic Lyme disease. But even after resigning, he still has to take the stand. And this time, he's at least slightly more prepared. The state's lawyers present evidence of all the personal expenses he's charged to the NRA. At first, Wayne gives mostly yes-or-no answers. But as the trial goes on, Wayne pivots to a new strategy.

• 46:05Scaachi Koul?

  In the bankruptcy trial, he said he needed his fancy things for security reasons. Now, he says they are professional expenses, because he needs to play the character of Wayne Lapierre. And therefore, all of his crazy spending was what he needed to do to keep up the illusion. He blames his extravagant clothes budget on the Akmac execs who told him he needed to dress a certain way. And literally calls the clothes costumes. He explains that he needed to take his Under Wild Sky safari so he could be filmed hunting, because he, quote, "needed to build a rep and be seen as a hunter. I needed to develop the street cred." Then he tells the jury that he would never take a shot without it being on camera.

• 46:51Sarah Hagi?

  You know, in some ways, he's right, but not as a way to absolve him of being guilty.

• 46:56Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 46:57Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, he was a character and he was shaped by these people. He was, quite frankly, nothing before this. He didn't have an identity, it seemed, which is funny enough, kind of what Hulk Hogan did with the sex tape. He said, there's a character of Hulk Hogan and then there's Terry Bolea. And he's trying to pull that, but it's just not really going to work.

• 47:15Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. Well, at least Wayne is finally telling the truth about how deeply he's been conning people. Sort of. But you're right, Sarah, it still doesn't get him out of trouble. In February 2024, a jury fines Wayne and several other NRA higher-ups guilty of a number of charges, including corruption and financial misconduct. And a year later, on February 23rd, 2025, Wayne is found liable for self-dealing in order to pay the NRA back more than $4.3 million. He's also banned from serving on the NRA's board for 10 years. Earlier this year, Wayne appealed his conviction. And in August, the Department of Justice subpoenaed Letitia as part of an investigation

• 47:55Scaachi Koul?

  into whether she and her office violated the civil rights of Trump or NRA executives. Wayne's three-decade-long career at the head of the NRA might have come to an ignoble end. But the culture shift he oversaw, making gun owners feel like they're the victims of an all-out liberal culture war, will be his legacy.

• 48:18Scaachi Koul?

  Sarah, did you predict that the NRA would be so rife with scandal? I, for one, am shocked.

• 48:25Sarah Hagi?

  I'd say I wasn't shocked.

• 48:29Sarah Hagi?

  No, no, I think I, this is kind of what I thought. Yeah, yeah.

• 48:31Scaachi Koul?

  Right. Does it make you think differently about the NRA and their lobbying tactics and how they have worked in the United States for the last 20 years?

• 48:41Sarah Hagi?

  It is just so infuriating how passive the government is to lobbyists in general. I mean, it's almost like abstractly not even about the guns. It's just like the ultimate tool and cause to make people do what you want. I think they're just like shitty, rotten people, you know?

• 49:02Scaachi Koul?

  I think the thing that bothers me so much about this is the demise of the NRA is their own financial malfeasance and not the fact that they are in Congress making sure that it is as easy as possible for people to get something that murders children.

• 49:18Sarah Hagi?

  You know, there's really so much to say, but I want to zero in on Wayne as a human being.

• 49:24Scaachi Koul?

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:25Sarah Hagi?

  I think he's one of our most pathetic scammers. Because it's like he stumbled into a scam and he worked as though he had no agency, almost.

• 49:34Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, there's a pitifulness to this, that he got swept up in all of this for an organization that he didn't even seem to really give a shit about that much, that he had to fake it. I mean, having to admit that you have been in-character work for the better part of your career is rock bottom. He really wanted to get out of that corruption charge. He was just so craven and boring and nothing and just this vessel for people to pour their bad thoughts into and then he would just go do them.

• 50:05Sarah Hagi?

  You know how there are some people and you're like, oh, they obviously like married the first person they dated? Like, they didn't really make a choice. It just kind of was like, well, I guess this is what's going on.

• 50:16Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 50:16Sarah Hagi?

  And that's it. I'm OK with this. I think he's just cut from that cloth. It's such an interesting character study to me of this like total loser who shares behavior of like losers of the world, you know? I do wonder if you really pressed him, just like, hey, between us, like, what do you really think about guns? Like, did you really care? Did you care about guns at all? I feel like he just wouldn't even know how to respond.

• 50:40Scaachi Koul?

  Wayne LaPierre might be our first personality hire scammer, except the personality is he doesn't have one and that's why he was hired.

• 50:49Sarah Hagi?

  I think it's really important for people to understand, like, sometimes the best personality you can have is no personality, you know?

• 50:57Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. This episode is really loser, boring, tedious man representation. If you're listening at home and you think you can't be a scam artist because you're not compelling, let this be proof. You can do it.

• 51:15Scaachi Koul?

  Follow Scamfluencers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free by joining Audible. This is Wayne Lapierre, America's hired and fired gun. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagi. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at [email protected]. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were "Misfire: Inside the Downfall of the NRA" by Tim Mack, "Even Before His Trial, the NRA's Wayne Lapierre Was a Fraud" by Mike Spies for The New Yorker, and "The Civil War That Could Doom the NRA" by Sarah Ellison for Vanity Fair. Emma Healy wrote this episode.

• 51:59Scaachi Koul?

  Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Hagi. Eric Thurman is our story editor. Fact checking by Kalina Newman. Sound design by James Morgan. Additional audio assistance provided by Augustine Lim. Our music supervisor is Scott Palascas for Frieze on Sync. Our managing producer is Desi Blaylock. Janine Cornolo and Stephanie Jens are development producers. Our associate producer is Charlotte Miller. Our senior producers are Sarah Enni and Ginny Bloom. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman, Marshall Louie and Aaron O'Flaherty for Wondery.

• 52:39Speaker 12

  Ghosts aren't real. At least, that's what journalist Tristan Redmond always believed. Sure, odd things happen in his childhood bedroom, but ultimately, he shrugged them off. Until he discovered that he wasn't alone, that everyone who lived thereafter him also had bizarre experiences they couldn't explain. And it gets even weirder. It just so happens that his wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door. Is this ghost somehow connected to her murder? He decides to go where no son-in-law should, digging up a cold case and asking questions that nobody wants answered. Like, could his wife's great-grandfather have gotten away with the perfect crime? This is a podcast about family secrets, overwhelming coincidence,

• 53:22Speaker 12

  and the things that come back to haunt us. For the best bingeable series like Ghost Story, listen to the Audible True Crime Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can get all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.