A former confidant of Wayne LaPierre said that the longtime NRA leader feared the prospect of criminal charges and once described the gun group’s attorney William Brewer as “the only one” who could keep him out of prison, Bloomberg News reported. LaPierre made the comment at a meeting in early 2019, Anthony Makris said Friday at the NRA’s bankruptcy trial. Makris, a senior executive at the ad agency Ackerman McQueen, said LaPierre made the comment amid a contentious breakup between the NRA and the firm. Makris testified that he asked LaPierre at the meeting why he was turning his back on everyone who’d helped him over the years in favor of Brewer and his Dallas law firm. LaPierre responded that “Bill Brewer is the only one who can keep me out of jail,” Makris said. Makris didn’t specify why LaPierre feared jail, but The Wall Street Journal reported in October that the Internal Revenue Service is investigating the former NRA leader for possible criminal tax fraud related to his personal expenses. “We are not aware of any criminal justice inquiry, period,” Kent Correll, counsel to Wayne LaPierre, said in a statement.
