Thread: ACORN Can Receive Pending Fed. Pymnts., Justice Dept. Says

Updated November 28, 2009

ACORN Can Receive Pending Federal Payments, Justice Department Says

FOXNews.com

The Obama administration can legally pay the embattled community organizing group ACORN for services performed under contracts before Congress banned the government from providing money to the group, the Justice Department has declared.


The Obama administration legally can pay the embattled community organizing group ACORN for services performed under contracts approved before Congress banned the government from providing money to the group, the Justice Department has declared.

David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote in a memo last month that the ban "should not be read as directing or authorizing HUD to breach a pre-existing binding contractual obligation to make payments to ACORN or its affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations where doing so would give rise to contractual liability."

Click here to read the memorandum.
http://www.justice.gov/olc/2009/obligat ... w11168.pdf

Republicans quickly blasted the ruling that was made public Friday.

"The bipartisan intent of Congress was clear -- no more federal dollars should flow to ACORN," said Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

"It is telling that this administration continues to look for every excuse possible to circumvent the intent of Congress," the California Republican said in a written statement. "Taxpayers should not have to continue subsidizing a criminal enterprise that helped Barack Obama get elected president."

"The politicization of the Justice Department to pay back one of the president's political allies is shameful and amounts to nothing more than old-fashioned cronyism," he added.

The federal government has poured about $53 million into The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now since 1994, mostly in grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for affordable housing services.

But the group has been brought to its knees in recent months following the release of undercover videos showing a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute receiving advice from ACORN employees on how to skirt tax laws and acquire illegal home loans to establish a brothel that could house underage girls who illegally crossed the border.

Footage showed staffers advising the "pimp" and "prostitute" on how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 "very young" girls from El Salvador that the pair said they wanted to bring to the country to work as child prostitutes. The videos set off a firestorm in Congress.

ACORN pledged an internal inquiry and fired the staffers who were caught on tape, but it was only the latest of many legal troubles for the group.

Republicans led the charge to ban all federal funding to the group as the Obama administration quickly distanced itself from the group.

ACORN has fought back, filing a lawsuit against the government in an attempt to regain the millions of dollars in funding Congress voted to block after the undercover videos were released in September.

The suit charges Congress with violating the Constitution when it passed legislation in September that specifically targeted ACORN to lose federal housing, education and transportation funds.

ACORN claims it has been badly hurt by the congressional actions and has had to fire workers and close some of its 1,200 branches around the country.

Though it remains unclear precisely how much money the national organization was receiving from federal sources and aid programs, a lawyer pressing the suit said ACORN has already lost an amount "in the millions" since the freeze took effect.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11 ... ment-says/

Republican blasts ACORN reprieve

Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor November 27, 2009 04:34 PM

A top House Republican today blasted a ruling by the Justice Department that allows the Obama administration to pay ACORN for services provided under contracts signed before Congress passed a law banning the community advocacy group from receiving taxpayers money.

Republicans have been on the warpath against ACORN since its voter registration efforts came under scrutiny during the 2008 presidential campaign. After conservative activists, who posed as a prostitute and pimp, released videos appearing to show ACORN staffers advising them how to skirt the law, Democrats joined in the outrage, leading to the congressional funding ban that Obama signed on Oct. 1.

Since 1994, ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has received about $53 million in federal aid, much of it in grants to help poor people obtain affordable housing. The Justice Department asked whether the funding ban applied to prior contracts. In a ruling first reported by the New York Times, a department lawyer said the payments under prior contracts should continue because the language of the law did not expressly wipe them out.

But Representative Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said "the bipartisan intent of Congress was clear -- no more federal dollars should flow to ACORN."

"It is telling that this administration continues to look for every excuse possible to circumvent the intent of Congress," Issa said in a statement. "Taxpayers should not have to continue subsidizing a criminal enterprise that helped Barack Obama get elected president. The politicization of the Justice Department to payback one of the president’s political allies is shameful and amounts to nothing more than old-fashioned cronyism."

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/pol ... _blas.html


From Congressman Issa's official Website:

Rep. Issa Takes Action on ACORN
http://issa.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAct ... 072e48541a

Includes -

July 24, 2009 -- REPORT: Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As a Criminal Enterprise?
http://issa.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAct ... =&x=75&y=8

I hope the States start suceeding from the Union and make the federal gov't pay for their own criminal organizations like Acorn.

Absolutely, this Justice Dept. is more consumed with politics than justice. The decision to have the trial for KSM in NY in civil court is heinous. As is the decision to keep paying an apparently-proven corrupt organization with precious taxpayer dollars. But I suppose votes are more important than the American taxpayers.

Justice Department Says Acorn Can Be Paid for Pre-Ban Contracts

By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: November 27, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress banned the government from providing money to the group.

The department’s conclusion, laid out in a recently disclosed five-page memorandum from David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, adds a new wrinkle to a sharp political debate over the antipoverty group’s activities and recent efforts to distance the government from it.

Since 1994, Acorn, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has received about $53 million in federal aid, much of it grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for providing various services related to affordable housing.

But the group has become a prime target for conservative critics, and on Oct. 1, President Obama signed into law a spending bill that included a provision that said no taxpayer money — including money authorized by previous legislation — could be “provided toâ€