Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies (39 page)

The Internal Revenue Service explains its policy regarding imposing and releasing liens:

“[A] Notice of Federal Tax Lien may be filed only after: We assess the liability; We send you a Notice and Demand for Payment-abill that tells you how much you own in taxes; and You neglect or refuse to fully pay the debt within 10 days after we notify you about it.”

The IRS “will issue a Release of the Notice of Federal Tax Lien: Within 30 days after you satisfy the tax due (including interest and other additions) by paying the debt or by having it adjusted, or Within 30 days after we accept a bond that you submit, guaranteeing payment of the debt.” (Source: http://www.irs.govtbusinesses/small/article/0_id=108339,00.html#release )

Yes, the White House has entrusted the same organization that can’t bother to keep track of its taxes to gather and report accurate census data.

MUSCLE FOR THE MONEY

One of ACORN’s most outspoken critics and former employees is Anita MonCrief. Fired from her Washington, D.C., strategic research/writing position in January 2008 for using a Project Vote credit card for personal expenses worth less than $2,000, she served as the primary source for the rare investigative forays by the
New York Times
into ACORN’s fraudulent empire. In sworn testimony for a lawsuit filed by the Pennsylvania Republican Party against ACORN, as detailed by Ballotpedia, MonCrief (an Obama supporter) revealed how:

• ACORN’s quality-control efforts were “minimal or nonexistent”;

• The quality control policies of ACORN were “largely window dressing”;

• ACORN knew that most new voter registration forms it had gathered were fraudulent;

• When she was employed by the organization, it was given lists of potential donors by several Democratic presidential campaigns, including that of Barack Obama;

• In November of 2007, ACORN’s Project Vote development director Karyn Gillette told her that Gillette had direct contact with the Obama campaign and had obtained their donor lists. Ms. MonCrief also testified she was given a spreadsheet to use in cultivating Obama donors who had maxed out on donations to the candidate, but who could contribute to voter registration efforts. Project Vote calls the allegation “absolutely false”;

• Internally, ACORN had a policy of cooperating with authorities in prosecuting those who got caught trying to falsify registration forms, a policy referred to by staffers as “throwing them under the bus.”
³⁸

MonCrief’s testimony was backed by other former ACORN employees. “There’s no quality control on purpose, no checks and balances,” former California ACORN organizer Nate Toler told the
Wall Street Journal
’s John Fund. Gregory Hall, a former ACORN employee, told Fund he was instructed on his “first day in 2006 to engage in deceptive fund-raising tactics.”
³⁹

At congressional hearings in March 2009, Republican lawyer Heather Heidelbaugh further outlined how ACORN would bully companies into providing donations through aggressive protests. The program was referred to as “Muscle for the Money”:

ACORN had official and unofficial programs called “Muscle for the Money”. The first program, the official program, is the marketing name ACORN gives for its voter registration drives. Citizens Services Incorporated (CSI), an affiliate of ACORN, prices the cost to register a voter, drive the voter to the poll, and eventually get the voter to vote. CSI does voter identification, turnout and [get out the vote].

. . . ACORN/CSI markets its program to candidate or campaigns and sells their services by stating that if you use [the] program with their proven methodologies, they will get it done at a certain price . . . CSI worked with ACORN and Project Vote. “All the affiliate organizations worked together. . . Ms. Moncrief testified about a document she had access to . . . : “It talks about America Votes and some notes from a meeting that took place I would say. [The document states under ‘Political Money Rules’]. . . we prefer that political money go to us in the form of a vendor, which would be CSI, our for profit business, which doesn’t have to report the cash because it’s a business, like the phone company.”

. . . The second unofficial “Muscle for the Money” Program is a corporate directed program for donations. Ms. Moncrief testified: “That [program] is what I learned in the local offices. That’s where—let’s say the D.C. office where I was. They would be given a project to go work on, even if they didn’t have interest in it. At the time, even after I was fired, I was working with ACORN, going to barbecues, doing other stuff with D.C. local. They got involved with a group called the Carlyle Group. They were paid by SEIU to harass a man named Mr. Rubenstein, and they wanted me to go out—the D.C. local did, wanted me to go out and break up a banquet dinner, protest out in front of his house. But the local—D.C. local did not have an invested interest really in messing with the Carlyle Group. It was because they were paid by SEIU to do this. And it was always referred to as ‘Muscle for Money’ because they would go out there, intimidate these people, protest. They did it in front of Sherwin Williams. They did it at H&R Block, where H&R Block was a target for years. And instead of, you know, reforming the way they did the rapid anticipation loans, they ended up giving money to the ACORN tax sites which paid for new computers and money to run these tax filing sites around the country.”

. . . “The protesting was used to get companies to negotiate. The companies would pay money to get the protesting to stop. In addition to calling this activity ‘Muscle for the Money,’ the insiders at ACORN called it ‘PROTECTION.’”

. . . Ms. Moncrief testified: “Protection. We were very—not to be flippant, but we were just always very sarcastic about it in the offices. We knew what was going on. And its not that we thought it was funny, it was just one of those things that we talked about....”
⁴⁰

(A few weeks later, ACORN flexed that muscle again—by busing dozens of its radical activists to the private homes of AIG executives targeted because they accepted taxpayer-subsidized retention bonuses.)

The overwhelming evidence of ACORN’s racketeering and corruption persuaded one of the organization’s fiercest defenders to change course—if ever so briefly. Democrat chairman of the House Judiciary Committee John Conyers signaled his desire in April 2009 to pursue hearings on ACORN’s mob tactics. Defying fellow Democrats crying “right-wing smear job,” Conyers pushed for further investigation into Heidelbaugh and MonCrief’s allegations.
⁴¹
But by early May 2009, Conyers had retreated. On the day he announced publicly that there would be no probe, Nevada Democrat officials unveiled a whopping thirty-nine felony charges against ACORN related to voter registration fraud.
⁴²

Fortunately, Conyers’s cowardice did not quiet ACORN’s critics. Nor did the attempt by the
New York Times
to stifle the growing controversy over the organization’s vast, interlocking network—and the Obama campaign’s involvement in it. In response to congressional testimony by Pennsylvania lawyer Heather Heidelbaugh alleging that the
Times
had killed a “game changer” story on how Team Obama had shared donor lists with Project Vote, the newspaper’s ombudsman Clark Hoyt dismissed it as the “tip that didn’t pan out.”
⁴³

Hoyt airily dismissed the charges by ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief as “nonsense,” and quoted a
Times
editor who shrugged, “You have to cut bait after a while.” It was an all-too-convenient judgment that just happened to be made as Election Day loomed. (Contrast this with the editorial doggedness of the
Times
’s editors in pursuing and publishing the
Star
magazine-quality insinuations that GOP presidential candidate John McCain had carried on an affair with Washington lobbyist Vicki Iseman.
⁴⁴
) Hoyt attempted to paint MonCrief as an unreliable source. But
Times
reporter Stephanie Strom had happily relied on her for months to break a series of ACORN corruption stories. And e-mail messages from Strom show not only the
New York Times
reporter’s repeated praise and gratitude for MonCrief’s information, but also her concurrence with MonCrief’s assessment of the vast, money-funneling ACORN enterprise.
⁴⁵

On July 10, 2008, Strom wrote to MonCrief: “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.”

On July 31, 2008, she wrote: “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.”

Later that same day she wrote: “You are a gold mine! = ).”

On September 7, 2008, after MonCrief alerted Strom to my reporting on the ACORN/CSI/Obama campaign ties, Strom replied: “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.”

On October 6, 2008, Strom told MonCrief about her nasty run-in with the Obama campaign: “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.”

Critics suggested that the donor lists could have been compiled through public records. But I 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 in the fall of 2008 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 CSI make explicit references to working on “Obama campaign related projects.” The “list of maxed out Obama donors” is explicitly mentioned in staff 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 network did.
⁴⁶

In October 2009, ACORN/Project Vote filed an intimidation lawsuit against MonCrief and an anonymous “John Doe” defendant for posting invaluable documents on the Internet that revealed the money-shuffling racket. The action sought to stifle MonCrief’s reporting on her experience and knowledge of the non-profit 501(c)(3) organization’s partisan and political activities, including coordination with the Obama campaign. ACORN/Project Vote sought compensatory damages and exemplary damages “of at least $5 million” and all costs and attorney’s fees on trumped-up charges of “trademark infringement” and publication of “trade secrets.”
⁴⁷
Six months later, a federal judge hearing the case ordered all claims dismissed. Represented by the Kansas City law firm of Graves, Bartle, Marcus & Garrett and the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Individual Rights (CIR), MonCrief had countersued both Project Vote and ACORN for “abuse of process, alleging that ACORN was Project Vote’s alter ego and that the two groups had brought the suit to punish her for exercising her right to free speech and to uncover her sources.” In return for MonCrief’s dropping her countersuit for abuse of process, Project Vote agreed to dismiss every last one of its claims against her.

“This is a stunning victory for Ms. MonCrief,” Terry Pell, CIR’s president, said after the dismissal. “Project Vote has canceled its arrogant attempt to silence a critic using the courts. Ms. MonCrief now is completely free to continue blogging and speaking about Project Vote and ACORN without fear of this action.” Pell noted that the case also sent a positive message to other whistleblowers. “[T]he utter failure of Project Vote’s suit should encourage others who wish to speak out against corruption at ACORN or anywhere else.”
⁴⁸