Until this fall’s controversy over the videos, 10 percent of ACORN’s funds came from federal government grants. In September, Congress blocked previously approved funds from going to ACORN. But the Justice Department ruled last week that the group could still receive money from previously approved government contracts.
ACORN’s critics were unimpressed by the report.
“How surprising is it that a report paid for by ACORN exonerates them?’’ asked Representative Darrell Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The report is “a whitewashed ‘internal investigation’ by a Democrat Party hack from Massachusetts,’’ said conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart, who is being sued by ACORN along with James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, who played a prostitute and her boyfriend in the videos. Breitbart posted the videos on his website.
Harshbarger’s report says ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, should return to its roots, focusing on community organizing, and should hire an independent ethics officer to oversee an internal governance program that is already underway.
The report, the product of a two-month investigation, said ACORN’s management had not moved fast enough to institute reforms after an alleged eight-year coverup by founder Wade Rathke of an embezzlement by his brother. ACORN’s leaders are “now reaping what Rathke sowed,’’ wrote Harshbarger.
The videos of ACORN staffers offering advice to a woman and a man posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend triggered a firestorm of criticism this fall. It recorded some ACORN employees who appeared willing to support illegal schemes involving tax advice, misuse of public funds, and illegal trafficking in children.
The videos “feed the impression that ACORN believes it is above the law,’’ stated the Harshbarger report. In an interview, Harshbarger called some of the behavior inappropriate, but said there is a difference between behaving unprofessionally and behaving illegally.
