In case you missed it, New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing to dissolve the NRA, alleging its leaders engaged in a pattern of "flouting state and federal laws and signing off on reports and statements they knew were fraudulent, while diverting millions of dollars away from the NRA’s charitable mission to benefit themselves and their allies." The amount allegedly siphoned is $64 million over three years.
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But, in a clip shown before a discussion on Fox’s Outnumbered show, Trump called the lawsuit “a very terrible thing” and suggested the organization should move to another state “and lead a very good and beautiful life.” I would not be surprised if he got some of that $64 million, himself.
Host Harris Faulkner gave only a brief snippet of the allegations:
But Faulkner’s first question, to Republican Ari Fleischer, was not how did such a thing happen, how outraged should donors be or even what the NRA might be able to do to right the ship. No, she turned the matter into Trump tribalism: “President Trump says go to Texas. Ari, what do you say?”
Fleischer clearly didn’t want to defend the NRA but he made sure to be seen as a member of the Trump Tribe. He railed against New York Attorney General Letitia James as “anti-Trump” and “anti-conservative” and quickly deflected into politicization:
On the politics of it, this is one of the dumbest, biggest mistakes an attorney general or anybody can make in an election year. This is going to energize gun owners across America, as if they're not energized already. If you think there’s a threat to your Second Amendment rights before, wait until the Democrats now try to get rid of the organization that represents gun owners. So, this, politically, is going to backfire big time on the Democrats. And then of course, as a suit, it'll play out over years, not weeks. The politics is playing out immediately.
Democratic guest Jessica Tarlov was not convinced the suit will backfire on Democrats but she agreed “there’s a lot of truth to what Ari said.” She worried the Second Amendment may now take some of the focus off Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Instead of refocusing the discussion on the colossal corruption that such an important institution may have engaged in, Faulkner said she wanted to “double down,” meaning on how Democrats may have bungled the politics.
Tarlov said Democratic leaders probably knew but would not interfere with James' work. “I imagine that they want to move past this to some degree, to say we are against non-common sense gun ownership, people who are not getting their background checks, et cetera,” she said, “and then get back to talking about the economy and the coronavirus.”
I think we all know that if this level of corruption occurred at Planned Parenthood or any organization beloved by the left, Fox would be raging 24/7 over it and probably demanding the organization dissolve before any court decision.
But $64 million worth of corruption is A-OK with Dear Leader Trump and that means it’s not a problem on Fox.
