The NPR Politics Podcast - No Compromise From NPR: Does No-Compromising Really Work?

Episode Date: October 18, 2020

Today we are sharing an episode of NPR's No Compromise. The podcast series tells the story of three brothers who are determined to change gun politics. Ben, Chris, and Aaron Dorr are carving out a space to the right of the NRA and the GOP. Discover a social media empire with an unapologetic vision of gun rights—generating millions of likes, follows, and dollars. From Guns & America, reporters Lisa Hagen of WABE and Chris Haxel of KCUR expose how these three brothers from the most uncompromising corner of the gun debate are turning hot-button issues into donations and controversy.The final episode comes out October 20th, so now is a great time to catch up. Find more episodes here, or wherever you get your podcasts.No Compromise from NPR: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510356/no-compromiseLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. And today we've got an episode of NPR's podcast, No Compromise for You. The podcast tells the story of three brothers who are determined to change gun politics. Ben, Chris, and Aaron Doerr are carving out a space to the right of the NRA and the GOP. This is the third episode in the series, and you can find more wherever you get your podcasts. No Compromise is publishing its final episode this Tuesday, so now is a great time to binge the entire series. Here's the show. Previously on No Compromise. It's just fun because we're all part of this community. It's like pulling up your hot

chocolate and sitting down. Okay, we're here together, you know. Who hate your guts and hate my guts, who want to kill babies, eat them for dinner, and then choke down one of your AR-15s and steal it. People love going live because it's so unfiltered and personal and you feel like you're just there hanging out with your friends. We did this from the very beginning. We've been executing this plan to try to build up a crescendo here so that we are bringing maximum leverage of gun owners to bear at exactly

the right time. We're here doing what we said we were going to do. We're delivering your petitions to the president, to the White House. He has been accused of being basically shady. I mean, are you aware of those claims at least? Oh, yes. It's a very common tactic. Discrediting is the most tactic in the book. Yeah. And people are going to say what they're going to say.

Haters are going to hate. I'm going to tell you right now, I'm not in a really good mood today. I've been traveling. Okay, I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm not in a really good mood today. I've been traveling. Okay, I'm getting a lot of thumbs up. Thank you, Mike. Aaron Doerr is standing inside what looks like a two-star hotel room. Okay, it may be a little bit echoey because of where I'm at.

Tan curtains pulled back. It's nighttime. You wonder if he even unpacked or just immediately pulled out his phone to go live on Facebook. Guys, we have been telling you what a bunch of arrogant bastards these people are for a very long time. Aaron, you'll remember, is the oldest Doerr brother. He runs gun rights groups in Iowa, Wyoming, and New York. And this video is from Missouri.

It's from January 2020. Now, we've been reporting on these guys for more than a year. I've watched hundreds of hours of these videos. But this one stood out because this isn't Aaron's normal, aggrieved-on-Facebook persona. He seems legitimately angry. He says something happened that he needs to tell people about right away. I get a phone call from Representative Susie Pollack. He says something happened that he needs to tell people about right away. I get a phone call from Representative Susie Pollack.

Susie Pollack. Now, she's brand new. She's been there for five months and one day. I'll admit, I had never heard of Susie Pollack. But Erin was so fired up, I knew I had to talk to her. You know, I'm new. This is only my second session. We met in her office at the Missouri State Capitol. As we're getting settled in, she shows off her favorite paperweight,

a model of a cowboy-style six-shooter. Then she tells me the story about how she won the election, her first. I knocked so many doors. Oh, I'd just be sweating like crazy, but loved it. Loved getting out and meeting the people. And I won. I beat four men and beat them pretty good. So state rep Susie Pollack, on the first day of the legislative session, gets 20 emails that all look the same. And they were from all over the place. They weren't just from my constituents. There was some guy from Kansas that just was surfing the internet, I guess,

and found it, social media. Boilerplate messages from members of the Missouri Firearms Coalition run by some guy named Erin Doerr. And she's like, what's going on here? Well, I did make the mistake of calling him and thinking he'd be reasonable. Didn't work out the way she thought it would. I'm Chris Haxel. And I'm Lisa Hagen. This is No Compromise, an NPR investigative series about one family on a mission to reconstruct America using two powerful tools, guns and Facebook. In the last episode, we met the flock, people who give the Doerr brothers money and love to watch their aggressive tactics live online.

In this episode, we hear from people who've tangled with the brothers in under an hour. Head to simplisafe.com slash compromise and get a free HD camera with the purchase of a security system. This message comes from NPR sponsor, BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers licensed professional counselors who specialize in issues such as isolation, depression, stress, anxiety, and more. Connect with your professional counselor

in a safe and private online environment when you need professional help. Get help at your own time and your own pace. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist. Visit betterhelp.com slash compromise to learn more and get 10% off your first month. You're probably used to scrolling through social media, catching headlines and bits and pieces. And that's a good way to follow the chatter, maybe kill a few hours, but you need a better way to understand the news. That's why NPR has a new daily podcast. It's called Consider This. We don't just catch you up on what's happening,

we help you make sense of the day. Because once things make sense, you can get off your phone, maybe go for a walk or something. Listen to Consider This from sense of the day. Because once things make sense, you can get off your phone, maybe go for a walk or something. Listen to Consider This from NPR every day. So State Representative Susie Pollack, a healthcare worker and Sunday school teacher from Southern Missouri, calls Erin Doerr. She wants to know why he's sending his members after her when nothing has even happened yet. Why hassle her on the first day of session? And she said, well, I just want to ask you, do you know anything about how politics works? Do you know how politics works? I asked him if he knew how things worked here because I thought he was being completely ineffective.

And I said, well, since the members of the Missouri Firearms Coalition and myself personally passed constitutional carry and a stand your ground law in Missouri in 2016, before you were even in the building. Yeah, we know a thing or two about how it works. She says, I am sick to death or outraged or angry with these pre-written emails that I had been receiving from the members of the Missouri Firearms Coalition. And I was like, oh, really? Oh, we're so sorry. We offended you.

You know, as a female in this, in everything I've done, you have to require people to respect you, you know, to give equal respect and to require that of people to communicate with you. We are one day into session here in Missouri and these arrogant people are already calling and they're angry that they're hearing from you. And she's like, well, I just, I don't like the tone. They're very aggressive. They're very mean. So what do these emails say exactly? I expect you to co-sponsor and vote for this legislation on my behalf.

I'm sick and tired of moderates in Jeff City like you killing this bill. What did you think when you started seeing those pour in? Uh, I wondered why they were calling me a moderate. I think that makes everybody scratch their head in this building. This video Aaron posted got 24,000 views. Everyone was hating on Susie in the comments. Chris read her a few. This is Trump country and election time. You government poop emoji bags are going to find out double exclamation point. You know, I am so diehard Republican that anybody would even question that. It's hysterical to me and everybody that knows me. Susie's super pro-gun and says passing bills that reduce gun regulations is basically the one thing she agrees with Aaron Doerr about. He's so hostile and so aggressive and rude that I'm, you know, I'm not going to listen to him.

And so he is completely ineffective in this house. In 2016, Missouri did pass a huge expansion of gun rights that included constitutional carry and stand your ground. Stand your ground laws make it harder to prosecute someone for using deadly force if they can argue self-defense. Constitutional carry is that law we've been talking about that lets people carry concealed guns without a permit. It's the door's big policy priority. Aaron is always bragging about getting it passed in Missouri. The members of the Missouri Firearms Coalition and myself personally passed constitutional carry and a stand-your-ground law.

But Susie works with the legislators who passed those laws. And many people hadn't ever met the guy or talked to the guy or had a conversation with him when that passed. And so they were surprised that he was trying to take credit for that. And, you know, most of us have never seen him or talked to him. So how could he be effectively lobbying if he's not here lobbying? Right. Right.

But it sure gets the likes on Facebook. Now, it doesn't matter if you've been in office for one year or 30. And whether these no compromise guys are in Missouri or Georgia, of course they spend plenty of time trashing Democrats. But they love going after conservatives who don't do exactly what they say.

Alan Powell used to have real ferns on his porch. And I realized that they were a pain in the ass. He lives up by Lake Hartwell in northeast Georgia, so you gotta pull those ferns inside when the temperature drops. Anyway, he has fake ones now. Well, they work pretty good because they're year-round.

Sure. Only problem is, I have inherited every goddamn bird in the world nesting the damn things. Huh. Do you dislike having birds' nests in there? I dislike the birds shitting on my porch is what I dislike. Allen's been a state representative in Georgia since 1991. The guy pretty much chain smokes cigars, including in his Capitol office, which even in this state hasn't been legal for 15 years. In 2014, Allen helped pass a law that critics called the most extreme gun bill in America. The media called it guns everywhere. The guns everywhere law

let Georgians with a concealed carry permit take guns into bars, restaurants, churches, not actually everywhere, but, you know, close. So fair to say, Allen Powell is conservative as hell. And I don't think anybody has ever, ever said that I was weak on my belief in Second Amendment rights. Anybody except for Patrick Parsons, the Doerr brothers' partner who runs Georgia Gun Owners. Make your call to Allen Powell. He got two phone numbers there. He got his cell phone and his office phone. Insists that he quit playing

footsie with the gun grabbers, which is what he's doing. Guys, the gun grabbers. The first Alan ever heard about the Georgia Gun Owners group was when he started getting a lot of phone calls from people. Confused after seeing something Patrick posted on Facebook. Friends of his. What's wrong? Have you changed your position on Second Amendment? I said, no, not hardly. I think probably the most hurtful thing that I had was a close friend of mine from Hartwood, my hometown. She's known me all of my life. Because if you've already figured out, you don't have to figure too long to figure out where I'm at on the issue, because I'll certainly tell you. And I never get, I got this email from her, and it was the most terrible email I could

have imagined that came from my friend, my constituent, my supporter, that said, Alan, I saw your picture on Georgia gun owners, whatever, Facebook and all that. He said, what's wrong with you? Alan says Patrick has never actually spoken to him about how to make a gun law stronger, just demanded from afar that he vote for that one policy, constitutional carry, which is what we heard from lawmakers all over the country. From afar, that he vote for that one policy, constitutional carry, which is what we heard from lawmakers all over the country. Time and again, it's not the Democrats the door groups really mess with. It's deep red Republicans.

If you'd stop acting like rhinos, we wouldn't have to spank you so much. If I had a little rhino baby, I'd spank that little rhino baby. Rhino. Republican in name only. This rhino wants to stick that horn right into my back. The Democrat over here wants to take a tomahawk to me on my chest. At that point, they are both enemies, folks. But there's one conservative politician who has more experience jousting with the doors than anyone. He served in the Marines. And he's a trained gunsmith.

Iowa House Majority Leader Matt Winchell. Aaron's not very nice to Matt. And primping ain't easy, little Matty Winchell, who has more hair product in his hair than any man should ever have. I call Matt up to see if he might talk to a reporter about the Doerr brothers. A few weeks later, I drive to his home in western Iowa. I'll let him give me a sniff. He does have great hair. to meet you Chris Axel nice to meet you

he opens the door wearing a baseball cap it's actually kind of a weird obsession I don't understand why he's obsessed with my hair but it's peculiar we sit down at his kitchen table and start talking I ask him a question about gun rights and right away he stops me obsessed with my hair, but it's peculiar. We sit down at his kitchen table and start talking. I ask him a question about gun rights, and right away he stops me. I'm not trying to correct you,

but it's a misnomer to say gun rights, because guns don't have rights. Guns are inanimate objects. He prefers the phrase Second Amendment virtues. He tells me, basically, a lot of what we've already heard. The Doors talk smack on Facebook. And, like Susie Pollack and Alan Powell, Matt Winchittle says they're ineffective, that they don't actually lobby. He tells me a story from his early years in the legislature, back when the Doors were also just getting started. He and some other legislators were getting ready to pass a pro-gun bill. It was incremental, but a bill that any person in favor of Second Amendment virtues should support. For Aaron and Chris Doerr, it wasn't enough.

They wanted to force a vote on a big bill, on constitutional carry. So I go up there and I find him and I just say, Chris, Aaron, what are you guys doing? Matt says he thought they were all on the same side. But then he realized Aaron and Chris were willing to torpedo this small bill in order to force a vote on their bill. Even if their bill had no chance of actually becoming a law. That moment when he looked at me and said, no, you guys are not doing this on our timeline.

We're done with our timeline. We're done with your timeline. We're using mine. At that point, I mean, the veil came off. I mean, oh, so that's what your intent is. You don't actually want to get this done. You're going to call yourself a no-compromise gun rights group. But all you're doing is you're creating this controversy. You're starting the fire and saying you're the only one with a pail of water that can put the fire out. That's political anarchy. In this case, the fire was put out pretty quickly. The Doors did not get the bill they wanted, and the incremental gun bill passed anyway. The Doors brothers tell their followers having politicians like Matt Winshiddle denounce them is proof of how hard they fight. If we were loved by this ass clown, if we were loved by this loser, that would be a sign that you should walk away from Iowa gun owners.

But Matt says all those videos Aaron puts out, they might not be the evidence Facebook followers think they are. I didn't see this personally, but I had another colleague witness this. Dorr does a lot of his web videos at a capital or at the state capitol, right? Constitutional carry law for Iowa. Constitutional carry is on the move right here in the statehouse. So Dorr came in one day and he shot one web video in one corner right of the legislature. I think it was third floor doesn't matter but he then changes his shirt changes his suit jacket changes his tie goes to a different corner to film another one. He does this at least three times and then he leaves. We don't see him at the Capitol for probably the next two, three months, but yet his web videos go out and it shows him in these different suits. And it's like, well, I'm at

the Capitol here today, you know, March 1st. And I'm at the Capitol here today, April 1st. And no, you're not, you haven't been here since February. So if that is not deception, I don't know what is. And those are the tactics that they employ. That's how they say that they're actually advocating for the issue. Give me a break, man. You're flat out lying to people and taking their money. I tried to ask Aaron about this story, but he refused to respond. The rest of the crew won't talk to us either about anything. We were able to interview some of them early in our reporting, but they've declined several opportunities to address accusations being made against them. Matt has been dealing with the Doors for a decade. That means year after year of videos like this. Look at that face. Look at that face.

Look at Winchell's face. Could you possibly imagine having to go to the Capitol every day and stroke this guy's ego? I can't do it. And all the while, he's kept working on those Second Amendment virtues and rising in the ranks. Matt Winshiddle is now one of the most powerful politicians in the state. One of his most triumphant moments came in 2017. He and his colleagues had passed a major gun bill, Stand Your Ground, and Matt uses this moment to make a speech. About the Doerr brothers? There's video of it.

You'd think from the emails, from the videos they put out there, that they're down here every day fighting. All the lawmakers in the ornate, walnut-paneled House chamber have turned to watch Matt. Ask anybody in this chamber or the chamber across the hall how many times they've been talked to by Aaron Doerr this year. Could anybody in this room that is a legislator raise your hand here today and say, Aaron Doerr personally talked to me about this bill house file 517 which he is taking credit for anybody not a hand you can see

his upper lip tighten as he mentions Aaron taking credit for a bill he introduced. Folks, you've been lied to. Please don't be lied to anymore. It is time for his scam to end. It is time that Iowans understand the truth. Make the decision for yourself. I don't care if you become members of other organizations, where you're at on the issue. You need and you deserve the truth. Aaron Doerr is a scam artist, a liar, and he is doing Iowans no services and no favors. I feel better now. One more thing.

Matt Winchell has been battling the Doerr brothers long before they started any groups outside of Iowa. And anyone who knows them for that long knows something none of the brothers ever mentioned on Facebook. Two of them were at the center of one of the biggest political scandals in Iowa history. So how the Doerr brothers came off unscathed in that FBI investigation and everything else, I have no idea. All I can think is they cut a deal, right? That's how most people get away with certain things. This message comes from NPR sponsor Showtime, presenting The Comey Rule, a two-night event series looking into the aftermath of the relationship between James Comey and Donald

Trump and the 2016 election. The series provides a new perspective on real-life events, including the hacking of the DNC, Russian interference, and Hillary Clinton's emails. Emmy winners Jeff Daniels, Holly Hunter, and Brendan Gleeson star in The Comey Rule. September 27th and 28th, only on Showtime. The past is never past, and every headline has a history. I'm Ramteen Arablui. I'm Randabdit Fattah, and we're the hosts of ThruLine, NPR's history podcast.

Each week, we go back in time to better understand the present. Bringing lesser-known stories and perspectives to the surface. Subscribe and listen to ThruLine from NPR. Aaron and Chris Dorr like to portray themselves as outsiders. They aren't trying to be friends with politicians. Most organizations kind of begin with an appeasement philosophy or a, we want to be one of the cool kids. You know, they want to be one of the insiders. They want to be in the know. They want to have friends in the state capitol. We don't hire the prettiest lobbyists in the state capital to go into the state capital and try to work all these deals. But back in the early days, they were insiders. Chris Dorr was the

right-hand man for a popular Iowa state senator. This guy caused a political firestorm during the 2012 presidential race when the Ron Paul campaign paid him to switch his endorsement away from Michelle Bachman. He told me that he was offered money. He was offered a lot of money by the Ron Paul campaign. A federal judge called it, quote, the definition of political corruption, end quote. He sent the senator to prison. So what do the doors have to do with this? Well, before the endorsement switch, someone took a list of names that belonged to the network of Iowa Christian home educators.

In other words, Christian homeschoolers. This list had lived on the personal computer of a Bachman campaign staffer. I talked to the woman, Barb Hecke. She says the list was stolen. All I know is that the detective called me up one day and said charges have been dropped. There's a plea bargain agreement. Barb filed a lawsuit and signed a settlement agreement, so she is really limited in what she can say about the whole thing. I can say that Chris Doerr also worked on the Bachman

campaign, and he admits in a sworn affidavit that he took the list. But Chris says there's nothing wrong with that. Campaign staffers share data all the time, and he was following orders from higher-ups. Either way, a list like this has major value to a campaign that's working hard to reach conservative voters. Especially in Iowa, the first state in the country that decides on a presidential primary candidate. You know, Iowa caucuses. And a list of homeschooling families has enough value to be used as a bargaining chip. See, before that Iowa senator flipped his endorsement, Aaron Doerr sent an email to the Ron Paul campaign trying to negotiate how much money it would cost for the state senator to make the switch. It's all in the Senate Ethics Committee report. And just to be clear, an elected official accepting a bribe to change his political endorsement and then lying about it is totally not legal.

In addition to the endorsement, Aaron offered the homeschooling list. In return, he wanted the senator to get paid, he wanted his brother, Chris, to get paid, and Aaron wanted $100,000 deposited into a political action committee that he controlled. Now, as far as we know, the Ron Paul campaign did not end up giving Aaron Doerr $100,000. But we do know that Chris Doerr's boss, that state senator, went to prison. And three senior Ron Paul campaign staffers were also convicted of federal crimes. It took years for all the investigations to run their course. But before the political fallout started to settle, Chris Storr was gone.

In 2013, he moved west and started a new gun group of his very own, Minnesota Gun Rights. Oh, and by the way, Barb had a funny story about the Doerr brothers. It's not about guns. It's about those anti-quarantine reopen pages they started earlier in the pandemic. Well, I've been in favor of reopening. So on Facebook, when I saw the groups that had started up for reopening, I joined and saw a couple posts. And I thought, okay, my friends need to know about this. And so I invited a whole bunch of my friends to join. And then it wasn't long, but one of them that I had invited said, this is being orchestrated by the Doors.

And I had no idea because their names weren't in there at the beginning. And so I went back to all my friends and apologized and told them what the situation was. Well, and that, you know, I mean and that's so interesting to me because the people sort of orchestrating a lot of this conversation is the Doors. But it's not just conversation. It's getting names. It's getting more contacts of people

that can be used in the future. Why do you think the Doors would be interested in creating this group and getting people to sign a petition? Well, my thoughts are that once they have all those names, they can contact them about other issues and possibly raise funds. Inside the Facebook bubble, every post, every meme, and every video comes from the doors in their crew. But offline, people keep telling us these guys take credit for bills they had nothing to do with. Say they barely show up to lobby in person, and when they do,

they're changing outfits so they can bank videos for weeks at a time. And then there's the money part. Well, let me explain that to you pretty quickly. This is Jerry Henry. He's explained a lot to me over the years. He's the executive director of another more traditional gun rights group in Georgia. Jerry's group gets a lot of heat from the Doar's partner here. The establishment gun lobby, namely Georgia Carry and the NRA, they have spent the last decade at the Capitol in Atlanta telling legislators, they say, look, we can't have constitutional care yet. Not yet. Georgia's not ready for it.

I'm sitting in Jerry's truck at a Chick-fil-A, catching up on what kind of gun bills might pop up in the next legislative session. He picks an old campaign button out of his cup holder. Kemp for governor. Tries to give it to me. This would go good with your... Yeah, totally. I'm definitely allowed to wear campaign buttons. I would think so. I decline the button. As a reporter, sometimes I need someone to call if, say, a guy shows up at the airport open carrying a rifle. Jerry's the guy I call. He'll pick up and explain why it's that man's legal

right under Georgia law. Today, there's something I'm hoping he'll pick up and explain why it's that man's legal right under Georgia law. Today, there's something I'm hoping he'll talk to me about on the record. You see, Jerry's the guy who got me curious about these no-compromise groups to begin with. Every now and then, he'd talk about some other Second Amendment groups that make a lot of Facebook videos. He doesn't even like to say their name. And if you go back and look at the same group we're talking about, they put out flyers, they put out emails all over the place about how your gun rights are going to be taken away from you.

He's talking about Patrick Parsons, the Doerr brothers' partner in Georgia. And between Patrick and Jerry, you couldn't find two more gun-loving men in the state. But they can't stand each other. You guys have met in real life? I have met him at the Capitol. I do not talk to him. He's said too many bad things about me. He says that I am arrogant and I'm afraid of him. For the record, Jerry is not afraid of Patrick.

And he has a theory about what's really going on with that other group. They're trying to incite their base so that they will donate more money to their cause. And they wind up doing nothing to help gun rights or anybody else. You're talking about Georgia gun owners? Yes. But it's not about Georgia gun owners? Yes. But it's not just Georgia gun owners. Patrick runs another group in the next state over,

North Carolina Firearms Coalition. So I call up another guy there, Paul Vallone. He's the North Carolina version of Jerry, a gun rights activist, spends a ton of time at the state capitol there. I think I have seen Patrick Parsons there once. Well, his North Carolina Facebook page has 80,000 followers. The North Carolina Firearms Coalition is not really an organization. It's a political action committee created for the purpose of raising money for a couple

of political ne'er-do-wells. Okay, so that's what Patrick's rivals think. And we did want to ask him what he makes of the claims that he's often a no-show inside state capitals. Patrick hasn't been returning our calls. But in North Carolina and Georgia, the Door Network groups have between 10 and 30 times the number of Facebook followers as those more traditional groups. If you're not yet a member of Georgia gun owners, jump on board now. $30 a year, less than 10 cents a day, $30 a year. Remember Matt Windschidittle in Iowa? He's watched the Doors and their pals this whole time, seeing other legislators and mainstream gun groups call them out over and over again.

And yet, they've spread to a dozen states, launching nonprofits and raising money everywhere they go. At some point, he went ahead and looked at their tax records. If you look at their 990s, not only in Iowa, but in the other states, they all claim that they're working 60 to 80 hours a week and getting no salary. The only way that they could be paying themselves is through their Midwest Freedom Enterprises LLC. They've got to be funneling money into that through the donations that they're bringing in and then somehow driving a salary out of that. And from my understanding of tax code, federal tax code, that's a violation of 501c4 nonprofit

status. Federal tax code. Midwest Freedom Enterprises LLC. 501c4 nonprofit status. There's a lot to unpack here. And nonprofit law is boring, complicated stuff. So we called in an expert, Scott Hube. So I'm an elections attorney.

I work with advocacy nonprofits and political campaign committees. Nonprofits have to file IRS Form 990 every year. It's a public record that shows how much revenue a nonprofit brought in and where it was spent. What Windschiddle and a lot of other people point out is that the Doors file 990s claiming they work 60 or 70 hours a week, but they usually don't report any direct compensation. I sent Scott a big stack of these 990 forms and some other financial documents. I'm not the first reporter he's talked to about the Doerr brothers. More than a year ago, Scott talked to a Cleveland.com reporter

about how the Doerr group in Minnesota spent 90% of the donations it got on more fundraising. You know, just as a rule of thumb, I don't want to see more than, you know, 25% of a nonprofit's activity going towards, you know, fundraising overhead. Given the research he's done before and some of the documents I sent him, I asked Scott what he thinks. Are the critics right? Does it look like these guys are just in it for the money? My sense of what these guys are doing is they're trying to enrich themselves. These guys are spending most of this money on, it seems to me, like on just more mailers so they can continue to fundraise and build and build and build an organization. Mailers. If you have, well, a mailbox,

you've probably received a political mailer during election time. Scott says these 990 forms don't show any money going directly to the doors, but there is money going to a company called Midwest Freedom Enterprises. It was a direct mail firm that they set up, but what they're doing is they're using their money that they're fundraising, they're putting it through a direct mail firm that they own and operate, so they're profiting off of the production of the direct mail, and then raising more money and raising more money and just building it and building it and building it and paying themselves all the while. To summarize, much of the money donated to the nonprofits gets channeled to a door-owned for-profit company,

compensating the doors and their partners for mailing services and management consultation. But how much they take home stays out of the public record. The thing is, it's not illegal to just get paid by your nonprofit. So what they're doing is just kind of funky, especially given the way they hate on the NRA. That's why he ran all the money through a third party vendor, because you don't want to report that kind of stuff. Well, Brady says someday you guys will have your fancy suits too. Don't worry. After getting a ton of flack for Midwest Freedom Enterprises from local reporters, the Doors actually made a video about it.

In it, Aaron, Ben, and Chris are standing around one of their printers. Big American flag behind them. The worst moderate rhinos in the country like to talk about Midwest freedom enterprises. What is big, bad, scary Midwest freedom enterprises? And it keeps coming up amongst those Republican moderates that suck so bad when it comes to our gun rights. So we're all here together. The Doors say running their own direct mail firm isn't about making money. It's about saving money for all their non-profits.

Why would you hire a third party to print mailers if you can do it cheaper yourself? Scott and I talked about a couple other details from the 990 forms, but it's tough to figure out exactly what's going on through these documents. And their for-profit company doesn't have to file any public tax records. Tax law? It's complicated. The thing with the IRS is it's all... There's no hard and fast answer to anything in 501c nonprofit compliance law. It's all a matter of, is it definitely okay? Is it probably okay? Is it probably okay? Is it worrisome or is it a huge problem?

And it's all a spectrum. We talked to a few different nonprofit experts, and they all pretty much said the same thing. The paperwork might raise some questions, but nothing the IRS is really likely to come down on. At the end of the day, 990s aren't all that detailed. To know what's happening for sure, you'd need their financial records. And it's not like we have subpoena power to get a hold of those. But there is another way we could find out more. Because Aaron, Ben, and Chris Doerr, and their friends Patrick and Greg,

are technically just the faces of these organizations. On paper, each nonprofit is controlled by a board of directors. And any of those people should have lots of insight into where the money actually goes. So we start calling them. Hi, my name is Lisa Hagan. I'm a public radio reporter with WABE. Do you have a second to talk? I wanted to ask you about the second item. I think so. My name is Lisa Hagan. I'm a public radio reporter.

And then we're knocking on doors. When we can get to the door. One dog. we can get to the door. That one dog does not like me. We figured out a lot of the board members are close friends or family. A brother-in-law, political ally,

which isn't unusual for a small non-profit, but not the most likely people to talk to reporters. For the longest time, this one guy was a mystery, Cal Henderson. We're pretty good at the internet, but we could hardly find anything about him. No phone number, no email, not even a Facebook profile. One or two others. I mean, in total, he's on the board of directors of five or six different organizations, which is a little weird because based on that fact,

you would assume that he's some big name in the gun rights world. But I can't find him. He's kind of a ghost. Finally, we found one address in Nebraska, where the doors don't even operate. Chris drove up from Kansas City. What I'm going to do here today is go to this house in Frem Henderson's dad, hopefully we will find out. Because really we're just trying to figure out like who this guy is because right now I have no idea. It's about 30 miles outside Omaha. As I pull up to this ranch house on the edge of town, someone, maybe his dad, is in the front yard. I don't know if I'm in the right place or not, so let me apologize in advance

if I'm not. I'm looking for, trying to get in touch with someone named Cal Henderson. Cal Henderson? Yeah, he's here. Okay, okay. I'll go get him. Okay, thank you. A few minutes later, Cal Henderson, the man himself, walks out. He's probably in his 30s, clean cut, wearing a fleece jacket on a hot summer day. He's not real excited to see me. Seems pretty surprised a reporter would drive all the way from Kansas City. But he agrees to a short interview. I guess if you could just, you said you are indeed a real person and you do indeed have real meetings.

Can you just tell me about that a little bit? Yeah, I am a real person. I have real meetings and we do those meetings because the IRS regulations require nonprofits to have such board meetings with real board members, which is what we do. Cal tells me the Doors are old family friends. He's not worried at all about how Aaron and the rest of the gang spend their money. And Cal says the Doors have even decided

to be more transparent in the future about how they get paid. I have never questioned Aaron's integrity or his sincere desire to fight for the Second Amendment. Well, there you have it. Cal Henderson is not a ghost. And we're thinking, maybe the business end is legit, if a little sloppy.

Until, after having spent all this time knocking on doors and leaving messages for these board members, one of them calls me. I believe you're looking for me. Next time on No Compromise, the insider. And gun rights is not all we talk about. And after meeting another member of the Doerr family, we start seeing a bigger picture. I have a deep, passionate abhorrence of government schools. I'm dedicating my life to see them and to pass on the vision to my children and children's children to see that institution one day be gone. That's next time on No Compromise.

No Compromise is us, Lisa Hagan and Chris Haxel. The show's produced by Graham Smith and edited by Robert Little of NPR's Investigations Unit. Thank you. to Corey Ryan and Greg Deering. No Compromise is a production of NPR, working in partnership with WABE in Atlanta, KCUR in Kansas City, and the Guns in America Reporting Collaborative at WAMU.