The Reload: “America’s largest, most influential gun group is facing down a dark future. The NRA is likely out of options in federal bankruptcy court after a Texas judge dismissed its case on Tuesday, experts told The Reload. The move, concocted by CEO Wayne LaPierre and outside counsel Bill Brewer, was meant to keep New York Attorney General Letitia James (D.) from getting at the group’s assets in her case in state court. But the strategy may have backfired. ‘Bottom line, the gambit failed miserably, and I think it actually made dissolution more likely,’ Philip Hackney, an expert on non-profits at University of Pittsburgh’s law school, told The Reload.”

“He said Judge Harlin Hale’s ruling made clear the NRA still has serious problems, and the details of malfeasance that came out in open court will strengthen James’s case against the group. ‘To actually have a judge laugh at you, essentially, and say that you are filing this in bad faith,’ Hackney said. ‘That’s a really bad fact for them. That’s not something I’d want on my record if I’m defending this organization against dissolution.’ Matthew Bruckner, a Howard University professor and bankruptcy expert, told The Reload bad-faith dismissals are rare, and the NRA has little room to appeal. ‘It’s pretty hard to get a case dismissed as a bad-faith filing, but this always seemed to satisfy the hard-to-satisfy standard,’ he said. ‘The decision seems well-grounded in the Fifth Circuit’s legal precedent, and the facts were admittedly ‘cringeworthy.” The bad-faith ruling also opens up new claims against the NRA for the legal fees of the other parties in the case.”