Document drop: The truth about ObamACORN
(Photo source: 2008 ACORN slideshow presentation)
They thought it would go away. They were wrong. Obama and the Left thought ACORN’s scandalous racket was a dead issue. But whistleblowers, investigative bloggers, and talk radio continue to press for transparency and taxpayer accountability. Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King has renewed efforts for congressional hearings into the financial structure of the massive, publicly subsidized activist group and its non-profit affiliates. Judicial Watch sheds light on ACORN’s partnership with the Census. Keep an eye on ACORN’s propaganda role in the Obama push for a government health care takeover. And Glenn Beck spotlights the left-wing strategy session to rescue ACORN.
My column today returns to one of the Obama campaign’s big lies — that Barack Obama “never organized with ACORN” and that ACORN had nothing to do with Project Vote. They were joined at the hip back then and they remain joined at the hip today.
Here’s the text of e-mails from ACORN and affiliate staffers patting themselves on the back for their role in Obama’s voter registration drive (click here for the original). Note the addressees, including Frances Piven. Yes, that Frances Piven:
From: Kevin Whelan [specialprojects@citizensservices.org]
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 10:54 PM
To: mslater@igc.org; ‘Sanford Newman’; poldirect@acorn.org; ‘Frances Piven’; lcm25@columbia.edu
Cc: ‘Sarah Massey’; nhendersonjames@projectvote.org; kgillette@projectvote.org; ‘Michael McDunnah’
Subject: RE: Obama’s Voter-registration Drive
Follow Up Flag: Follow up
Flag Status: Red
This is great! Good work everyone!
Kevin
——————————————————————————–
From: Michael Slater [mailto:mslater@igc.org]
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 8:39 PM
To: ‘Sanford Newman’; poldirect@acorn.org; ‘Kevin Whelan’; ‘Frances Piven’; lcm25@columbia.edu
Cc: ‘Sarah Massey’; nhendersonjames@projectvote.org; kgillette@projectvote.org; ‘Michael McDunnah’
Subject: Obama’s Voter-registration Drive
Importance: High
Some fine quotes from liberal lawyer Sandy Newman and academic and activist Francis Fox Piven: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080901/hayes
Find it on news stands now.
It’s the coordinated corruption, stupid. And if the GOP doesn’t start fighting back, the consequences will be permanent.
***
The truth about ObamACORN
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009
Left-wing groups in Washington, D.C., are panicked. The New York Times and other Team Obama whitewashers have tried hard to suppress mounting evidence of legally suspect coordination between the Obama presidential campaign, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), and Obama’s old employer Project Vote (ACORN’s non-profit canvassing arm). Alas, the truth keeps seeping out.
At a closed-door pow-wow hosted Thursday at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, activists discussed how to combat a relentless stream of corruption charges from ACORN/Project Vote whistleblowers. But it’s too late for a reputation bailout. Former Project Vote official and whistleblower Anita MonCrief has harnessed the Internet to crowd-source a massive cache of documents showing ties between Obama staff and the supposedly “non-partisan” ACORN operations.
Last fall, the New York Times abandoned an investigation into whether Obama had shared donor lists with Project Vote, a 501(c)(3) organization that is prohibited from engaging in political activity. Public editor Clark Hoyt earlier this month called it “the tip that didn’t pan out.” Critics suggested that the donor lists could have been compiled through public records. But I have obtained the lists — not only of Obama donors, but also lists of Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry contributors. The records include small donors to the Obama campaign who are not disclosed in public campaign finance databases. It’s information only a campaign could supply.
MonCrief testified under oath last fall that her then-boss, Karyn Gillette, gave her the Obama donor list and told her the campaign had furnished it. Moreover, e-mail between ACORN, Project Vote, and other affiliates, including ACORN’s subsidiary, Citizens Services, Inc. (CSI), make explicit references to working on “Obama campaign related projects.” [Click here for the e-mail.] The “list of maxed out Obama donors” is explicitly mentioned in staff e-mail. [Click here for the e-mail.] Another message from ACORN/Project Vote official Nathan Henderson-James warns ACORN and affiliated staff to prepare for “conservatives…gearing up a major oppo research project on Obama.”
Henderson-James wrote obligatorily, “Understand I’m not suggesting that we gear up to defend a candidate’s campaign.” But that, of course, is exactly what the ACORN enterprise did.
Text of full e-mail [click here for original]:
From: Nathan Henderson-James [sworddirect@citizensservices.org]
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 5:09 PM
To: ‘Zach Polett’; ‘mslater@igc.org’; Kevin Whelan (specialprojects@citizensservices.org)
Cc: Karyn Gillette; ‘communications@acorn.org’; Nordette Adams
Subject: Oppo Research On ObamaFolks,
The attached link goes to a story on TPM Muckraker that says that conservatives are gearing up a major oppo research project on Obama.
We should prepare for this information being used to tie Obama to the bogus voter fraud charges leveled against PV and ACORN from the last two election cycles. It may or may not gain traction, it may or may not be chosen as a way of attacking him, but I think we cannot afford to ignore the possibility and plan what our response(s) might be (if any).
Understand I’m not suggesting that we gear up to defend a candidateís campaign, but prepare for the scrutiny and possible ancillary attacks that will come our way because of this.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/tabula_rasa.php
Nathan
—–Nathan Henderson-James
Director, Strategic Writing and Research Department
Citizens’ Services, Inc.
3655 S. Grand Ave #250
Los Angeles, CA 90007
213-747-7202 phone, 213-747-4221 fax, 510-213-1970 cell
sworddirect@citzensservices.org www.citizensservices.org
Why does this matter? Transparency, tax dollars, and electoral integrity. ACORN’s own lawyer, Elizabeth Kingsley, acknowledged last year that a vast web of tax-exempt ACORN affiliates were shuffling money around – making it difficult to impossible to track whether campaign rules and tax regulations were being followed. ACORN receives 40 percent of its revenues from taxpayers. Americans deserve to know whether and how much commingling of public money with political projects has occurred over the last four decades – and what role the Obama campaign played in this enterprise.
Remember: Last August, the Obama team admitted its failure to properly disclose $800,000 in payments to ACORN’s subsidiary, CSI – which works hand-in-hand with Project Vote and the ACORN parent organization. Obama mysteriously re-classified the campaign advance work expenditures as “get-out-the-vote” activities. Nary a peep from electoral integrity watchdogs.
Despite heated denials from Team Obama, the links between ACORN, Project Vote, and CSI are inextricable. As Obama himself reminded ACORN leaders after its political action committee endorsed his presidential candidacy in February 2008:
I come out of a grassroots organizing background. That’s what I did for three and half years before I went to law school. That’s the reason I moved to Chicago was to organize. So this is something that I know personally, the work you do, the importance of it. I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.
As I’ve reported before, the Obama campaign’s “Vote for Change” registration drive, running in conjunction with ACORN/Project Vote, was an all-out scramble to scrape up every last unregistered voter sympathetic to Obama’s big-government vision.
In an e-mail message to whistleblower MonCrief last summer, New York Times reporter Stephanie Strom told the truth: “The real story to all this is how these myriad entities allow them to shuffle money around so much that no one really knows what’s getting spent on what.” By October 6, 2008, Strom had thrown in the towel in the wake of blistering phone conversations with the Obama campaign. She wrote:
“I’m calling a halt to my efforts. I just had two unpleasant calls with the Obama campaign, wherein the spokesman was screaming and yelling and cursing me, calling me a rightwing nut and a conspiracy theorist and everything else…I’d still like to get that file from you when you have a chance to send it. One of these days, the truth is going to come out.”
It’s only just begun.
***
Yesterday, I posted a few of the e-mails between NYTimes Stephanie Strom and ACORN/Project Vote whistleblower Anita MonCrief. You can download the entire series of message by clicking here. Mike Gaynor has transcriptions of several of the message here, including:
1. “I’m a little miffed with the funders, too. They have to be aware that the grants they make to c(3)s like Project Vote are being funneled to Acorn, which, whether c(4) or simply nonprofit corporation under state law, they aren’t supposed to give money to. ” July 10, 2008 8:18:52 PM
2. “I really want to see 1024 Elysian Fields in New Orleans. It’s the official ‘home’ of something like 50-plus Acorn related entities. The real story to all this is how these myriad entities allow them to shuffle money around so much that no one really knows what’s getting spent on what — and for the charities like the housing orgs, that’s a problem. Charitable money cannot be spent on political activities. It’s a big no-no that can cost organizations their exemptions. July 31, 2008 5:17:49
“When you say the DC Local waives the credit report charges if clients sign up for bank drafts with ACORN, do you mean ACORN actually runs a banking services organization? That would be news to me. The rumor I’ve heard about the chief organizer’s fund is that this is what the Rathkes have used to ‘repay’ Acorn and the two charities that Dale embezzled from. It’s a huge slush bucket controlled by Wade and Maude Hurd, no one else.” July 31, 2008 5:17:49 PM
3. “You are a gold mine! = ).” July 31, 2008 6:06:26 PM
4. “Thanks so much for this. I’m getting a clear picture of what went down last week with the fund raising letter and their scramble to get money somewhere, anyway, in response to my questions. Why not just say they’re having trouble? So are lots of nonprofit groups right now, even those that arent connected to a scandal of any sort. Sometimes the cover up is worse than what’s being covered up.” August 3, 2008 11:51:15 AM
5. “I’m a bit worried about reaching out to Amy if she’s in the process of rejoining Acorn. Doesn’t that mean she’s drunkt the Koolaid?” August 4, 2008 1:40:52
6. “I don’t need to ‘out’ the member who was intimidated. I basically just need her to confirm what I’ve been told. I can then recount the incident as if I know it to be fact.” September 4, 2008 8:59:59 PM
7. “Am also onto the Obama connection, sadly. Would love the donor lists. As for helping the Repubs, they’re already onto this like white on rice. SIGH.” September 7, 2008 1:59 PM
8.”Separately, I’m wondering whether you can give me any more details about the Nov. 2007 meeting with the Obama camp. Where did it take place? Who was involved? Any details would help.” September 12, 2008 3:57 PM
9. “You’re the best. If we could get the names of two or three people who were either sacked or forced out on suspicion of having passed information to me, that would clearly demonstrate the lie.
“What a mess.” September 13, 2008 9:43 AM
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Trackbacks
- Folks, the ACORN Fraud is Unraveling… « The Harrington Report
- Document drop: The truth about ObamACORN - Jesse's Hunting & Outdoors Forum
- Camelot devotees make very poor investigative reporters: will the press ever hold Obama accountable? « Jim Blazsik
- Obama To Name New Cyber Czar [Dan Collins]
- Frugal Café Blog Zone » NY Times/ACORN Investigation Continues — What Stephanie Strom Knew about Obama Before Election
- Community Organizer Obama, on Health Care: Go Forth Door-to-Door, Two-by-Two, and Convert the Unbelievers « Quick Daily Hits — Politics and Such
- Taking On The ACORN Goliath « Justbkuz
- Obama and ACORN exposed! The truth about ObamACORN | Fire Andrea Mitchell!
- The Goddess Vents! | The American Freedom Network
- ObamACORN: “Coordinated Corruption” « Gunservatively!
- ACORN Is A Criminal Enterprise « Nice Deb
- ACORN Or Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now–Good Intentioned People Lead By Criminal Organizers–Demand A Special Prosecutor To Investigate!–Videos « Pronk Palisades
- Ignorance is Bliss OR Obama Learns About the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency…
- Michelle Malkin on ACORN/Obama ties - osmoothie
- Random Thoughts » Document drop: The truth about ObamACORN
- Obama Appoints Big Donors as Ambassadors – Pay To Play? – Change you can count on? « Goodtimepolitics
- The truth about Obama and ACORN is Out! « Goodtimepolitics
- Dinocrat » Blog Archive » Snapshots of community organizing
- Anonymous
- Are We Lumberjacks?
- Saturday Afternoon - I WON! - No Laundry Time , An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings
- Cnation’s Picks for 5/30/2009 : Conservative Nation
- Ms Placed Democrat » Obama and False FEC Filings: ACORN and Citizens Services Inc.!
- Steynian 360 « Free Canuckistan!
- Michelle Malkin » Project Vote sues whistleblower: ObamACORN bully tactics exposed
- Wizbang
- ACORN sues whistleblower for exposing their secrets « Wintery Knight Blog
- Project Vote Sues Whistleblower: ObamACORN Bully Tactics Exposed « Count Us Out
- Michelle Malkin » Going on offense against the ACORN conspiracy
- Census Bureau Cuts Ties To ACORN……. « Romanticpoet’s Weblog
- Michelle Malkin » Pray for the Inspector Generals probing ACORN
- Gazzer’s Gabfest » More ACORN truths
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Marc,
Interesting story. I think it goes to show that the rank and file ACORN members are basically decent folks being duped by their “leaders”
Michelle,
I certainly hope you win some sort of journalistic award for this. (Although that might be considered as a slap in the face but it’s not intended to be.)
Be safe Michelle. You need to get a remote car starter and a food taster.
Not yet.
Our opposition will satisfy itself with assassinating her character.
More.
That’s my problem. On the one hand, it sounds like there is something illegal here. On the other hand,there seems to be no big deal, nothing interesting, nothing major. Unless there is something big, the MSM will gloss over it and it will die.
Did Nancy Pelosi get asked about her accusation of the CIA lying today? That should be a big deal but no.. it’s over. Nothing to see here. Move along. Incredible. How could we get to this point? What about the cries of corruption? Were they all false political hit pieces?
Stupendous job, Michelle!
Shocka!
Acorn will commit fraud when conducting the 2010 census. they will overcount and undercount. a fraudulent map of the united states is about to be drawn up! someone is looking to reshape america!
Any questions where BHO is leading us? The Russians and Pravda know:
American capitalism gone with a whimper
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-0/
So do the Chinese, and with around 3 trillion of our debt, they ain’t happy.
Piven. Oh, attack the institutions until they don’t work properly. Still doing it today with voters.
Like any good strategy, it’s only good until someone see’s what they are doing and implements strategies to counter it. Then they have to come up with a counter to the counter. Where is the counter strategy for voter fraud? How about prosecution including financiers?
George Soros money seems to be funding this current round of fraud, deceit, and crisis. Lets expose him. Oh, we can’t even get to Nancy Pelosi or Murtha, or Jefferson, or Sandy Burglar or Black Panthers. How depressing. However, I think they underestimate our resilence just as the Taliban has.
Glenn Beck vs ACORN
Sorry, I’m more concerned with why the WH and Pentagon are lying and saying these pics didn’t exist:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-29/torture-photos-depict-sex-rape/
Remember all those thousands of small, untracable, donations to Obama thru his website where they deliberately disabled the credit card checks? The hundreds of millions of dollars which the Obama campaign deliberately made untracable?
Connect the dots.
Communist lies and liars — as usual.
So … how can I get a copy of the slide show?
here in my precinct during the Primary Caucus (after the primary)- that weird thing where the democrat candidates could get more votes- the Democrat and Republicans met at the same school and the Obama supporters tried to keep me from going to my Rep. caucus (Republicans were not voting on anyone but on issues and signing up for district caucus)- by blocking my way into a certain room- I thought it was a legitamate blocking and I stood in their line for over an hour ( thy had over 500 people there- by the way- more than half with out ANY PROOF of VOTING in that precinct or any precinct- big line with no voter card)I got in the small room (it was a fire hazard by then I think- over capacity by about200) and realized inthe wrong place (there were about 3 of us republicans) and we finally got some information from this nice lady in the front and just barely made it to our own caucus) Also at this democrat caucus there was this AFrican American Man that was screaming at everyone that he was going to tell them what to do and for them to all shut-up- sort of like a 3rd world election I guess- scary…Wonder if that was Acorn’s doing? I reported the whole thing to Secretary of state of Texas and also to Republican party- and the said to report to Democrat Party- that is when I realized that primary and primary caucus can be easily run by crooks and liars…..no laws governing I guess..that explainsthe results I guess
by the way Hillary supporters were upset over that caucus and a lot voted straight ticket for McCain over this…interesting
Don’t you get a whiff of Chicago whenever the underpinnings of Barry’s election is revealed. Whether Porkulus, the FCC diversity measure, Acorn, the “NEW” Black Panthers, the protection of contributors auto dealerships, and a host of other nefarious “change” initiatives, they all have that stench of corruption that is associate with Chicago politics.
Then again there is the decided odor that is associated with George Soros.–hard to tell the differnce
Hah! We will have a loooooong wait if we are to let Timmy or the rest of the Obama team do the investigation. Why would they bother? They knew the depth of corruption in ACORN. It has grown hardy and entrenched as the mightiest OAK.
Let us all do our part. Be observant, do your own sleuthing, and reporting! Or bring your report to someone who could give it the best airing.
That Black Panther intimidation tactic was scary…but, they really couldn’t do anything to anyone. All they could do is stand there and look mean. They were in a public place with people coming and going. So what were they going to do? If they try this again, and it is a public place, are we going to allow them to get away with it? Or will be stand up to them? I know these are brave-sounding words, but I guarantee it…if this happens to me, I WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED. That cracker remark was just meant to be answered. Like, “What did you just say? No one rules me…No one! The President serves US, we elect him and he is our servant.” I would also say something about the “cracker” comment…perhaps call the moron a racist or something. What could he do…hit me with that stick? Maybe. But the lawsuit I would bring would be worth it.
I should have posted this on the Panther thread. Sorry.
But don’t you remember the charges of voter intimidation out of Florida, stemming from the fact that police cars could be seen on the roads? Not concentrated in front of polling places, but out on patrols.
MM is getting worse. The document in this supposed “document drop” is an email from one wingnut to another.
And thank goodness Obama is defunding abstinence only sex education, which was a front for wingnut disinformation pretending to be sex education.
zero is most comfortable when in his element, surrounded by cheats, corruption, and all around sewer dwellers.
I saw an article yesterday where some left wing group is going after a church claiming they should lose their non-profit status. The group is complaining to the IRS.
The left is willing to push their complaints as hard as they need to, to destroy whatever they are after, even if there is no evidence of wrong-doing.
The right, complains, and does nothing.
Problem with this bunch in DC is that if a group did push a complaint to the IRS over ACORN, every member of that group would be audited yearly by the IRS.
Just a co-winky-dink I’m sure.
That’s what I have been thinking of as well.
I thought Congress conducted several investigations into this (voter intimidation by the cops in Floriduh), and quietly dropped the issue several months after Bush was elected.
Wasn’t there also some whining about intimidation in the “Haitian” community?
Get someone to read them to you idiot since you obviously cannot read for yourself.
Check out who these emails were addressed to.
As for Sex Ed, better to have the local gay activist group teaching little Johnny and Suzie right?
On May 30th, 2009 at 11:20 am, lgm said:
LGM, it’s just a matter of time before the indictments are handed down against ACORN – are you sure you want to continue with this inexplicable support you seem bent on displaying for that corrupt organization?
I mean, I know you just do it as a means of being contrary to MM, but for the sake of your own credibility, wouldn’t it be smart to leave yourself some sort of an out?
Whoa! Talk about out of the blue – that attempt at distraction is just plain silly!
DBNinKY-did you gust say lgm is just plain silly? As it Silly Putty, Fruit Loops and such? I must admit the Lad from Neverland does hang around Far Left Field.
Boat.
Sailed.
LOOOONNNNGGGGG ago.
Great work Michelle.
I fear the hapless GOP is lost in space. It will be 40 years before they get back to Earth. By then they will be 39 years too late.
ACORN – burn.the.down.to.the.ground.
What is amazing to me is that acorn appears to only have 400,000 members. That is the figure cited by the acorn rep that was on O’Reilly Thursday. That is barely over 0.1% of our over all population, yet they get MILLIONS in tax money in grants? They influence the outcome of elections through voter registration fraud? Amazing. Scarey and Amazing.
What happened to the story about ACORN reps handing out cocaine to dopers for filling out voter registrations already marked for the Dems? This was way back last summer…several items actually ran in our papers then, but nothing ever came of it. I don’t get the silence from the GOP about the shenanigans of ACORN and its get-out-the-vote groups. Watched Beck on Saturday who had a good report on ACORN.
Do I remember correctly that last week Eric Holder said the emphasis of the DOJ under his watch will be hate (thought) crimes? that’ll tie in nicely over the next year with Obama’s minions denouncing any stated concerns about the ACORN, voter registration fraud, the Census, immigration reform, etc. as racism. If it isn’t praise, then it is hate in our brave new world…