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The Attorney General of New York took action today to dissolve the National Rifle Association, following an 18-month investigation that found evidence the powerful gun rights group is "fraught with fraud and abuse."

Attorney General Letitia James claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday that she found financial misconduct in the millions of dollars, and that it contributed to a loss of more than $64 million over a three year period.

The suit alleges that top NRA executives misused charitable funds for personal gain, awarded contracts to friends and family members, and provided contracts to former employees to ensure loyalty.

Seeking to dissolve the NRA is the most aggressive sanction James could have sought against the not-for-profit organization, which James has jurisdiction over because it is registered in New York. James has a wide range of authorities relating to nonprofits in the state, including the authority to force organizations to cease operations or dissolve. The NRA is all but certain to contest it.

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A former high-ranking official within the National Rifle Association is breaking ranks with the powerful gun lobby, publishing a book that accuses its leaders of decades worth of mismanagement and fraud that he says has left the organization in a state of financial and moral disarray.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas, Joshua Powell, who formerly served as chief of staff to longtime NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, said the lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James seeking to dissolve the NRA for an array of "illegal conduct" merely scratches the surface of a much deeper culture of corruption.

"I think the NRA faces a massive threat," Powell said. "I think that the attorney general is really at the tip of the iceberg in understanding what's gone on at the [NRA] for 30 years."

Powell, one of four top NRA executives named in the lawsuit, is now seeking to distance himself from the organization he once helped lead. He not only decried the alleged mismanagement of millions of dollars in charitable donations for the personal use of the organization's top executives but also denounced the organization's posture on the issue of gun violence, particularly in the wake of school shootings, as self-serving and dangerous.

"Gun owners across America," Powell said, "should be horrified by what I saw inside of the NRA."