In the N.R.A. Case, Wins and Losses for the Attorney General

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll look at the National Rifle Association, which has been fighting for control of its future in a high-stakes trial in Manhattan. We’ll also look at how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent Monday fighting to stay on the ballot in New York, even as everybody was talking about the bear.

Credit…Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times

The leadership of the National Rifle Association was back in a Manhattan courtroom last month for the second phase of a high-stakes trial. In the first phase, in January, Wayne LaPierre, the longtime face of the gun rights movement who had stepped down just before the proceeding began, was found liable for spending $5.4 million of the group’s money.

In the second phase, the stakes are higher. I asked Danny Hakim, who has covered the trial, to explain where things stand.

You called the case so far a split decision. Why?

Each side can claim some wins.

Letitia James, the New York attorney general, had originally sought to dissolve the N.R.A., an idea that was rejected by Justice Joel Cohen of State Supreme Court in Manhattan long before the trial even started. She had also sought to impose an outside monitor to oversee the group’s finances and governance for three years. Justice Cohen also rejected that idea last week.

But James accomplished a great deal. Even some of the N.R.A.’s former insiders thought she was surfacing legitimate corruption problems that needed to be addressed, and she succeeded in winning the ouster of Wayne LaPierre, who had led the N.R.A. for more than three decades. He resigned on the eve of the trial and was then found liable by the trial jury for misspending $5.4 million. The former chief financial officer, Wilson Phillips, was found liable for $2 million.