As I watch helplessly day after day as exhausted poll workers are swamped by tens of thousands — possibly hundreds of thousands — of forged, faked, and illegal voter registrations, preventing them from doing their job and assuring a fair and orderly election, I keep waiting for the cavalry in the form of the FBI and Department of Justice. But I hear no hoof beats and see no dust.
There was a rumor circulating last week that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago was heading up a team looking into RICO prosecutions of ACORN, but it appears to have been wishful thinking. But now AP is reporting that two senior officials with the FBI are looking into the materials seized from ACORN office raids around the country to see if it can find evidence of coordinational national fraud on the part of ACORN.
Could the government use RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Practices Act) to stop ACORN’s outrageous conduct? I think it could. Briefly, RICO 18 U.S.C. § 1961-1968. is a federal law providing extended penalties for those who commit any two of 35 crimes — 27 federal and eight state — within a 10-year period. The underlying crimes range from gambling to terrorism and include some offenses which would seem to cover the reported acts of ACORN (e.g., bribery, mail and phone fraud).
The columnist also gives praise to the Buckeye Institute:
While the cavalry isn’t riding to the rescue even though they apparently have the means to do so, a group of Ohioans are. On October 14, the Buckeye Institute, whose membership includes former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, filed suit on behalf of two Ohio voters against ACORN and Project Vote/Voting for America.
The suit is brought under the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act, a state law similar to the federal RICO act. Among its factual assertions are these developed in Congressional hearings:
From 2004-2006 ACORN has received $4.6 million in federal funds for its Housing Corporation.
ACORN has 150 subsidiary organizations with a total operating budget of over $110 million this year.
All the 150 subsidiaries operate from the top as a single enterprise, including the nonprofit Project Vote and the political operation known as Citizens Services.
Citizens Services has endorsed Barack Obama and has received over $832,000 from Obama’s campaign during the primary period for services.
ACORN and Citizen’s Services share the same board of directors. They also share office space in New Orleans.
The suit documents numerous instances of in-state predicate acts, including the following:
Forgery, uttering forged documents, tampering with writings and records.
Harassing people to encourage them to register multiple times; bribing people to register multiple times; registering non-existent and clearly ineligible voters (like minors); registering the same person in multiple counties; providing fraudulent and forged documents.
The suit documents numerous predicate acts committed by ACORN outside Ohio as well, specifically in Nevada, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Vrginia, Washington, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Mexico, Texas, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Carolina.
The suit asks the court to take notice of the “lengthy and ubiquitous history of voter fraud, embezzlement, misuse of taxpayer funds” and concludes that ACORN’s pattern of fraud can no longer be dismissed as mere random unfortunate acts by some ACORN agents. Buckeye argues, and we can hardly dispute:
81. ACORN itself, and not just its agents, is responsible for the perpetration of the predicate acts articulated heretofore, in that it either acted with intent to cause these acts, or with negligence or reckless indifference as to whether these acts occurred.
82. Given its hiring, training, and compensation practices, ACORN knew or should have known that its conduct would cause fraud, and knows or should know that its conduct will cause fraud in the future.
I wonder: why the cavalry hasn’t suited up? Indeed, I can think of no good reason why it has failed to do so. Surely it’s as easy for the federal government, with all its resources, to start questioning witnesses and examining registration materials. It can examine ACORN’s books, and the materials seized from some of its offices. It can begin to prosecute this fraud which has such a damaging impact on the body politic and convinced the public that a fair election is impossible.
OK, so now we are getting more details, including some internal info from an ACORN attorney that shows they have not only been hiding the truth, but may have been out and out lying:
An internal report by a lawyer for the community organizing group Acorn raises questions about whether the web of relationships among its 174 affiliates may have led to violations of federal laws.
The group, formally known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has been in the news over accusations that it is involved in voter registration fraud, charges it says are overblown and politically motivated.
Republicans have tried to make an issue of Senator Barack Obama’s ties to the group, which he represented in a lawsuit in 1995. The Obama campaign has denied any connection with Acorn’s voter registration drives.
The June 18 report, written by Elizabeth Kingsley, a Washington lawyer, spells out her concerns about potentially improper use of charitable dollars for political purposes; money transfers among the affiliates; and potential conflicts created by employees working for multiple affiliates, among other things.
It also offers a different account of the embezzlement of almost $1 million by the brother of Acorn’s founder, Wade Rathke, than the one the organization gave in July, when word of the theft became public.
“A full analysis of potential liability will require consultation with a knowledgeable white-collar criminal attorney,” Ms. Kingsley wrote of the embezzlement, which occurred in 2000 but was not disclosed until this summer.
So, we have even ACORN's own lawyers admitting of malfeasance and bad practices. So, what could be going on? Why isn't the DOJ more involved in seeing justice served and integrity brought back to our electoral process? Well, it appears that the DOJ is in the tank for Obama:
In all, DOJ lawyers and staff in the metro area have donated at least $150,000 to Obama. No wonder they seem more interested in prosecuting those who warn against vote fraud than enforcing vote-fraud laws
Welcome to Chicago thug politics writ national.
