Thread: Sen. Shelby: 'Immediate and Thorough' Investigation of ACORN

Senator Calls for 'Immediate and Thorough' Investigation of ACORN
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs calls for a probe of ACORN in a letter to committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

FOXNews.com
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
28 Comments


Pressure is building for a top-to-bottom review of ACORN in the wake of undercover videos showing the organization giving questionable advice, with a top Senate Republican calling Tuesday for an "immediate and thorough" investigation of the group.

House Republicans also wrote a letter to President Obama asking him to use his authority to end all federal funding for ACORN and break all government ties with the organization.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs called for the congressional probe in a letter to committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

The letter comes after the Senate voted 83-7 Monday to cut off the group from Housing and Urban Development grants. The Census Bureau on Friday also severed ties with ACORN. Nine lawmakers, eight of them Republican, did not vote.

The vote followed the release of secretly recorded videotapes of group members offering assistance to two people posing as a pimp and prostitute. Those tapes were on the heels of arrests in Florida of 11 ACORN workers accused of voter registration fraud.

"Last night's vote served as a resounding rebuke on behalf of American taxpayers regarding the activities of ACORN," Shelby said in a statement. "While this vote is important, it is limited in scope and we must know more. It is imperative that we proceed immediately to investigate what appears to be ACORN's stunning disregard for the law and abuse of taxpayer funds.

"Such an investigation would serve as the basis for determining not only whether ACORN is worthy of receiving other federal funds this year, but ever again," Shelby said.

Shelby also wrote to the inspector general for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

House Republicans, led by Minority Leader John Boehner, wrote in their letter to the president that he should "disclose and terminate" all federal funding to ACORN.

"It is evident that ACORN is incapable of using federal funds in a manner that is consistent with the law," they wrote. "Immediate action is necessary to ensure that no additional tax dollars are directed to ACORN."

Law enforcement sources confirm that the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes has launched an investigation into the ACORN Brooklyn office -- which was featured in the latest video released by filmmaker James O'Keefe.

As with the videos shot in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the ACORN workers in the Brooklyn video are shown offering the "pimp" and "prostitute" advice on how to avoid detection from officials weighing whether to give them loans on housing, which the duo said they wanted to use to run a brothel.

The workers in Baltimore and Washington have since been fired.

But the organization claims that O'Keefe tried the hidden-camera operation in a number of other ACORN offices with no luck.

ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis said in a written statement that while she could not defend the actions of the terminated workers, O'Keefe may have committed a felony during the operation.

"It is clear that the videos are doctored, edited and in no way the result of the fabricated story being portrayed by conservative, activist 'filmmaker' O'Keefe and his partner in crime," Lewis said.

O'Keefe has demanded an apology for claiming he falsified the tapes.

Lewis also called the Senate decision on Monday evening "a rare and politically convenient step."


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09 ... ion-acorn/

I am so proud of Sen. Shelby. Acorn and all of the corruption must be stopped in Washington.

WOOOO HOOOOO! This just gets better and better. They SHOULD be excluded from ANY tax dollars, and made to repay every dime they have received.

wait till you see the glenn beck show today
acorn video from california where politicians are named
one is a US senator, and since Cali has two.
im sure sooner or later you will guess who

It would have been WISER to THANK O'Keefe for helping expose problems at ACORN so that they can make sure the organizations integrity is intact rather than BASH the two (amazingly brave young journalists)

The fact that they are attacking the two kids who did this leads me to believe they knew MORE about what was going on than they are admitting...

What a foul disgusting organization...that they would help set up under age, illegal alien brothels with taxpayer dollars is very disturbing to say the least. Where else is our money going? What other abominations is Obama paying off with our money?