Rifle association workers wrote letter warning that inaction against Doug Hamlin will ‘destroy’ NRA’s comeback chances

The board of the National Rifle Association (NRA) is facing pressure to suspend the gun rights group’s chief executive, Douglas Hamlin, following revelations that Hamlin was involved in the sadistic killing of a cat.

The news broke as Donald Trump cancelled a planned appearance with Hamlin next week in Savannah, Georgia, where the Republican nominee for president was meant to give a keynote address to an NRA convention. Organizers said Trump had a scheduling conflict.

An anonymous letter sent by “concerned employees” of the NRA to the board contained a litany of concerns about Hamlin, who was appointed in July following a corruption scandal at the group.

Chief among those concerns was new revelations – published by the Guardian last week – that Hamlin was involved in the gruesome killing of a house cat named BK when he was the president of his fraternity at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1979.