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Comment by truth on July 30, 2009 at 2:47pm

July 25, 2009
Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As a Criminal Enterprise?

The election fraud factory known as ACORN should be stripped of its jealously guarded tax-exempt status because it illegally spends taxpayer dollars on partisan activities, commits "systemic fraud," and violates racketeering and election laws, according to a congressional report unveiled.

Republican investigators on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found that by "intentionally blurring the legal distinctions between 361 tax-exempt and non-exempt entities, ACORN diverts taxpayer and tax-exempt monies into partisan political activities."

"Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 43 states and the District of Columbia through a complex structure designed to conceal illegal activities, to use taxpayer and tax-exempt dollars for partisan political purposes, and to distract investigators," the report says. Structurally, it is "a chess game in which senior management is shielded from accountability by multiple layers of volunteers and compensated employees who serve as pawns to take the fall for every bad act."

The report examines the ACORN network's abusive interlocking directorates, and claims that the group deliberately organized itself to escape legal and public scrutiny. "ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate."

There is "a pattern of loose financial accounting and no firewalls" within the community-based group's byzantine network of hundreds of affiliated groups, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) told TV talk show host Glenn Beck yesterday.

"It's very clear that that's for a reason," said Issa, ranking member on the committee. It is impossible to hand over government money "to ACORN and its affiliates without knowingly delivering it to partisan operatives who in fact engage in campaigning."

The report was "specifically done so that the facts speak for themselves so that very clearly we could make the case that ACORN cannot be receiving government money and should lose its tax-free status," the congressman said.

The unprecedented, damning new 88-page report --"Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As a Criminal Enterprise?" (PDF available here) -- declares that "[t]he weight of evidence against ACORN and its affiliates is astounding."

ACORN needs to be investigated criminally in order "to bring to justice the responsible parties who have heretofore been shielded from prosecution by ACORN's obscure organizational structure; to protect the American system of democratic self-government from manipulation and disruption; and to free our political climate from the choke of corruption that threatens to strangle free and fair elections."

It accuses the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now of carrying out "a nation-wide strategy of tax fraud, racketeering, money-laundering and manipulating the American electorate." Specifically, the report accuses ACORN of racketeering, evading taxes, sloppy accounting, defrauding donors, defrauding the U.S. government, filing false statements, obstructing justice, and plundering employee pension funds.

The report singles out for special criticism the group's handling of a nearly $1 million embezzlement around 2000 by Dale Rathke, then a senior ACORN employee who is the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke. The misappropriation was covered up by management, including Wade Rathke, for eight years until it was revealed to the group's national board last summer.

The report notes that failing to report the misappropriation to the IRS in itself constitutes fraud, and that ACORN apparently raided pension funds to help cover the financial shortfall. ACORN also agreed last year to accept a bailout consisting of a $1 million loan and $500,000 in donations from Forest City Ratner,