"Current high-ranking members of ACORN have publicly acknowledged that embezzlement did in fact occur, but the exact amount of the embezzlement was unknown until it was recently acknowledged in a board of directors meeting on Oct. 17, 2008, by Bertha Lewis and Liz Wolf that an internal review had determined that the amount embezzled was $5 million, " the new subpoena says.
The subpoena says, "It is still unclear if some of the monies embezzled are from state, federal or private funds."
The subpoena requests documents from Citizens Consulting Inc., a financial arm of ACORN, and from various accounting and legal consultants in New Orleans. Investigators are trying to verify the issues raised in the subpoena.
"We're going to follow the evidence where it leads us and try to do the right thing," said David Caldwell, head of the attorney general's public corruption and special prosecutions divisions. "We are actively investigating the case, whatever the outcome might be. This is something we are devoting our full attention to."
Wade Rathke, who was in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday, referred questions to ACORN officials. Lewis said she would comment further after she and ACORN attorneys had a chance to review the subpoena.
ACORN board member Vanessa Gueringer, chairwoman of the Lower 9th Ward Chapter, said she had not seen the subpoena but that the accusation about the larger embezzlement was untrue.
"I believe it is another lie, another witch hunt, " Gueringer said.
« Debt: The Legacy of Reagan? | Main | Calculating Economics » ACORN Story Gets Curiouser and Curiouser06 Oct 2009 08:32 am
The "few bad apples" theory of ACORN takes another body blow:
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Am I reading this right,
"Current high-ranking members of ACORN have publicly acknowledged that embezzlement did in fact occur, but the exact amount of the embezzlement was unknown until it was recently acknowledged in a board of directors meeting on Oct. 17, 2008, by Bertha Lewis and Liz Wolf that an internal review had determined that the amount embezzled was $5 million, " the new subpoena says."
and then....
"ACORN board member Vanessa Gueringer, chairwoman of the Lower 9th Ward Chapter, said she had not seen the subpoena but that the accusation about the larger embezzlement was untrue.
"I believe it is another lie, another witch hunt, " Gueringer said."
I could be wrong, but in publicly traded companies this sort of behaviour would be grounds for a board dismissal, would it not?
....
Also, check out some of the recent discoveries regarding the tie-in with the SEIU and ACORN (i.e. SEIU leaders having acorn.org e-mail addresses for their official roles).
I'm really impressed this agency has spread as far as it is within our government and "people representative" movements, and also that it could come crossing down from from simple investigative journalism.
Joe
"I could be wrong, but in publicly traded companies this sort of behaviour would be grounds for a board dismissal, would it not?"
The CEO of an American publicly-traded company would be frog-marched to federal court and prosecuted under Sarbanes-Oxley -- which curiously doesn't apply to government (the worst accounting abuse), large nonprofits, or unions.
Funny thing about Witch Hunts: if you actually do have witches, witch hunts are the right course of action...
Plainly, the only sensible course of action is to weigh ACORN's Board. If any of them weigh as much as a duck, you have a witch.
Republicans say the 10-year-old skeleton in ACORN's closet is 5 times bigger than was thought. ACORN denies it. Without actual evidence, we have excellent reasons to disbelieve either side. Let the investigation proceed, and meanwhile, let's not jump to uninformed conclusions either way.
What are the excellent reasons to disbelieve the Louisiana Attorney General?
@ Shelby:
What are the excellent reasons
to disbelieve the Louisiana Attorney General?
Louisiana is the most corrupt state in the Union.
This is proven by the state government's behavior
after Katrina; Its incompetence was proven by its
behavior before and during.
The statement is probably true, but the AG's motives
are suspect: Damage control, diversion, discrediting
future testimony of ACORN officials as to unindicted
co-conspirators.
Generalized suspicion of government is fine, but I'd want more than that before saying it's "an excellent reason to disbelieve" a specific person. I've not heard of Caldwell before, but I'm sure there are many members of the state government who are neither corrupt nor inept, and I know of no reason why Caldwell should not be presumed one of them.
Actually, and I can't find it right now, since Jindal has been in charge Louisiana has moved into the top 10 in least corruption as a state. There was an Atlantic blog on it several months ago. If anyone has the link, it would be appreciated.
You mean James D. Caldwell, the DEMOCRATIC AG of Louisiana? That "Republican"?
After all he's the "Republican" that discovered the $5 Million coverup.
"I believe it is another lie, another witch hunt, " Gueringer said.
Another "witch hunt" like a few weeks ago when about 10 of your agents were caught on vido tapes adising a whore and a pimp to commit income tax fraud?
So how does getting busted red handed and then admitting fault constitute a "witch hunt"?
That the Acorn board is talking in terms of "witch hunts" at this point is an admission that they are the witches. They feel a sense of entitlement to your tax dollars and want to continue to get at your money unimpeaded by notions of right and wrong.
That they take our tax money-- 45 million from the federal government alone-- and then instruct crooks on how to cheat on their taxes, shows that Acorn is like a smart bomb targetted at law abiding citizens who do pay their taxes.
The purpose of Acorn is simply to undermine our faith in democracy. Judging by the individuals who initiated it, that much was always clear. Now the proof is in the pudding.
This "organization" is a fraud with no purpose now its nature has been exposed.
Look if you go out dressed like it's halloween and start hassling people at work, you'll probably get messed with too. Really -- go out dressed like that and see who takes you seriously.
I'm trying to figure out what the "proper" response of ACORN staff would have been in this case. Some young white kids who are obviously putting you on come into an office and start talking openly about committing crimes. Do you want them to waste police time and resources by calling the police to investigate this criminal conspiracy? Should the ACORN staff have laughed in their face? I really can't answer as to how I would have acted in such a case. The way those kids were dressed I would probably have assumed it was a prank and played along. To believe you would do otherwise is kind of laughable.
I just can't take this nonsense any more seriously than Michael Moore's stunts. It's the same basic MO and same basic purpose: let's use video of other people as a prop in a political argument. Our goals are more important than the people we might hurt so no matter what our actions are they're OK. The worst part is now that both sides have openly advocated for this sort of tactic, it's going to be an even bigger part of the political scene. I wonder how long before liberal activists start surreptitiously filming conversations with NRA activists and using that as "evidence" the NRA is helping to run guns illegally? You can always find at least one idiot in a large national organization who will make your point for you -- that's how Colbert and Stewart made their money for a long time.
Just realize every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I don't think that going after ACORN is worth turning every bit of political organizing into a big game of gotcha is worth it. The American people are already turned off enough about politics.
If someone asks you to aid their criminal conspiracy, you tell them to get out.
No "playing along".
As to how soon anti-gun activists will start trying to find NRA activists to help run guns - Michael Moore called and he's very disappointed that you haven't seen his magisterial take down of America's violent obsession with guns, "Bowling for Columbine"... It did come out in 2002, after all!
If you're going to concern troll, don't be so obviously ignorant, it'll work better.
I don't remember Moore doing any hidden camera bits in NRA offices during Bowling for Columbine, but it has been a good long time since I saw the film. As to "concern trolling," I am actually concerned about whether doing gotcha hidden camera nonsense is a good way to conduct our political journalism. I don't believe I made any comment that I was a follow ideological traveller with you so you kind of miss the definition of concern trolling in my book. I'm a liberal and don't see any reason to hide my ideological bent. But my ideological bent has nothing to do with my concern for how the business of politics is done in this country.
I've been involved in political organizing since shortly after I turned 8. I was handing out brochures for Tom Davis out in front of my local supermarket. To think how far things have fallen since then is truly discouraging. Back then I remember my father being best friends with a conservative and having civil discussions about politics. Now it's reduced to name-calling and absurdity. Again, if that's where you want politics in this country to go: MORE POWER TO YOU. I just don't see how we'll ever do anything about any of the issues that face us as a country.
I find it particularly interesting that it is conservatives who are now engaging in radical political action without a thought to its consequences. That seems to me to be complete refutation of the stated conservative ideology. But hey, what do I know -- I'm just a dumb liberal, right?
Acorn is certainly getting a lot of bad headlines now that its past is finally coming to light. One of Barack Obama's few credentials was as an Acorn community organizer. More then a little concerned here with the background of our president.
Obama wasn't a community organizer for ACORN:
"Mr. Davis said Mr. Obama had worked as Acorn’s lawyer and conducted training events for its leaders. He also noted a payment the Obama campaign made in February to an Acorn affiliate, Citizens Services Inc. While Mr. Obama did represent Acorn in a lawsuit in 1995, Acorn was on the same side as the Justice Department. The training events involved two hours of work. And the payment to the Acorn affiliate was reported in campaign filings, although they had to be revised because of an error." NY Times
I have no interest in defending ACORN. Prosecute anyone who broke the law and don't give them a dime of federal, state or local tax dollars, but stick with facts.
I'd like to see a link for this. I don't think it's true.
@ Nimed:
I recall seeing the specifics during the election but do not have all the details at my finger tips. Here's a summary of what a very brief internet search yielded:
* Obama ran Illinois Project Vote in 1992. Obama's work experience
* Project Vote is controlled by ACORN: "Officially Project Vote and ACORN are two separate legal entities, Project Vote representing itself as an "ACORN affiliate". Project Vote is registered as a 501(c)(iii) tax-exempt non-profit organization. As such, they are prohibited from engaging in political activities. ACORN, on the other hand is registered as a non-profit Louisiana membership corporation, which is subject to taxation. Project Vote hires ACORN to run its voter registration drives. ACORN is supposed to not engage in partisan activities while working on Project Vote drives. However, as the New York times has reported, suspicions have been raised as to the nature of the relationship of the two organizations. Until the ACORN embezzlement scandal broke in 2008, all of the board members of Project Vote were either members or staff of ACORN. Similarly, Project Vote either never held board meetings as required, didn't kept minutes of board meetings, or didn't file the minutes of board meetings, as required under Federal law. Lastly several people listed as board members of Project Vote, who were members of ACORN, did not even know that they were on the Board. All of these facts has raised questions as to whether Project Vote is an separate organization, or whether it is an altar ego of ACORN." Ballot Pedia [Internal citations omitted. Emphasis added.]
Again, saying Obama worked for ACORN may be technically inaccurate. It is in now way misleading. He worked for an affiliate of ACORN.
Sorry for the screwed up HTML. Here are the links I tried to insert above:
Obama's work experience:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/mar/07/obamas-20-years-experience/
Relationship between Project Vote and ACORN:
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/ACORN_and_Barack_Obama
David, thanks for that. Barack Obama did run Project Vote, and Project Vote coordinated voter registration campaigns with ACORN. I don't believe it's accurate to say that Project Vote is an ACORN affiliate, much less that it's effectively controlled by ACORN.
More to the point, the dates don't match. Obama himself, while running Project Vote, didn't cooperate with ACORN. From Wikipedia:
Obama was in Project Vote from April to October 92, and was a lecturer in the University of Chicago from 92 to 96. Project Vote began to coordinate with ACORN in 94.
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t Obama’s political career launched because he was part of (or lead) a major voter registration effort that netted tens of thousands of new registered “voters”?
Given Obama’s long and intimate involvement with ACORN I wonder what would happen if someone were to get a hold of a copy of the new “voter” registration list to find out how many of those names were actual legitimate voters.
People afraid of witch hunts should probably refrain from flying around on broomsticks.
Thorley Winston for the win.
Well put. It's akin to MoveOn folks dressing in Che shirts, sporting hammer & sickle and singing The Internationale, then complaining about "McCarthyism" when they're exposed.
There is left wing commentary about how this is like before the assassination of Rabin (like in Dallas I'm supposed to know what that was like). This anytime there is a conflict 'the fault is on you' from the left as revealed in this Acorn person's angry statement or in Obama's comments about what 'he isn't going to tolerate in the health care debate' reminds us that you don't need to be Jewish to find meshuganehs.
"another lie", just like the child prostitution thing eh?
how this is like before the assassination of Rabin (like in Dallas I'm supposed to know what that was like)
Certain convertible on its way west along the Elm street? :-P
You know the funny thing about that is that Oswald was in a cross current. You had some bully boy belligerence here about the Catholic dandy Kennedy. Oswald however picked up on the dandy's theatrics about the 'missile gap, go anywhere, pay any price' anticommunism and thought it was other than just a gig Kennedy did to amuse the locals. He thus fired at Kennedy as he had earlier fired and just missed at the anticommunist ex-Korean war general Walker in Dallas.
jjhare:
Sounds like child abuse to me. No wonder your perspective on all this is so far off...
What's truly amazing to me is that a corrupt, two-bit organization like ACORN--staffed by hoods, thugs and idiots and run by embezzling crooks--was able to threaten and often succeed in bullying large banks to extend what turned out to be billions in bad loans they knew would fail.
Now to see what that money went for is truly sickening.
And the trail leads straight to the White House and its current occupants.
Not that anyone's making that connection, of course.