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LISA HAGEN, HOST:
Previously on NO COMPROMISE...
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CAROLYN RICKER: It's just fun because we're all part of this community. It's like pulling up your hot chocolate and sitting down. OK, we're here together, you know?
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PATRICK PARSONS: 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...
MAKR ZUCKERBERG: People love going live because it's so unfiltered and personal, and you feel like you're just there hanging out with your friends.
CHRIS DORR: We did this from the very beginning. We've been executing this plan to try to build up a crescendo here so that we're bringing maximum leverage of gun owners to bear at exactly the right time so that the...
BEN DORR: We're here doing what we said we were going to do. We're delivering your petitions to the president, to the White House, telling...
CHRIS HAXEL, HOST:
He has been accused of being basically shady. I mean, are you aware of those claims at least?
JOHN BURKE: Oh, yes. It's a very common tactic as...
CARLA BURKE: Discrediting is the...
J BURKE: Yeah.
C BURKE: ...Oldest tactic in the book.
J BURKE: Yeah. And people are going to say what they're going to say. Haters are going to hate.
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AARON DORR: I'm going to tell you right now, I'm not in a really good mood today. I've been travelling. OK, I'm getting a lot of thumbs up. Thank you, Mike (ph).
HAXEL: Aaron Dorr is standing inside what looks like a two-star hotel room.
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A DORR: OK. It may be a little bit echoey because of where I'm at.
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HAXEL: 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.
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A DORR: Guys, we have been telling you what a bunch of arrogant bastards these people are for a very long time. But this is...
HAGEN: Aaron, you'll remember, is the oldest Dorr brother. He runs gun rights groups in Iowa, Wyoming and New York. And this video is from Missouri.
HAXEL: 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.
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A DORR: I get a phone call from Representative Suzie Pollock - Suzie Pollock. Now, she's brand-new. She's been there for five months and one day, OK?
HAXEL: I'll admit I had never heard of Suzie Pollock, but Aaron was so fired up, I knew I had to talk to her.
SUZIE POLLOCK: You know, I'm new. This is only my second session.
HAXEL: 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.
POLLOCK: 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 (laughter).
HAXEL: So State Rep. Suzie Pollock on the first day of the legislative session gets 20 emails that all look the same.
POLLOCK: 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.
HAXEL: Boilerplate messages from members of the Missouri Firearms Coalition run by some guy named Aaron Dorr. And she's like, what's going on here?
POLLOCK: Well, I did make the mistake of calling him and thinking he'd be reasonable.
HAXEL: Didn't work out the way she thought it would.
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HAXEL: I'm Chris Haxel.
HAGEN: 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 Dorr brothers money and love to watch their aggressive tactics live online.
HAXEL: In this episode, we hear from people who've tangled with the brothers in the real world.
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HAXEL: So State Representative Suzie Pollock, a health care worker and Sunday schoolteacher from southern Missouri, calls Aaron Dorr. 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?
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A DORR: And she said, well, I just want to ask you, do you know anything about how politics works? Do you know how politics works?
POLLOCK: I asked him if he knew how things worked here because I thought he was being completely ineffective.
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A DORR: And I said, well, since the members of the Missouri Firearms Coalition and myself personally passed constitutional carry and 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 prewritten emails that I have been receiving from the members of the Missouri Firearms Coalition. And I was like, oh, really? Oh, we're so sorry we offended you.
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POLLOCK: 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.
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A DORR: 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.
HAXEL: So what do these emails say exactly?
POLLOCK: 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.
HAXEL: What'd do you think when you started seeing those pour in?
POLLOCK: I wondered why they were calling me a moderate.
(LAUGHTER)
POLLOCK: I think that makes everybody scratch their head in this building.
HAGEN: This video Aaron posted got 24,000 views. Everyone was hating on Suzie in the comments. Chris read her a few.
HAXEL: This is Trump country and election time. You, government, poop emoji...
POLLOCK: Yeah.
HAXEL: ...Bags are going to find out double exclamation point.
POLLOCK: Right (laughter). And I'm as red as the blood in my veins, you know? I am so diehard Republican that anybody would even question that is hysterical to me and everybody that knows me.
HAXEL: Suzie's super pro-gun and says passing bills that reduce gun regulations is basically the one thing she agrees with Aaron Dorr about but...
POLLOCK: 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.
HAXEL: In 2016, Missouri did pass a huge expansion of gun rights that included constitutional carry and stand your ground.
HAGEN: 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 Dorr's big-policy priority.
HAXEL: Aaron is always bragging about getting it passed in Missouri.
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A DORR: The members of the Missouri Firearms Coalition and myself personally passed constitutional carry and stand your ground law in Missouri.
HAXEL: But Suzie works with the legislators who passed those laws.
POLLOCK: 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...
HAXEL: So how can he be effectively lobbying if he's not here lobbying?
POLLOCK: Right.
HAXEL: Right, right.
POLLOCK: But it sure gets the likes on Facebook.
HAXEL: 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.
HAGEN: But they love going after conservatives who don't do exactly what they say.
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HAGEN: Alan Powell used to have real ferns on his porch.
ALAN POWELL: And I realized that they were a pain in the ass.
HAGEN: (Laughter).
He lives up by Lake Hartwell in northeast Georgia, so you've got to pull those ferns inside when the temperature drops. Anyway, he has fake ones now.
POWELL: Well, they work pretty good because they're year-round.
HAGEN: Sure.
POWELL: Only problem is I have inherited - every goddamn bird in the world nests in the damn thing.
HAGEN: Do you dislike having bird's nests in them?
POWELL: I dislike the birds shitting on my...
HAGEN: (Laughter).
POWELL: ...Porch is what I dislike.
HAGEN: Alan'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, Alan helped pass a law that critics called the most-extreme gun bill in America.
POWELL: The media called it guns everywhere.
HAGEN: 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, Alan Powell is conservative as hell.
POWELL: And I don't think anybody has ever, ever said that I was weak on my belief of Second Amendment rights.
HAGEN: Anybody except for Patrick Parsons, the Dorr brothers' partner who runs Georgia Gun Owners.
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PARSONS: Make your call to Alan Powell. You got two phone numbers there. You got his cellphone and his office phone. Insist that he quit playing footsie with the gun grabbers, which is what he's doing. Guys, the gun grabbers...
HAGEN: 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.
POWELL: 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 home - my hometown, she's known me all of my life - 'cause if you've already figured out, you don't have to figure too long to figure out where I am at on the issue because I'll certainly tell you.
HAGEN: Sure.
POWELL: And I'll never forget 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. It said, what's wrong with you?
HAGEN: 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. Time and again, it's not the Democrats the Dorr groups really mess with. It's deep-red Republicans.
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B DORR: If you'd stop acting like RINOs, we wouldn't have to spank you so much. If I had a little RINO baby, I'd spank that little RINO baby.
HAGEN: RINO - Republican in name only.
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A DORR: This RINO 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.
HAGEN: But there is one conservative politician who has more experience jousting with the Dorrs than anyone. He served in the Marines, and he's a trained gunsmith - Iowa House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl.
HAXEL: Aaron's not very nice to Matt.
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A DORR: And primping ain't easy. Little Matty (ph) Windschitl, who has more hair product in his hair than any man should ever have. When these two guys are...
HAXEL: I called Matt up to see if he might talk to a reporter about the Dorr brothers.
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HAXEL: 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.
Nice to meet you. Chris Haxel.
MATT WINDSCHITL: Nice to meet you.
HAXEL: But he opens the door wearing a baseball cap.
WINDSCHITL: It's actually kind of a weird obsession. I don't understand what he's - why he's obsessed with my hair, but it's peculiar. There was one...
HAXEL: We sit down at his kitchen table and start talking. I ask him a question about gun rights, and right away, he stops me.
WINDSCHITL: I'm not trying to correct you, but it's a misnomer to say gun rights 'cause guns don't have rights. Guns are inanimate objects.
HAXEL: He prefers the phrase Second Amendment virtues. He tells me basically a lot of what we've already heard - the Dorrs talk smack on Facebook. And like Suzie Pollock and Alan Powell, Matt Windschitl 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 Dorrs 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 Dorr, it wasn't enough. They wanted to force a vote on a big bill, on constitutional carry.
WINDSCHITL: So I go up there, and I find him. And I just say, Chris, Aaron, what are you guys doing?
HAXEL: Matt says he thought they were all on the same side, but then he realized Aaron and Chris were willing to torpedo the small bill in order to force a vote on their bill even if their bill had no chance of actually becoming a law.
WINDSCHITL: That moment when he looked at me and said, no, you guys are not doing this on our timeline. We're done with your timeline. We're using mine. At that point, I mean, the veil came off, and I mean, it was - 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 the pale water that can put the fire out. That's political anarchy.
HAXEL: In this case, the fire was put out pretty quickly. The Dorrs did not get the bill they wanted, and the incremental gun bill passed anyway.
HAGEN: The Dorr brothers tell their followers having politicians like Matt Windschitl denounce them is proof of how hard they fight.
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A DORR: 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.
HAXEL: But Matt says all those videos Aaron puts out, they might not be the evidence Facebook followers think they are.
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WINDSCHITL: I didn't see this personally, but I had another colleague witness this. They - Dorr does a lot of his web videos at a Capitol or at the state Capitol, right?
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A DORR: ...Sort of constitutional carry law for Iowa. Constitutional carry is on the move right here in the statehouse.
WINDSCHITL: 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 and goes to a different corner to film another one. He does this at least three times, and then he leaves. But we don't seem him at the Capitol for probably the, you know, 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 1. And I'm at the Capitol here today, April 1. 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.
HAXEL: 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 Dorrs for a decade. That means year after year of videos like this.
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A DORR: Look at that face. Look at that face. Look at Windschitl'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.
HAXEL: And all the while...
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HAXEL: ...He's kept working on those Second Amendment virtues and rising in the ranks. Matt Windschitl 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 Dorr brothers? There's video of it.
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WINDSCHITL: You'd think from the emails, from the videos they put out there that they're down here every day fighting.
HAXEL: All the lawmakers in the ornate, walnut-paneled House chamber have turned to watch Matt.
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WINDSCHITL: Ask anybody in this chamber or the chamber across the hall how many times they've been talked to by Aaron Dorr this year. Can anybody in this room that is a legislator raise your hand here today and say Aaron Dorr personally talked to me about this bill, House File 517, which he is taking credit for. Anybody? Not a hand.
HAXEL: You can see his upper lip tighten as he mentions Aaron taking credit for a bill he introduced.
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WINDSCHITL: 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 Dorr is a scam artist, a liar. And he is doing Iowans no services and no favors. I feel better now.
(LAUGHTER)
HAXEL: One more thing. Matt Windschitl has been battling the Dorr brothers long before they started any groups outside of Iowa. And anyone who knows him for that long knows something none of the brothers ever mention on Facebook. Two of them were at the center of one of the biggest political scandals in Iowa history.
WINDSCHITL: So how the Dorr 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.
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HAGEN: Aaron and Chris Dorr like to portray themselves as outsiders.
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HAGEN: They aren't trying to be friends with politicians.
WINDSCHITL: 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 Capitol to go in the state Capitol and try to work all these deals. Our...
HAGEN: 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 Michele Bachmann.
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MICHELE BACHMANN: He told me that he was offered money. He was offered a lot of money by the Ron Paul campaign.
HAXEL: A federal judge called it, quote, "the definition of political corruption," end quote. He sent the senator to prison.
HAGEN: So what do the Dorrs 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 Bachmann campaign staffer.
HAXEL: I talked to the woman, Barb Heki. She says the list was stolen.
BARB HEKI: All I know is that the detective called me up one day and said charges have been dropped. There's a plea bargain agreement.
HAXEL: 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 Dorr also worked on the Bachmann 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.
HAGEN: 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.
HAXEL: 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 Dorr 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.
HAGEN: 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.
HAXEL: 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.
HAGEN: Now, as far as we know, the Ron Paul campaign did not end up giving Aaron Dorr $100,000. But we do know that Chris Dorr's boss, that state senator, went to prison, and three senior Ron Paul campaign staffers were also convicted of federal crimes.
HAXEL: It took years for all the investigations to run their course. But before the political fallout started to settle, Chris Dorr 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 Dorr brothers. It's not about guns. It's about those anti-quarantine, reopen pages they started earlier in the pandemic.
HEKI: Well, I've been in favor of reopening. So when on Facebook when I saw, you know, the groups that had started up for reopening. I joined and saw a couple of posts. And I thought, OK, 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 Dorrs. 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.
HAXEL: Well, and that - you know, I mean, that's so interesting to me because the people sort of orchestrating a lot of this conversation is the Dorrs.
HEKI: But it's not just conversation. It's getting names. It's getting more contacts of people that can be used in the future.
HAXEL: Why do you think the Dorrs would be interested in creating this group and getting people to sign a petition?
HEKI: Well, my thoughts are that once they have all those names, they can contact them about other issues and possibly raise funds.
HAXEL: Inside the Facebook bubble, every post, every meme and every video comes from the Dorrs and 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 is the money part.
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JERRY HENRY: Well, let me explain that to you pretty quickly.
HAGEN: 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 Dorrs' partner here.
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A DORR: 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 carry yet. Not yet. Georgia's not ready for it.
HAGEN: 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.
HENRY: This would go good with your...
HAGEN: Yeah, totally. I'm definitely allowed to wear campaign buttons.
HENRY: Yeah. I would think so.
HAGEN: (Laughter).
I declined 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 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.
HENRY: 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.
HAGEN: He's talking about Patrick Parsons, the Dorr 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?
HENRY: I have met him at the Capitol. I do not talk to him. He's said too many bad things about me.
HAGEN: What does he - like, just...
HENRY: He says that I am arrogant and - I'm arrogant, and I'm afraid of him.
HAGEN: For the record, Jerry is not afraid of Patrick, and he has a theory about what's really going on with that other group.
HENRY: 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.
HAGEN: You're talking about Georgia Gun Owners?
HENRY: Yes.
HAGEN: 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 Valone. He is the North Carolina version of Jerry, a gun rights activist. Spends a ton of time at the state Capitol there.
PAUL VALONE: I think I have seen Patrick Parsons there once.
HAGEN: Well, his North Carolina Facebook page has 80,000 followers.
VALONE: 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 (laughter).
HAGEN: OK, so that's what Patrick's rivals think. And we did want to ask him what he makes of the claims that he is often a no-show inside state capitols. Patrick hasn't been returning our calls. But in North Carolina and Georgia, the Dorr network groups have between 10 and 30 times the number of Facebook followers as those more traditional groups.
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A DORR: If you're not yet a member of Georgia Gun Owners, jump on board now. Thirty dollars a year, less than 10 cents a day. Thirty dollars a year.
HAGEN: Remember Matt Windschitl in Iowa? He's watched the Dorrs and their pals this whole time, seen 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.
WINDSCHITL: If you look at their 990s, not only in Iowa, but in the other states, they all claim that they're working 80 - 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 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 501(c)(4) nonprofit status.
HAXEL: Federal tax code, Midwest Freedom Enterprises LLC, 501(c)(4) nonprofit status - there's a lot to unpack here. And nonprofit law is boring, complicated stuff. So we called in an expert - Scott Hubay.
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SCOTT HUBAY: So I'm an elections attorney. I work with advocacy, nonprofits and political campaign committees.
HAXEL: 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 Windschitl and a lot of other people point out is that the Dorrs 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 Dorr brothers. More than a year ago, Scott talked to a cleveland.com reporter about how the Dorr group in Minnesota spent 90% of the donations it got on more fundraising.
HUBAY: You know, just as a rule of thumb, I don't want to see more than, you know, 25% percent of a nonprofit's activity going towards, you know, fundraising overhead.
HAXEL: 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?
HUBAY: 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.
HAXEL: 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 Dorrs, but there is money going to a company called Midwest Freedom Enterprises.
HUBAY: 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.
HAGEN: To summarize, much of the money donated to the nonprofits gets channeled to a Dorr-owned for-profit company compensating the Dorrs 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
B DORR: ...In Italian loafers. That's why he ran all the money through a third-party vendor because you don't want to report that kind of stuff. Oh, Brady (ph) says someday you guys will have your fancy suits, too. Don't worry.
HAXEL: After getting a ton of flak for Midwest Freedom Enterprises from local reporters, the Dorrs actually made a video about it. In it, Aaron, Ben and Chris are standing around one of their printers, big American flag behind them.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
A DORR: The worst moderate RINOs in the country like to talk about Midwest Freedom Enterprises. What is big, bad, scary Midwest Freedom Enterprises? And it keeps coming up amongst...
C DORR: Yeah.
A DORR: ...Those Republican moderates that suck so bad when it comes to our gun rights. So we're all here together...
HAGEN: The Dorrs say running their own direct mail firm isn't about making money; it's about saving money for all their nonprofits. Why would you hire a third party to print mailers if you can do it cheaper yourself?
HAXEL: 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 is complicated.
HUBAY: The thing with the IRS is it's all - there's no hard-and-fast answer to anything in 501(c) nonprofit compliance law. It's all a matter of - is it definitely OK? Is it probably OK? Is it worrisome? Or is it a huge problem? And it's all a spectrum.
HAGEN: 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.
HAXEL: 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.
HAGEN: But there is another way we could find out more because Aaron, Ben and Chris Dorr 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING)
HAGEN: Hi. My name is Lisa Hagen. I'm a public radio reporter with WABE....
Do you have a quick second to talk? I wanted to ask you about the Second Amendment rights.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: No, don't think so. No. Not really.
(CROSSTALK)
HAGEN: Hey there, Bret (ph). My name is Lisa Hagen. I'm a public radio reporter...
And then we're knocking on doors.
HAXEL: When we can get to the door.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOG BARKING)
HAXEL: That one dog does not like me.
HAGEN: 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 nonprofit, but not the most likely people to talk to reporters.
HAXEL: For the longest time, this one guy was a mystery - Cal Henderson (ph).
HAGEN: 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.
HAXEL: ...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.
HAGEN: Finally, we found one address in Nebraska, where the Dorrs don't even operate.
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HAGEN: Chris drove up from Kansas City.
HAXEL: What I'm going to do here today is go to this house in Fremont, Neb., and hope somebody is home. And whether that person is Cal Henderson or Cal Henderson's dad, hopefully, we will find out 'cause, really, we're just trying to figure out, like, who this guy is 'cause 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.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: OK.
HAXEL: I'm looking for - trying to get in touch with someone named Cal Henderson (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Cal Henderson?
HAXEL: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah, he's here.
HAXEL: OK, OK.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: OK, I'll go get him.
HAXEL: OK, thank you.
HAXEL: A few minutes later, Cal Henderson, the man himself, walks out.
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HAXEL: 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.
HAXEL: 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?
CAL HENDERSON: 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.
HAXEL: Cal tells me the Dorrs 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 Dorrs have even decided to be more transparent in the future about how they get paid.
HENDERSON: I have never questioned Aaron's integrity or his sincere desire to fight for the Second Amendment.
HAXEL: Well, there you have it. Cal Henderson is not a ghost.
HAGEN: 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.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: I believe you're looking for me.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HAGEN: Next time on NO COMPROMISE, the insider.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: So he asked if I would be kind of the figurehead or - it was mainly just, I guess, something to make it legal.
HAGEN: And gun rights is not all we talk about.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: The denominator is what we call - I don't know if you're familiar with Christian reconstructionism.
HAXEL: And after meeting another member of the Dorr family, we start seeing a bigger picture.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: I have a deep, passionate abhorrence of government schools. I'm dedicating my life to see them and to pass along the vision onto my children and children's children to see that institution one day be gone.
HAGEN: That's next time on NO COMPROMISE.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HUMPMUSCLE: (Singing) I'm a little red rooster, baby, too lazy to crow today
HAGEN: NO COMPROMISE is us, Lisa Hagen and Chris Haxel. The show's produced by Graham Smith and edited by Robert Little of NPR's investigations unit. Josh Rogosin and Stephen Key are our sound engineers. Sound design by Josh and Graham. Our music comes from Peter Duchesne, Brad Honeyman (ph) and The Humpmuscle Rolling Circus.
HAXEL: Special shoutout to Corey Ryan (ph) and Greg Deering (ph). NO COMPROMISE is a production of NPR, working in partnership with WABE in Atlanta, KCUR in Kansas City and the Guns & America reporting collaborative at WAMU.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HUMPMUSCLE: (Singing) If you see my little red rooster, baby, please, please, send them home. If you see my little red rooster, please, please send them home. Ain't had no peace in the farmyard since my little red rooster went away.
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