The discussions about the estate, which was not ultimately bought, are now under scrutiny by New York investigators. The transaction was slated to be made through a corporate entity that received a $US70,000 wire from the NRA in 2018, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. The entity was created at Wayne LaPierre's request by a law firm working for Ackerman McQueen, the NRA's long-time ad agency, according to the people. The house in Westlake's exclusive Vaquero gated community. The origins of the idea to buy the mansion, its proposed purpose and the reason the deal never went through are now being fiercely disputed by the NRA and Ackerman McQueen, which are locked in a bitter legal fight. In a statement late on Tuesday night, Ackerman McQueen said LaPierre had sought the ad firm's assistance with the real estate transaction, a proposal it said alarmed company officials. "Actions in this regard led to Ackerman McQueen's loss of faith in Mr LaPierre's decision-making," the firm said.

For their part, NRA officials said that the real estate purchase was suggested in early 2018 by Ackerman McQueen as an investment that would be managed by the ad firm's top executives - and that it was ultimately rejected by top NRA leaders. "The agency introduced Mr LaPierre to its preferred local real estate agent, directed a tour of multiple homes, and established a company to manage the investment," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said in a statement late on Wednesday. The house in Westlake's exclusive Vaquero gated community. "No matter, Mr LaPierre ultimately rejected the opportunity and not one dime of the NRA's money was spent on this venture." The LaPierres did not respond to requests for comment.

The New York attorney general's office is now examining the plan for an NRA-financed mansion as part of its ongoing investigation into the gun lobby's tax-exempt status, in which it has subpoenaed the group's financial records, the people said. A spokesperson for New York Attorney General Letitia James declined to comment. The house in Westlake's exclusive Vaquero gated community. New York attorney Daniel Kurtz, an expert in non-profit law, said such a home purchase could have violated New York charity law, which requires all transactions benefiting the group's insiders to be "fair, reasonable and in the corporation's best interest". "There's no way they could defend a $US6 million house for the chief executive as reasonable," Kurtz said. "This is like the worst kind of corporate waste because buying the house does nothing to advance the interests of the NRA. How can you explain that? It's not like he's been underpaid."

LaPierre received a salary of $US1.37 million for his role as executive vice-president in 2017, plus an additional $US67,289 in compensation, according to the NRA's latest tax filing. Susan LaPierre, co-founder of the NRA Women's Leadership Forum, a coalition of female philanthropists who support the Second Amendment, sometimes travels with her husband on NRA business and accompanied him to the Bahamas after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. The house in Westlake's exclusive Vaquero gated community. On Wednesday, the Post sought comment on the proposed mansion purchase from the 73 current members of the NRA's board, along with three who resigned last week. Most did not respond. The several who did rallied to the defence of LaPierre, accusing Ackerman McQueen of distorting details about the real estate discussions. "It's a total misrepresentation of the truth, but I can't get into the details," said Tom King, a board member and president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association. "It's all bogus."

"They were just trying to find a safe house to put him in," said LeRoy Sisco, a retired businessman in Texas who has been on the board for about 10 years. "Other people could use it, too. They were just saying that they needed to get him to a safe place." The LaPierres' real estate hunt began after the massacre in Parkland. Days later, LaPierre publicly attacked gun control advocates as "elites" who "care not one whit about America's school system and schoolchildren". Medical personnel tend to a victim following a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February last year. Credit:AP Behind the scenes, LaPierre was telling associates he was worried about his safety and that the location of his home in Virginia was easy for potential attackers to find, according to people familiar with the discussions. The Wall Street Journal first reported that LaPierre asserted he needed a new residence for security reasons after the Florida shooting.

Loading About Easter, the LaPierres toured the mansion in the Vaquero golf club community and were impressed by the property, according to people familiar with their visit. The four-bedroom, nine-bathroom home in the gated golf course community north-west of Dallas resembles a French chateau, with a stately boxwood-lined drive, a formal courtyard, vaulted ceilings and an antique marble fireplace, according to its online real estate listing. The couple negotiated the furnishings they wanted to keep, among other details, according to emails and text messages. In one May 21 email, an Ackerman McQueen staffer listed for Susan LaPierre all the issues she had said she wanted to resolve before closing the deal.

Loading "Susan, following are my notes from our conversation," the staffer wrote, asking the NRA chief's wife to "let me know if I missed anything from our conversation". The email mentioned her concern about the lack of closet space. According to the listing, the master bedroom has two walk-in closets with a custom closet system and sitting area. "The men's master bedroom and bathroom need some changes. There isn't much closet space. Susan will have specific input here and can probably work with the eventual interior designer to get this accomplished," according to the email. The couple sought a settlement by July 1, 2018, so they could move in August, according to the people familiar with the discussions.

Loading On May 25, the NRA wrote a cheque for $US70,000 and wired it to the account of the corporate entity created for the purchase, according to the records turned over by the New York Attorney-General. NRA officials declined to comment on the emails or the wire transfer. In a statement on Tuesday night, William Brewer III, an attorney for the NRA, said the real estate purchase was pushed by Ackerman McQueen. "The deal was vetoed by the NRA after its full terms - including Ackerman's intent to spend NRA money - became known to Wayne LaPierre," he said. "Not a cent of NRA money was ultimately spent. Any suggestion to the contrary is untrue."

Loading "Frankly, this is yet another example of Ackerman twisting the truth to promote a false narrative," Arulanandam said in his statement. "These accusations against the NRA and Mr. LaPierre are just the latest instalment of a smear campaign - a reputational attack designed to enable a small band of wrongdoers to avoid scrutiny of their own actions." Ackerman McQueen called the NRA's assertions that the ad firm drove the effort to purchase the mansion "patently false". "The truth is that Mr LaPierre decided to proactively propose his plan to leave his current residence and purchase a new residence," the company said in a statement on Tuesday night. "Acting outside the parties' Services Agreement, Mr LaPierre sought the involvement of Ackerman McQueen. Ackerman McQueen refused to proceed with this transaction." According to the people familiar with the real estate negotiations, the corporate entity created for the mansion purchase returned the $US70,000 to the NRA on June 14, 2018.

Angus McQueen, the now-deceased chief executive of the ad firm, had learnt about the location of the property and was furious about LaPierre's claim that he needed the property for security reasons, the people said. "He said, 'The scales fell from my eyes,' " one person familiar with the discussions said. "They were buying a Taj Mahal on a golf course with a social membership." In a statement last month, Ackerman McQueen said it decided to stop paying a series of expenses for NRA executives, including LaPierre, in 2018 out of concern they were "suspicious" and their true nature was concealed from the NRA board and members. The firm said it believed "that NRA executives were intent on personal financial activity and transactions". In recent months, leaked documents have been published showing that the NRA paid $US542,000 for private jet trips for LaPierre, including a trip to the Bahamas with his wife after the Sandy Hook shooting and an array of Italian designer suits as well as the rent for a summer intern's apartment.

The expenses were first paid by Ackerman McQueen, which then billed the NRA as part of its multimillion-dollar annual contract, according to people familiar with the arrangement. Meanwhile, the Post has reported, 18 members of the NRA's 76-member board received money from the group for services during the past three years, raising questions about the rigour of its oversight. The discussions about the luxury house in 2018 came as the NRA was in deepening financial trouble. The organisation was on track to run a deficit for a third year in a row, had cut back dramatically on its core mission of gun safety and legislative work and frozen its employee pension plan. Douglas Varley, an attorney whose practice focuses on tax-exempt organisations, said if the NRA had purchased a house for LaPierre, it would have had to justify to the IRS that he needed it to do his job. Otherwise, the NRA would have had to report the purchase in its tax filing as part of LaPierre's compensation. "Both of those strike me as extraordinarily high bars to get over," Varley said.