Letitia James Called NRA ‘Terrorist Organization’ Before She Was New York Attorney General

Letitia James claimed the National Rifle Association (NRA) was a “terrorist organization” during an interview with Ebony magazine, one week before she was elected to the office of New York attorney general.

James won the November 6, 2018, election for New York attorney general. A week before that, on October 31, 2018, Ebony asked James, “What is the most important issue you have heard from prospective voters?”

She gave a broad-based response, which included tying “gun violence” to the repeal of the individual mandate in Obamacare.

Here is an excerpt of James’s response:

The foreclosure crisis is not behind us, students debt is a major issue, health care is a challenge since they repealed the individual mandate, people are having a difficult time with premiums that have increased and are often times deciding to go without medicine because of the costs, resulting in premature death and gun violence. The NRA holds [itself] out as a charitable organization, but in fact, [it] really [is] a terrorist organization.

On August 6, 2020, James made news by bringing a lawsuit—New York vs. National Rifle Association—in which she sought the dissolution of the civil rights organization and the removal of Wayne LaPierre from his NRA post.

James alleged varying degrees of financial malfeasance by LaPierre and three others with current and/or former ties to the organization.

Breitbart News reported that NRA President Carolyn Meadows responded to the suit on the day it was filed by claiming it was a partisan action that amounts to “a baseless, premeditated attack on our organization and the Second Amendment freedoms it fights to defend.”

Meadows suggested the suit is an election cycle ploy designed “to score political points and attack the leading voice in opposition to the leftist agenda.”

Breitbart News reported that Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) used an August 8, 2020, Fox News interview to comment on James’s suit, saying, “[I] mean, this lady – – the Attorney General in New York has been trying to shut the NRA down since she came into office. She is literally trying to weaponize her office to waste taxpayer money to go after a political vendetta that she has had against the NRA.”

He added, “This isn’t just about taking away our Second Amendment rights. It is about targeting conservatives.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.