Thread: NYTIMES CONFIRMS: MASSIVE FRAUD AT USDA IN PIGFORD; BREITBART VINDICATED

NYTIMES CONFIRMS: MASSIVE FRAUD AT USDA IN PIGFORD; BREITBART VINDICATED



by JOEL B. POLLAK 26 Apr 2013


The New York Times reported Friday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has likely enabled massive fraud in the Pigford series of legal settlements, in which black, Hispanic, female and Native American farmers have claimed to be victims of past discrimination.

The cost of the settlements, which could exceed $4.4 billion, is the result of a process that "became a runaway train, driven by racial politics, pressure from influential members of Congress and law firms that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees," the Times notes.

Among those influential members of Congress was then-Senator Barack Obama, who made Pigford payouts a priority in exchange for political support for his 2008 presidential campaign among a coveted group of black voters in the rural South, the Times reports.

As president, Obama continued to support payouts for new groups of claimants while abandoning a review process that had been used to fight fraud. The aim was "buying the support" of minorities, according to the Times, while middlemen created a "cottage industry" in defrauding the government.

The Times investigation, led by reporter Sharon LaFraniere, vindicates the late Andrew Breitbart, for whom Pigford became a crucial issue in demonstrating the cynical use of racial politics by the institutional left to hurt the very people they claimed to be helping. Breitbart directed investigations of the Pigford fraud and championed the cause of the original black farmers in the lawsuit, arguing that many of them had been left behind while opportunistic lawyers and fraudulent claimants looted the federal treasury in exchange for votes and support.

The left, led by the George Soros-funded Media Matters for America, attempted for years to dismiss claims of fraud in Pigford, calling it Breitbart's "stupidest conspiracy theory." When Fox News picked up the story, Media Matters called it an attempt to attack "anti-discrimination efforts."

In fact, the 5,529-word report by LaFraniere shows that Pigford and subsequent settlements had little to do with redressing discrimination and everything to do with politics and greed, while the true victims of discrimination continued to suffer in obscurity.

In 2010, Breitbart was accused by the left of using a dispute with the NAACP to disrupt Pigford funding. That motivated him to investigate.

"I had never heard of Pigford, so for the last four and half months, all I’ve been doing is eating, breathing, sleeping Pigford, researching Pigford, finding whistleblowers who are hiding in plain sight who have been wanting to tell the story of how this was rigged," he toldthe Daily Caller in December 2010.

The Times story credits Breitbart News and Rep. Steve King (R-IA) for drawing attention to the issue.

LaFraniere and colleagues conducted their own, independent investigation, "based on thousands of pages of court and confidential government documents, as well as interviews with dozens of claimants, lawyers, former and current government officials and others involved in the cases over the past 14 years."

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack told the Times that the settlements opened "'a new chapter of civil rights at U.S.D.A," claiming that critics of Pigford and other payouts were motivated by a "Pandora's box" of hidden racial agendas.

Yet the Times documents how Pigford became a "magnet for fraud" across the South. "In 16 ZIP codes in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and North Carolina," LaFraniere writes, "the number of successful claimants exceeded the total number of farms operated by people of any race in 1997, the year the lawsuit was filed. Those applicants received nearly $100 million." The government let many of the fraudulent claims slip by unpunished because "the bar for a successful claim was so low that it was almost impossible to show criminality."

Much of the fraud was enabled by the Clinton and Obama administrations, and by members of Congress seeking to reward special interests. Then-Sen. Obama sponsored new Pigford legislation in 2007, while Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) threatened in 2009 to lead protests against the administration if it did not bend to the wishes of Hispanic claimants.

Meanwhile, whole families, including young children, filed claims for past discrimination to reap $50,000 each in cash payouts. As yet, Congress has failed to investigate Pigford.

That may finally change.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...art-Vindicated

IMMIGRATION REFORM PROPONENT SEN. ROBERT MENEDEZ DROVE PIGFORD STYLE HISPANIC FARMER SETTLEMENT



by LEE STRANAHAN 26 Apr 2013

A blockbuster front page New York Times story reveals that 'Gang of Eight' member Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) was a driving forced behind the designed-for-fraud settlement that the Obama administration made to compensate Latino and Hispanic "attempted-to-farmers."

After the Pigford fraud scheme was successful at giving away billions in taxpayer dollars to people who claimed to have "attempted to farm," lawyers turned to other special interest groups for their own versions of the Pigford scam. Soon, there were attempts to file suit on behalf on Native Americans, women and Hispanic and Latino farmers.
Despite the hoopla, the lawyers had trouble finding people to bring suit. Fewer than one hundred Hispanic/Latino farmers actually joined the suit--and then they faced an uphill battle as the judge in the case ruled that they were not a "class" under the law.

Then, as theTimes details, the Obama administration created its own legally questionable settlement that bypassed Congress and authorized billions of dollars.

Driving that move was Sen. Menendez. The Times says:

...members of the Congressional Hispanic caucus and a group of eight Democratic senators, led by Mr. Menendez, were lobbying the White House to move in the opposite direction. They grew increasingly agitated as the plaintiffs’ cases appeared to falter.

In a letter to Mr. Obama in June 2009, the senators noted that black farmers stood to receive $2.25 billion in compensation, but that Hispanic farmers, who alleged the same kind of discrimination, had gotten nothing. Should that continue, Mr. Menendez wrote that September, “Hispanic farmers and ranchers, and their supporters, will be reaching out to community and industry leaders outside of the Beltway in order to bring wider attention to this problem.”

Senator Menedez appears to be saying that if his particular special interest group doesn't get what they perceive as their share of the farmer settlement pie, they will make a lot of noise.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...mer-Settlement

Wow. Just more ways for the Dems to buy votes and waste money. I don't doubt that there were minority farmers who were discriminated against, but it looks like Obama (with a little help from Clinton) turned it into a free-for-all! Breitbart was a smart man to figure all this out. Wish he was still around.

Thanks for posting all the info on this, Newmexican!!

You are welcome.

The NY Times article, written by SHARON LaFRANIERE with contributions from Sarah Cohen , and and research by Kitty Bennett and Ashley Southall . is very thorough and very long and, I think wrth the time to read This is page 1.

U.S. Opens Spigot After Farmers Claim Discrimination


Stephen Crowley/The New York Times


Black farmers held a protest outside the Agriculture Department in Washington in 2002 tied to litigation about farm loan discrimination. More Photos »

By SHARON LaFRANIERE

Published: April 25, 2013

In the winter of 2010, after a decade of defending the government against bias claims by Hispanic and female farmers, Justice Department lawyers seemed to have victory within their grasp.

Enlarge This Image

Agriculture Department reviewers found many suspicious claims for compensation, some from nursery-school-age children. More Photos »

Ever since the Clinton administration agreed in 1999 to make $50,000 payments to thousands of black farmers, the Hispanics and women had been clamoring in courtrooms and in Congress for the same deal. They argued, as the African-Americans had, that biased federal loan officers had systematically thwarted their attempts to borrow money to farm.

But a succession of courts — and finally the Supreme Court — had rebuffed their pleas. Instead of an army of potential claimants, the government faced just 91 plaintiffs. Those cases, the government lawyers figured, could be dispatched at limited cost.

They were wrong.

On the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling, interviews and records show, the Obama administration’s political appointees at the Justice and Agriculture Departments engineered a stunning turnabout: they committed $1.33 billion to compensate not just the 91 plaintiffs but thousands of Hispanic and female farmers who had never claimed bias in court.

The deal, several current and former government officials said, was fashioned in White House meetings despite the vehement objections — until now undisclosed — of career lawyers and agency officials who had argued that there was no credible evidence of widespread discrimination. What is more, some protested, the template for the deal — the $50,000 payouts to black farmers — had proved a magnet for fraud.

“I think a lot of people were disappointed,” said J. Michael Kelly, who retired last year as the Agriculture Department’s associate general counsel. “You can’t spend a lot of years trying to defend those cases honestly, then have the tables turned on you and not question the wisdom of settling them in a broad sweep.”

The compensation effort sprang from a desire to redress what the government and a federal judge agreed was a painful legacy of bias against African-Americans by the Agriculture Department. But an examination by The New York Times shows that it became a runaway train, driven by racial politics, pressure from influential members of Congress and law firms that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees. In the past five years, it has grown to encompass a second group of African-Americans as well as Hispanic, female and Native American farmers. In all, more than 90,000 people have filed claims. The total cost could top $4.4 billion.

From the start, the claims process prompted allegations of widespread fraud and criticism that its very design encouraged people to lie: because relatively few records remained to verify accusations, claimants were not required to present documentary evidence that they had been unfairly treated or had even tried to farm. Agriculture Department reviewers found reams of suspicious claims, from nursery-school-age children and pockets of urban dwellers, sometimes in the same handwriting with nearly identical accounts of discrimination.

Yet those concerns were played down as the compensation effort grew. Though the government has started requiring more evidence to support some claims, even now people who say they were unfairly denied loans can collect up to $50,000 with little documentation.

As a senator, Barack Obama supported expanding compensation for black farmers, and then as president he pressed for $1.15 billion to pay those new claims. Other groups quickly escalated their demands for similar treatment. In a letter to the White House in September 2009, Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a leading Hispanic Democrat, threatened to mount a campaign “outside the Beltway” if Hispanic farmers were not compensated.

The groups found a champion in the new agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack. New settlements would provide “a way to neutralize the argument that the government favors black farmers over Hispanic, Native American or women farmers,” an internal department memorandum stated in March 2010.

The payouts pitted Mr. Vilsack and other political appointees against career lawyers and agency officials, who argued that the legal risks did not justify the costs.

NEXT PAGE »
Sarah Cohen contributed reporting, and Kitty Bennett and Ashley Southall contributed research.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/us...ions.html?_r=0

Congressman Steve King Questions US Attorney General Eric Holder on Pigford Fraud