Trying to identify who serves on the Board of Trustees of the NRA (1791) Foundation has been a task. With the recent rebranding, the Foundation published their list of trustees.
Prior to the feud going public between the NRA Foundation — now rebranded to 1791 Foundation — and their parent organization, the National Rifle Association, queries were sent to the Foundation about their dealings. Dating back to November 2025, the Foundation and NRA were both asked: Who serves as trustees of the 501(c)(3) Foundation? Since then, more requests were made; all of those requests went ignored. The Foundation published the list of trustees online since their name change.
The only recent document that was available listing trustees was an outdated report from 2024 and old 990 filings. There were rumors that multiple members of the Foundation Board of Trustees had resigned and that new members joined. Many former directors of the NRA — who are referred to as the so-called “old guard” in court filings in the NRA v. NRA Foundation lawsuit — joined or were already on the Foundation’s board.
Previously reported, the NRA (1791) Foundation cut the NRA out of the trustee selection process. The Foundation changed their bylaws, something the NRA alleges was illegal and improper, thus a null and void change. When questioned about this in 2025 — prior to the lawsuits — the Foundation did not respond to the questions.
NRA (1791) Foundation President Tom King, who failed in his bid for reelection as an NRA director in 2025, was a long-time board member of 18 or 19 years. During the 2025 Board of Directors election, incumbent directors and candidates broke off into two camps: Strong NRA, or old guard, and the NRA 2.0/ElectANewNRA.com, or so-called “reformers.” (That 2025 election was covered in two articles prior to ballots getting mailed out and focused on the ideologies and some of the candidates of both Strong NRA and NRA 2.0.)
King was/is aligned with Strong NRA and his bio on the webpage states he’s a “current NRA board member, nominated by NRA Nominating committee.” In a 2025 interview King admitted that he had been a supporter of Wayne LaPierre — aka a part of the old guard.
“I’ve been accused of being a Wayne LaPierre supporter,” said King, “and I was while he was in, while he was in office, until it became apparent and he admitted to doing what the court fined him for.”
“I was a supporter of his,” King continued. “After that, and this is testimony at the trial. I testified at the trial, they asked me, ‘Are you still a supporter of Wayne, knowing what you know now?’ My answer was, ‘No, I’m not. I can’t, I can’t support Wayne LaPierre anymore. His days at the NRA are over.’ But nobody seems to remember any of that.”
Who else on the list of trustees would qualify as a member of that old guard?
The current list of of the NRA (1791) Foundation Board of Trustees is as follows:
- Tom King, president
- Ronnie Barrett, vice president
- Barbara Rumpel
- Blaine Wade
- Bob Barr
- Charles Cotton
- Eb Wilkinson
- Jay Wallace
- Joel Friedman
- Scott Bach
- Barry Partlo
- Cindi Flannagan (sic)
Of the trustees listed, the following members maintained bios and/or had an affiliation with the Strong NRA slate of candidates in past NRA Board of Directors elections and were directors:
Tom King, Bob Barr, Blaine Wade, Eb Wilkinson, Jay Wallace, and Joel Friedman.
Who else was a member of the NRA Board of Directors?
Ronnie Barrett, Barbara Rumpel, and Charles Cotton.
Jay Wallace and Scott Bach are the only two current members of both the NRA Board of Directors and NRA (1791) Foundation Board of Trustees.
As previously reported, some of the NRA’s claims against the Foundation in NRA v. NRA Foundation were dismissed. The ones that persisted are the trademark and cybersquatting claims and will be going forward in federal court. The NRA will have to file the dismissed claims in D.C. court.
A day following the district court judge’s order, the NRA (1791) Foundation filed a countersuit against the NRA in a federal court in Virginia.
In the filing the NRA (1791) Foundation said the NRA Board of Directors was responsible for what they described as “a history of jeopardizing Foundation assets.” In their filing they further allege that “the NRA board failed to exercise independent judgment.” They essentially accuse the NRA board of historical wrongdoing.
There are only two Foundation trustees who weren’t on or currently are on the Board of Directors of the NRA.
In the 2025 interview with King, he stated the judge in the New York case “agreed that we (the NRA) have robust checks and balances.” King said that the problem with the NRA “wasn’t that the board didn’t do their job.”
King stated:
The problem was that the treasurer, at the time never informed the board about this. He didn’t even inform the finance committee. He kept it from – he kept it to – himself and I can’t say anything about Wayne, because I don’t know whether or not Wayne knew all of this that was going on. But it was never, ever reported to the board or any of the committees. Without knowledge, we couldn’t do anything. Many of the many of the processes that were in place, that are in place now, were in place then, and would have automatically kicked in and worked if the the treasurer of the of the Association had been truthful and reported everything to the finance committee and or the board. He was supposed to, but he didn’t.
During the 2025 election, unlike King, then-President Bob Barr, won his bid for reelection to the board. Prior to that election Barr said in a statement he sent to Bearing Arms that the NRA’s “victories are a testament to the benefit of focusing on external existential challenges rather than worrying about internal cliques and petty personality disputes.”
“I will continue to take this approach in the best interests of the NRA as an institution and for its millions of members, rather than spending time and resources dealing with parochial agendas that may be motivating certain individuals or groups,” said Barr. “The advancement of gun rights in this country over the past three decades is no accident. The NRA has been at the forefront of every legislative, legal, and political battle on firearms freedoms. America needs a strong NRA. I will continue to do my part and not be distracted.”
Barr lost his reelection as NRA president to now-President Bill Bachenberg. In mid-2025, Barr resigned from the NRA Board of Directors.
Through correspondence with NRA Secretary John Frazer it was confirmed that several NRA directors resigned. From the 2025 members’ meeting to just before the 2026 election, the following then-directors stepped away from the board: Bob Barr, Ronnie Barrett, Dean Cain, Bill Carter, Charles Cotton, Dave Coy, Jeff Fleetham (was filling a previous vacancy), Jim Fotis, Carol Frampton, Joel Friedman, Sandy Froman, Curtis Jenkins, Gene Roach (was filling a previous vacancy), Barbara Rumpel, Blaine Wade, Judi White, and Eb Wilkinson.
I believe the list of current trustees should have always been available to donors and the public at large. The Foundation was supposed to be accountable to their benefactors via a past resolution. A donor bill of rights went ignored when leadership was asked who the stewards of the organization were multiple times. Even when the Attorney General of the District of Columbia’s office stepped in to mediate, the Foundation refused to share who their trustees were.
It’s good that the Foundation finally released their list of trustees and employees. Ignoring requests for simple things like who’s engaged in the governance of the organization doesn't exactly ooze with transparency.
The battle between the National Rifle Association and their subsidiary group the NRA (1791) Foundation is likely to be lengthy.
The full 2025 interview with Tom King, then-candidate for NRA board reelection, can be found HERE. A rundown on some of the positions of NRA 2.0 and Strong NRA during the 2025 board election can be found HERE and HERE.
For a complete list of related articles and links on this topic please see:
- National Rifle Association Sues Sister Organization NRA Foundation
- NRA Foundation Responds to NRA's Lawsuit
- Why the NRA Is Suing Its Own Foundation
- 2026 NRA Board Candidates Point Toward Reformers: A Comprehensive Guide
- NRA’s EVP Hamlin Weighs in on Friends of the NRA Dinners
- Is the NRA Foundation in ‘Reputation Repair’ Mode?
- National Rifle Association Claps at NRA Foundation With Scathing Allegations
- Friends of NRA Program is Safe and There’s a Path Forward
- Website Registered Last Year a Sign the NRA Foundation Planned on a Split?
- NRA Foundation Changed Bylaws to Cut NRA BOD Out of Governance
- Did the NRA Foundation Purposefully Withhold Bylaws in Filing?
- NRA Foundation Triples Down on Not Being Transparent
- NRA Foundation Files Opposition Motion in Reply to NRA’s Request for Summary Judgment
- NRA Foundation Rebrands Itself to 1791 Foundation
- NRA and Foundation Feud Levels Up: Partial Dismissals and Countersuit
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