NRA splits with PR firm, lobbyist and TV amid infighting

Associated Press

Infighting at the National Rifle Association exploded today, when the powerful association severed ties with its longtime public-relations firm, suspended operations of its fiery online TV station and lost its top lobbyist.

The latest turmoil emerged just a year before the critical 2020 presidential elections when the NRA's ability to influence the outcome could decide the fate of gun rights.

Lobbyist Chris Cox, long viewed as the likely successor to longtime CEO Wayne LaPierre, was placed on administrative leave about a week ago by the NRA, which claimed he was part of a failed attempt to extort LaPierre and push him out.

It also came within hours of the association officially severing ties with Ackerman McQueen, the Oklahoma-based public-relations firm that has shaped some of the NRA's most memorable messages in the past decades.

Cox had been the executive director of the NRA's lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, since 2002. He was credited with leading efforts to allow a decadelong ban on "assault weapons" to expire in 2004, an achievement that allowed the gun industry to resume selling what the industry calls "modern sporting rifles" and critics claim are used too often to exact mass carnage.

His resignation was confirmed by NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam. No other comment was immediately made about his departure.

Cox did not immediately return a message seeking comment. However, when he was suspended, Cox said in a statement obtained by The New York Times that allegations he had been part of a group seeking LaPierre's ouster were "offensive and patently false."

"For 24 years I have been a loyal and effective leader in this organization," he said.

Cox played his usual prominent role at the NRA's annual meeting in Indianapolis in April, and there was little public evidence that he and LaPierre or the NRA's board of directors were at odds. Infighting spilled out during what is normally a pep rally of sorts among gun-rights enthusiasts when Oliver North , then the NRA president, threatened to expose questionable personal and travel expenses unless LaPierre stepped down. Instead, LaPierre turned the tables on North and accused him of trying to extort him into submission.