NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre Blames Murdered Children For Mega-Yacht Trips, But Only Because He Is Lying
This fuckin' guy ...
These people have no shame. Thanks to them, our kids have to endure active shooter drills to prepare for the very real possibility that someone will burst into their schools wielding a high capacity killing machine. And still Wayne LaPierre and the National Rifle Association will hide behind these children's bodies to protect themselves from repercussions for their own massive self-dealing . Because they are FILTH.
Just look at LaPierre, the NRA CEO, explaining in a deposition why he just had to accept the use of a 108-foot yacht for family trips to the Bahamas from the owner of a company doing major business with the NRA.
LaPIERRE: They simply let me use it as a security retreat because they knew the threat that I was under. And I was basically under presidential threat without presidential security in terms of the number of threats I was getting. And all of us were struggling with how to deal with that type situation with a private citizen with the amount of threat that we were having. And this was the one — one place that I hope could feel safe, where I remember getting there going, "Thank God I'm safe, nobody can get me here." And that's how it happened. That's why I used it.
That's right, while your kid is hiding in a dark closet, Ol' Wayne and the Missus are on "Illusions," a fully staffed and stocked luxury yacht, complete with four state rooms, a "hydraulic swim platform," and a couple of Sea Doo wave runners. You know, for safety!
So kind of Hollywood producer David McKenzie to support his pal Wayne in his hour of need. Surely this has nothing to do with the $100 million in business the NRA did with companies associated with McKenzie between 2014 and 2019, according to a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James. And the NRA really appreciated it, spending over $6,700 on gifts for McKenzie and his family between 2013 and 2016. (Are you wondering if that kind of spending is kosher for a non-profit? It is not!)
How does all that square with LaPierre's repeated assertions that he never accepted a gift worth more than $300 from companies doing business with his "charity"?
LAWYER: Would you agree with me that the value of a 108-foot yacht with a full crew, full of supplies and fuel exceeds $300?
LaPIERRE: I think — I think, yes, it probably would, but it was also involved with my job and the threat that I was under and a place to be safe and — and in a totally unique situation that I think hardly anybody else in the US experienced that type of threat, other than maybe the president. I mean, I had presidential threat without presidential security and was looking for a place to be safe.
He just needed a safe house. A giant, floating safe house to take him to the Bahamas every summer while catering to his every need.
"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good friend with a yacht?" quipped Moms Demand activist Shannon Watts, who first highlighted the deposition on Twitter.
But he just had to do it, see, because those pesky kids kept getting themselves shot.
LAWYER: Okay. What was your last stay on Illusions?
LaPIERRE: I think it was sometime in 2018 after the Parkland shooting in the summer.
LAWYER: When was your first stay on the yacht Illusions?
LaPIERRE: I think it was after the Sandy Hook shooting, the summer after the Sandy Hook shooting.
LAWYER: How many times did you go on the yacht Illusions in the Bahamas?
LaPIERRE: I probably went once — one time a year where we could go and be safe for the — from the Sandy Hook shooting up until 2019.
As Shannon Watts points out , the Sandy Hook school shooting was in December 2012, and the Parkland shooting was in February 2018, which rather gives the lie to LaPierre's insistence that he was in grave danger during the summer and needed to flee the country via luxury yacht six months later.
And no, he did not run those trips by his security chief or the guy at the NRA whose job it was to vet for conflicts. Why do you ask!
Plus it was, ummm, a working vacation because his wife and her niece, who traveled with him constantly, were both on the NRA payroll.
"[A]ny time I get the two of them together anywhere, there is a benefit for the NRA. It could be in Nebraska, it could be like a corporate retreat in Aspen. It could be a — you know, I mean, I consider it a good thing to get them together," he said in a deposition last year. "Yeah, they got together in the Bahamas. They — it could have been in Washington. It just — it's — it — but keeping [his wife's] head [in] the game on this and getting her with [my niece], there is a substantial benefit to the NRA that is — that is in the — proof is in the dollars that come into the NRA. I mean, did they enjoy being there, yeah. I mean, on the other hand, did NRA get a benefit of them being together, yes, absolutely."
Anyway, after further consideration, LaPierre has decided that it's probably not appropriate to take gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from vendors getting paid millions by the charity he heads.
"This is something that was part of the self-correction that we have done at the NRA since, you know, 2017, 2018," he said. "It has not happened in 2019, 2020, and it's one of the things that — that we have self-corrected on where I — I am not using that — that boat anymore."
So, we're all good here, right?
LOLOLOL.
Follow Liz Dye on Twitter RIGHT HERE!
Please click here to support your Wonkette. And if you're ordering your quarantine goods on Amazon, this is the link to do it.
Oh, hell, try being a kid in school. Right? All of them trained to cope with the possibility of being targeted for death before they graduate (and with the knowledge that their defenders, if any, are not exactly Secret Service level). The oldest in that cohort (I'm thinking approximately Columbine) are going to be nearly forty by now, right? In another generation (say 2040), the proportion of people who won't have grown to maturity under threat of bloody slaughter at random will have dropped to a tiny minority, probably well under 20%. Will that change the discourse over the holy and righteous Amendment Protecting Sainted Kill-sticks?
Did your boat have a personal chef?