The ACORN Scandal: A look back

All of the hyper-partisan hate-mongering Republican racist board hall monitors on here will sweep this under the rug and delete the thread. You're right though.

That was written by ACORN supporters no doubt. If those two investigators did something wrong then why did ACORN back out of their lawsuit? They could have easily demanded the entire raw videos?

Why?

Why?

Why?

ACORN has been in the center of voter registration fraud for 20 years. They should have been disbanded years ago.

GOOD RIDDANCE.

Investigation by the Congressional Research Service

On December 22, 2009, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report commissioned by the House Judiciary Committee which stated that ACORN has not violated any federal regulations the past five years. Some of the findings in the CRS report included: There were no instances of voter fraud by individuals who were allegedly registered to vote improperly by ACORN or its employees; No instances where ACORN violated terms of federal funding in the last 5 years. The CRS also determined that O'Keefe and Giles may have violated Maryland and California laws banning the recording of conversations without consent.

Investigation by New York attorney general

The New York Attorney General began an investigation on September 15, 2009 to ensure that state grants given to ACORN were properly spent.[104][105] The New York City Council suspended all ACORN grants while the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office conducted an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the videos.[106] On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited"[15] and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office.

Investigation by the US Government Accountability Office

On June 14, 2010, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings which showed that the now-disbanded community organizing group ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any of the $40 million in federal money which they had received in recent years.

By April 1, 2010, the attorney general's office had completed its investigation and Brown announced its findings. O'Keefe and Giles received immunity from prosecution in exchange for providing three full, unedited videotapes.[3] Brown noted that the terms of the exchange did not exempt O'Keefe or Giles from being sued by the ACORN members filmed in the videos.[3] Citing the 1967 Invasion of Privacy Act, Brown's report stated that "an application of these principles to the facts presented here strongly suggests that O'Keefe and Giles violated state privacy laws and provides fair warning to them and others that this type of activity can be prosecuted in California".[3] Brown also cited O'Keefe for working with the specific intent of damaging ACORN, and not acting as a truly objective journalist reporting a story.[3] In his report on the investigation, Brown stated, "The video releases were heavily edited to feature only the worst or most inappropriate statements of the various ACORN employees and to omit some of the most salient statements by O'Keefe and Giles. Each of the ACORN employees recorded in California was a low level employee whose job was to help the needy individuals who walked in the door seeking assistance. Giles and O'Keefe lied to engender compassion, but then edited their statements from the released videos."[3] For instance, a much-publicized recording of a visit to the San Diego office, in which an employee is purportedly seeking information to help smuggle underage girls from Mexico into the United States to work as prostitutes, did not mention that the employee's 'contact' in Mexico was actually a police official. The employee collected as much specific information as possible, then contacted Mexican police, warning them of the plot.[109] Brown stated, "ACORN was not the criminal enterprise described by O'Keefe in his 'Chaos for Glory' statement – it did not receive billions in federal funds and did not control elections. ACORN is, however, disorganized and its operations were far from transparent, leaving it vulnerable to allegations of illegal activity and misuse of funds."[3] Brown also said that despite appearing in the publicized videos as a "1970s Superfly pimp ... n his actual taped sessions with ACORN workers, he was dressed in a shirt and tie, presented himself as a law student, and said he planned to use the prostitution proceeds to run for Congress. He never claimed he was a pimp."[3]

Were they a perfect organization? No, far from it. But I bet if you looked into every charity in the US or every Fortune 500 company, you could find similar failures. You can find dirt of everyone, and in this case, they found very very little, and none related to the scandal.