The
Secret Footage of the N.R.A. Chief’s Botched Elephant Hunt
Wayne LaPierre has
cultivated his image as an exemplar of American gun culture, but video of his
clumsy marksmanship—and details regarding his Rodeo Drive shopping trips—tells
another story.
By Mike Spies
April
After the mass shooting
at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in 2012, Wayne LaPierre, the head of the
National Rifle Association, told Americans agitating
for new gun regulations, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a
good guy with a gun.” Less than a year later, LaPierre and his wife, Susan,
travelled to Botswana’s Okavango Delta, where they hoped to show N.R.A. members
that they had the grit to take on a different adversary: African bush
elephants, the largest land mammals on Earth. The trip was filmed by a crew
from “Under Wild Skies,” an N.R.A.-sponsored television series that was meant
to boost the organization’s profile among hunters—a key element of its donor
base. But the program never aired, according to sources and records, because of
concerns that it could turn into a public-relations fiasco.
The
Trace and The New Yorker obtained a copy of the footage, which
has been hidden from public view for eight years. It shows that when guides
tracked down an elephant for LaPierre, the N.R.A. chief proved to be a poor
marksman. After LaPierre’s first shot wounded the elephant, guides brought him
a short distance from the animal, which was lying on its side, immobilized.
Firing from point-blank range, LaPierre shot the animal three times in the
wrong place. Finally, a guide had the host of “Under Wild Skies” fire the shot
that killed the elephant. Later that day, Susan LaPierre showed herself to be a
better shot than her husband. After guides tracked down an elephant for her,
Susan killed it, cut off its tail, and held it in the air. “Victory!” she
shouted, laughing. “That’s my elephant tail. Way cool.”
For
three decades, LaPierre has led the N.R.A.’s fund-raising efforts by railing
against out-of-touch “élites” and selling himself as an authentic champion of
American self-reliance and the unfettered right to protect oneself with a gun.
But the footage, as well as newly uncovered legal records, suggest that behind
his carefully constructed Everyman image, LaPierre is a coddled executive who
is clumsy with a firearm, and fearful of the violent political climate he has
helped to create. The N.R.A. did not respond to requests for comment.
This story was published in partnership with The Trace, a nonprofit
news organization covering guns in America.
The N.R.A. is weathering
an existential crisis, which began with revelations of rampant
self-dealing first reported in 2019 and extends to an
ongoing legal fight with the
New York Attorney General and a humiliating bankruptcy trial. Now, the video and other
materials offer a glimpse of the stage-managed, insular, and privileged life of
the N.R.A.’s top official.
The
footage of LaPierre in Botswana first shows him walking through the bush
dressed in loose-fitting safari attire and an NRA Sports baseball cap. He is
accompanied by several professional guides and his longtime adviser, Tony
Makris, a top executive at the N.R.A.’s former public-relations firm, Ackerman
McQueen, and the host of “Under Wild Skies.” The heat, at times, causes
LaPierre to sweat. As he walks, his wire-framed glasses slide down his nose.
After a guide spots an elephant standing behind a tree, LaPierre takes aim with
a rifle. As LaPierre peers through the weapon’s scope, the guide repeatedly
tells him to wait before firing. LaPierre is wearing earplugs, doesn’t hear the
instructions, and pulls the trigger. The elephant drops. “Did we get him?”
LaPierre asks.
The
guide at first says yes, but then, as he approaches the elephant, it appears
that the animal is still breathing. The guide brings LaPierre within a few
strides of the elephant, which lays motionless on the ground. He tells LaPierre
that another bullet is needed. “I’m going to show you where to shoot,” the
guide says. “Listen, hold your rifle—I’m going to tell you when. Just hold it
up.” The guide pushes the rifle’s barrel skyward as other men involved in the
expedition move around in the distance. “I’m going to point for you where to
shoot. Just waiting for these guys.”
The
guide walks over to the elephant, crouches down, and points near the animal’s
ear, telling LaPierre to shoot the elephant there. Makris directs LaPierre to
shoot low, accounting for the rifle scope.
LaPierre
fires and a confused expression comes over his face. Once again, he shoots the
elephant in the wrong place. It’s still alive. The guide tells LaPierre to sit
down and reminds him to reload, as he physically moves LaPierre into place. Now
on one knee, the N.R.A. leader asks, “Same spot?” and then shoots again. The
bullet misses the mark.
“I
don’t think it’s quite done yet,” the guide says to Makris. “Do you want to do
it for him?” The guide then says to LaPierre, “I’m not sure where you’re
shooting.”
“Where
are you telling me to shoot?” LaPierre responds, sounding frustrated. The guide
again walks over to the elephant and points toward the ear. “Oh, O.K.,”
LaPierre says. “Alright, I can shoot there.” He takes a third shot at
point-blank range.
“Uh-uh,”
the guide says, indicating that LaPierre has missed his mark again.
“No?”
LaPierre asks.
As
the guide chuckles, Makris asks, “Do you want me to do it?”
“Go
ahead, finish him,” the guide says.
Makris
cocks his rifle and shoots. “That’s it,” the guide declares, before turning to
the N.R.A. chief to congratulate him.
Makris,
ignoring his own role, praises LaPierre’s marksmanship, “You dropped him like
no tomorrow.”
Later,
LaPierre and the guide chat beside the dead elephant, a species that was declared endangered earlier
this year. LaPierre acknowledges that his initial shot wasn’t “perfect.” The
guide encourages him. “He went down, so that’s what counts.” Looking sheepish,
LaPierre lets out a laugh and says, “Maybe I had a little luck.”
Over
the course of LaPierre’s tenure at the N.R.A., Makris was one of his two most
important advisers. The other was the late Angus McQueen, who, until he died,
in 2019, ran the firm that bore his name. For forty years, Ackerman McQueen
devised combative messaging campaigns that successfully placed the N.R.A. at
the forefront of the culture wars. The once-close relationships unravelled in a
series of bitter legal battles over
contracts, unpaid bills, and allegations of deceptive business practices.
In
September, 2019, LaPierre sat for a private deposition in one of the cases
involving Ackerman McQueen. Although the document remains sealed, The Trace
and The New Yorker reviewed a copy. In his sworn testimony,
LaPierre’s manner is inconsistent with the swaggering, confrontational public
persona he has cultivated for decades. When asked about lavish spending, he
pleaded ignorance or blamed his advisers.
LaPierre’s
life style, as described in the deposition, is a stark contrast from the
Americans the N.R.A. claims to represent. Lawyers pressed LaPierre about nearly
three hundred thousand dollars in payments that Ackerman McQueen made to
Ermenegildo Zegna, a luxury men’s fashion retailer on Rodeo Drive, in Beverly
Hills, to dress LaPierre between 2004 and 2017. According to an N.R.A. ad, the group’s coalition
includes “steelworkers,” “cowboys,” “hard-rock miners,” “swamp folks in Cajun
country who can wrestle a full-grown gator out of the water,” “the mountain men
who live off the land,” and “the brave cops who fight the good fight in the
urban war zones.”
When
a lawyer for Ackerman McQueen asked LaPierre about the upscale suits, he said,
“Angus told me, ‘Wayne, get wardrobe. Go get wardrobe.’ Angus actually set up
the billing.”
The
lawyer replied, “But, let me just say, you’re a big boy, right?”
“Yes.”
“You
can make your own decisions about what clothes you need and what clothes you
don’t need,” the lawyer said. “You’ve been dressing yourself for a number of
years.”
LaPierre
then defended the purchases, arguing that he was the N.R.A.’s “primary brand
spokesperson” and that he “didn’t see anything wrong with it” since his job
required “looking good on TV in terms of your image.” He said that McQueen
recommended certain types of suits. “There was a period where Angus wanted me
in light suits because he thought that women responded better in light suits.
There was another period of time where he thought my suits were outdated
because style—style had changed.”
LaPierre
said that he called McQueen “Yoda,” after the “Star Wars” character that serves
as a symbol of unparalleled wisdom. “I thought that from a branding and imaging
and crisis management skill,” LaPierre elaborated, “I thought that he had a
certain amount of exceptional, unique, genius quality.”
At
another point in the deposition, an attorney asked LaPierre if he ever wore the
suits to non-N.R.A. events. “I hardly ever—I don’t really put on a suit except
when I have to for N.R.A. work,” he said. “I get so harassed. The minute I put
on a suit, I get I.D.’ed and somebody starts yelling at me.” LaPierre then
became emotional. “So to tell you the honest truth,” he said, “I’m walking
around most of the time—almost all the time in jeans and sunglasses and a ball
cap because I am sick and my family is sick and tired of being yelled at,
shouted at, screamed at, harassed, swatted, hacked, and
generally abused.”
Lawyers
also asked about spending related to Susan LaPierre. An unpaid volunteer at the
N.R.A., she is one of the organization’s most visible fund-raisers. Susan
co-chairs the Women’s Leadership Forum, a program designed to reward and
cultivate high-dollar female donors. Though she doesn’t draw a salary,
full-time N.R.A. employees work on her projects, and the organization also
provides her with ample resources. At a 2015 fund-raising luncheon, for
example, records show that the organization paid the country band Rascal Flatts
three hundred and fifteen thousand dollars to play a half-hour acoustic set.
The
deposition reveals, for the first time, the name of a makeup artist, Brady
Wardlaw, who was hired in May and September of 2016, for an N.R.A. convention
in Louisville, Kentucky, and a retreat in McLean, Virginia. Wardlaw is based in
Nashville, and his clients have included Taylor Swift, LeAnn
Rimes, and other country music stars. Bills for the makeup services for the
events amounted to seventeen thousand dollars.
In
response to questions from lawyers, LaPierre stated that he wasn’t sure whether
Susan specifically requested Wardlaw for the events. He claimed that Ackerman
McQueen “recommended the makeup” and that his wife, “who is a complete
volunteer,” was not the only woman at the events who received Wardlaw’s
services. When Susan later learned the cost of the makeup, LaPierre asserted,
she put a stop to it.
It
is important to the N.R.A. that supporters view Susan as a genuine member of
the hunting and outdoor community. During the bankruptcy trial, LaPierre
testified that his wife’s attendance on the Botswana trip was “part of
projecting her image for the N.R.A.” Internally, some N.R.A. employees derided
the Women’s Leadership Forum as the “Susan LaPierre Life Legacy Project.”
In
the video footage from Botswana, Susan’s hair is pulled back in a ponytail, her
nails are manicured, and her large stud earrings sparkle in the sun. She walks
through the dry vegetation, until two elephants come into view and a guide sets
up a stand that Susan uses to steady her rifle. The elephant in front stares
directly at Susan and the guide. “O.K., you want to do a front or you want to
do a side?” the guide whispers. “Which one do you feel more comfortable with?”
“Well,
right now I’ve got him right in the front,” she says.
The
guide tells her to aim for a crease between the elephant’s eyes. When she
fires, the bullet enters the creature’s head, its trunk immediately flops
toward the sky, and it collapses onto its belly before rolling onto its side.
The elephant appears to be dead, but Susan, from closer range and at the
guide’s direction, fires one more bullet in its chest “for insurance.”
“That
was amazing,” Susan says, patting her chest. “Wow. My heart is racing. I feel
great.” She walks over to the elephant. “That was awesome. Awesome. Awesome.
Awesome.” She inspects the elephant, bends at the waist, and seems to think the
elephant is still alive. “Aww, he’s still there. Look at his eyes.” She places
her hand on her chest, laughs, walks around the elephant, and pats one of its
tusks. “Beautiful animal,” she says, and then, speaking to the elephant,
“You’re a good old guy. A real good old guy.”
She
grows emotional and appears to choke up, then asks a guide about the elephant’s
age.“Must be close to fifty years old, I would say,” the guide says. “You think
so?” she asks. “That’s exactly what I wanted. An old bull. Near the end of his
age.”
The
guide tells her she’s allowed to cry. “What an experience this is,” she says.
“Once in a lifetime.” She rests a hand on the elephant’s forehead. “I was
practicing this shot all day long.” She laughs again. “He wasn’t sure what we
were doing. Amazing. That’s just incredible. Quite a day. Two beautiful African
elephant in one day.” Susan touches the animal’s feet. “He’s so
wrinkly. . . . Wow. A podiatrist would love working on him.”
Soon,
Wayne enters the frame. He hugs his wife, congratulates her, and says, “I’m
proud of you. That is really neat.” A person off-camera asks Susan if the
elephant looked like it was going to charge her, and she says no, but that the
animal “was checking us out.” Wayne responds, “But if he was looking at you like
that, he could’ve charged.”
Later,
a guide invites Susan to cut off the elephant’s tail, a ritual he says hunters
performed in the “olden days” to claim their animal. Susan hesitates, but
begins cutting the tail with a knife. “Oh, it’s like a fish almost, with the
center cartilage,” she says.
Once
the tail is off, she raises it in the air, and stretches out her arms, the
bloody knife in one hand and the tail in the other. “Here in Botswana, in the
Okavango Delta, with ‘Under Wild Skies,’ ” she says, and then laughs
again.
Hunts
in Botswana can cost tens of thousands of dollars per person, and, according to
testimony in the bankruptcy case, a company that belongs to Makris covered the
LaPierres’ costs. After the trip, in late September of 2013, footage of Makris
shooting an elephant on a different expedition aired on NBC Sports,
which then hosted “Under Wild Skies.” The episode caused an immediate public
backlash.
The
footage of the LaPierre hunt never aired, but records show that the couple
still wanted their trophies. To avoid bad publicity—and at Susan’s written
request—body parts from both elephants were shipped to the U.S. in a hidden
manner. A man travelled two hours to Johannesburg to remove the couple’s names
from shipping crates. The Master Airway Bill was in the name of a taxidermist,
whom Makris’s company paid to turn the animals’ front feet into stools for
Wayne and Susan’s home.
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