(CNN) The chief executive of the National Rifle Association told the group's board he is being extorted and pressured to resign by the organization's president, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Wayne LaPierre, who has been the head of the NRA for decades, wrote in a letter to NRA board members on Thursday that he refused a demand to resign by Oliver North, the recently installed president of the association.

LaPierre wrote in the letter, "the exhortation was simple: resign or there will be destructive allegations made against me and the NRA."

North also sent a letter to the board on Thursday, according to the Journal, in which he said his actions were in the best interest of the NRA and he was forming a crisis committee to look at the organization's finances.

North had previously sent a letter to the board's executive committee accusing LaPierre of more than $200,000 in wardrobe purchases that were charged to a vendor, the Journal reports.

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