National Rifle Association headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia. Photo: Nicole S Glass/Shutterstock.com

A series of documents that state officials from New York have wanted to withhold from the National Rifle Association in its lawsuit against Gov. Andrew Cuomo and a state agency will be reviewed by a federal judge in the coming weeks and could ultimately be disclosed to the gun lobby group.

A federal judge in Albany ordered attorneys for the state, in a new decision, to submit those documents to him for review, along with a detailed log on why they should remain privileged. 

Attorneys for the National Rifle Association are calling the decision a positive development in their litigation against Cuomo and the state. The group is represented by William Brewer, a partner at Brewer Attorneys & Counselors.

“For months, Gov. Cuomo and DFS have tried to conceal from the public, and the court, documents demonstrating the state’s internal rationale for its blacklisting campaign against the NRA,” Brewer said. “The NRA will aggressively pursue all the facts and press every advantage in this important advocacy.”

The NRA is suing Cuomo and the state Department of Financial Services, along with its former Superintendent Maria Vullo, over claims that they deliberately infringed on the group’s First Amendment rights through state actions. 

Those efforts, according to the lawsuit filed last year, included a handful of public statements and communications with financial institutions that allegedly discouraged companies from doing business with the NRA. That was intended to hurt their bottom line, the group has claimed, which they’ve said will infringe on their ability to advocate on behalf of gun owners.

As part of the suit, attorneys for the NRA filed a motion in January seeking to compel the state to disclose certain documents they alleged would be relevant to the case. 

Among other things, they were seeking documents and communications related to a pair of letters sent by Vullo to the state’s financial institutions last spring urging them to review their business relationships with the NRA. They also asked for similar documents related to a press release from Cuomo’s office with the same message.

They also wanted a host of other documents, like those related to the state’s investigation into affinity insurance programs endorsed by the NRA, communications between the state and financial institutions regarding their business relationships with the group, and any exchanges between state officials about the litigation.

Some of the group’s requests were denied outright in the decision, which was issued this week by U.S. Magistrate Judge Christian Hummel of the Northern District of New York. Hummel declined to compel the disclosure of documents and information related to the state’s investigation into a trio of insurance companies affiliated with the NRA, for example.

Hummel also rejected a request from the group for documents related to any action the state may have taken against financial institutions that were doing business with other gun promotion or lobbying groups.

“These remaining claims do not express how defendants’ alleged conduct regarding financial institutions doing business with non-NRA organizations supports their First Amendment claims,” Hummel wrote.

Hummel said the NRA could renew its motion for those documents, and others it was seeking, if the gun lobby group amends its lawsuit to reallege selective enforcement claims by the state. Brewer said they plan to do so after a different federal judge tossed their original claims of selective enforcement earlier this year.

“We look forward to continued discovery in this case, and the NRA fully intends to renew its motion after repleading its Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection claims—to redress New York’s intentionally unequal, politically motivated enforcement of certain financial-services laws,” Brewer said.

Attorneys for the state have to provide four broad categories of documents to the court for review in the next three weeks, after which Hummel will decide whether the NRA will be allowed to use them. The state was also ordered to file a detailed log of those documents explaining why they should be deemed privileged and consequently withheld from the NRA.

Those documents include anything related to the letters sent by Vullo to the state’s financial institutions and the press release about those letters; the state’s investigation of affinity insurance programs endorsed by the NRA; communications between the state and financial institutions other than the three previously affiliated with the NRA; and communications between Cuomo, Vullo and DFS about the litigation.

Brewer said, from his view, the decision will benefit their case against the state. They’re seeking the documents to probe what they’ve alleged was a strategic campaign by state officials to stifle the gun lobby group’s activities in New York.

“This decision is a positive development for the NRA and its millions of members,” Brewer said. “After time-consuming motion practice due to discovery positions by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and ex-DFS Superintendent Mario Vullo, we are pleased by this important breakthrough.”

The state has argued that the lawsuit is retaliation for an investigation by DFS into an NRA-affiliated product called Carry Guard, which previously offered coverage for legal fees, therapy and other costs associated with someone’s use of a gun in New York. The agency determined that the product violated state law and ultimately fined the insurers who sold it.

Representatives for DFS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision.

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