By Dave Workman
The Washington State Attorney General’s office has signed an agreement to end what was characterized as a politically motivated investigation of the Second Amendment Foundation in exchange for SAF’s withdrawal of a federal civil rights lawsuit.
The investigation, launched three years ago under then-Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s Consumer Protection Division, was ostensibly aimed at finding “potential violations of charities and consumer protection laws.”
But in a statement announcing the agreement Wednesday, SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb described the probe as a “witch hunt” launched by Ferguson “in an effort to discredit our work on behalf of gun owners and the Second Amendment.”
Under terms of the agreement, there will be no award of fees or costs to either side. The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division (CPD) “will withdraw the pending Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs) for documents and depositions related to its investigation” into “potential violations of charities and consumer protection laws.”
Democrat Ferguson, who is now Washington’s governor, is a vocal gun control proponent who publicly supported bans on so-called “assault weapons” and “large-capacity magazines,” and other restrictive gun control measures pushed by the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility. The billionaire-backed Alliance endorsed Ferguson’s candidacy.
Calling the investigation “a politically motivated legal fishing expedition,” Gottlieb said the probe “wasted three years of our time and cost us thousands of man hours and more than $200,000.”
“We’re convinced this happened because he is a devoted anti-gun rights politician and we are a national organization whose mission is to protect and defend the Second Amendment,” Gottlieb said.
The three-year investigation also included SAF’s sister organization, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, the Service Bureau Association, Merril Mail Marketing and Liberty Park Press, the latter an online news publication which had published articles critical of Ferguson.
In May 2023, Gottlieb, SAF and the other entities filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Ferguson, both in his official capacity and as an individual, and the Attorney General’s office. In that lawsuit, Gottlieb and the other entities alleged, “But in the two years of investigating, (the AG’s office) has never identified any unlawful conduct whatsoever, nor asked or directed that any of the plaintiffs make changes to their practices. In fact, the CPD has never even been able to explain why it initially suspected any of the plaintiffs had engaged in unlawful conduct. Public records requests reveal—and CPD all but admits—that it has received virtually no consumer complaints regarding SAF or any other CID recipients.”
Gottlieb says this agreement amounts to a “vindication of our position that SAF, its partners and personnel did nothing wrong.”
The federal complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle, alleged the investigation’s purpose was to harass Gottlieb and other CID recipients “for their political beliefs.”
“We’re glad this is over,” Gottlieb stated, “but we’re not happy that Ferguson is not held responsible for the damage he did. It is our sincere hope that no future attorney general in Washington state will conduct a politically motivated attack under color of law against any non-profit organization with which he or she has a fundamental philosophical disagreement.”
Workman is editor-in-chief at thegunmag.com
