NRA Accuses Ex Partner Of Forcing Unwanted Eyeliner On Poor Susan LaPierre

It was a drive-by rouging!

The problem with renting someone else's closet to hold all your skeletons is that you can't always get 'em back when you want 'em. Sometimes your former landlord gets pissed off and decides to pass them bone by humiliating bone to Betsy Woodruff at the Daily Beast , leaving your PR flack to issue a hilarious series of non-denial denials, desperately trying to deflect blame on someone, anyone, hell, maybe the closet itself. Case in point, the NRA, which spent the past 30 years running millions of dollars in clothing, travel, and rental expenses through its media company Ackerman McQueen, and is watching every penny of it appear in blind-sourced items now that the relationship has unraveled.

Here's NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam refuting the latest story of expensive hair and makeup artists "plugged in to the country music scene" being flown in for NRA events to glam up NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre's wife by accusing Ackerman of holding Susan LaPierre down and gluing those filthy eyelash extensions on her against her will.  

This is the latest example of the smear campaign orchestrated to damage those close to the NRA. In this instance, our former vendor shamelessly targets the wife of the Association's CEO. Once again, Ackerman McQueen attempts to mislead by suggesting that Ms. LaPierre had responsibility for actions taken by the agency.

Let the record reflect that Mr. Arulanandam does not deny that the NRA paid Ackerman tens of thousands of dollars to bring in outside talent to tend to the Missus at NRA events. He's just saying that it was the media company foisting those fancypants flat irons and airbrush foundations on Wayne's lil old country gal. But Ackerman tells a different story, claiming that all payments were "made at the NRA's direction."

Gosh, who to believe? It's a tough one! 

Hey, remember that time last week when the NRA swore on George Washington's AK-47 that the $6.5 million bid for a fake French Country chateau on a golf course outside Dallas was all Ackerman's doing? And then someone leaked documents to the Wall Street Journal showing that the NRA's CFO had signed papers agreeing to route $6.5 million in cash through a company controlled by Ackerman to purchase the very same property on behalf of Mr. and Mrs. Wayne LaPierre?

Let's just say we will not be FOR SHOCKED if emails showing the NRA specifically requesting those makeup artists appear in the Beast or the Journal within the next 24 hours. Particularly since the NRA appears to have had a last second freakout and canceled these providers right before the NRA's annual board meeting in Indianapolis last April out of fear that the outlay would not play well with a donor base already getting testy about Wayne's personal expenses.

But as media reports emerged with allegations of extravagant spending by the gun group, NRA officials worried the Nashville stylists' presence could attract scrutiny. So they canceled on them at the last minute. Because the cancellation came so late, the NRA still had to pay their fees.

UH HUH.

Let's just plug those "media reports" into the old NRA-Ackerman trench warfare timeline, shall we?

• By April 2019, the NRA had been arguing for months over its right to see then-board president Oliver North's contract with Ackerman, which was paying him upwards of a million dollars a year to scream crazy shit on NRATV.

• On April 12, the NRA sued Ackerman to get access to a full accounting of expenses, including North's contract.

• On the 24th, North allegedly called up the NRA offices and threatened to reveal compromising info on NRA spending and Wayne LaPierre's personal expenses unless the lawsuit was withdrawn and LaPierre retired.

• On the 25th, LaPierre published a letter laying out an alleged extortion scheme by North and Ackerman.

• April 26, the NRA annual meeting in Indianapolis opened.

• April 27, NRA board member Richard Childress read North's resignation letter aloud at the public board meeting.

At which point in this clusterfuck did the NRA make the panicked phone call canceling the Nashville artists and hiring cheaper local talent? Because you can color us skeptical that poor Mrs. LaPierre is a victim of Ackerman's expensive eyeliner and only discovered the dastardly plot moments before the NRA convention.

You can put lipstick on a pig ...

[ DB ]

 Follow Liz (AKA your FDF) on Twitter! 

Please click here to fund your Wonkette. We haven't worked out a grift to make it into a tax deductible donation, but we're working on it! (Just kidding, we are not thieves.)