Issa vs. ACORN

A new report claims ACORN and SEIU are part of a criminal conspiracy.


From Kevin Williamson at Nation Review Online:

Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led by Rep. Darrell Issa, have issued a scalding report on ACORN and the SEIU. The main thesis — that ACORN and SEIU are, operationally, in effect the same organization, an organization that illegally channels restricted money into political activity — is argued persuasively, but the authors slopped the report up with tangential complaints and grossly exaggerated claims about ACORN’s role in the housing bubble.

The odds are vanishingly small that Eric Holder’s Justice Department, which could not be bothered to prosecute armed New Black Panther–party thugs brandishing weapons to scare off would-be voters, is going to do much about an organization at the heart of its boss’s political coalition and fundraising operation. Issa’s report may be the closest thing to an indictment ACORN ever sees — which makes its flaws all the more of a shame.

As for his primary argument, Issa pulls no punches, writing: “ACORN is a single corrupt corporate enterprise composed of a series of holding companies and subsidiaries that are financially and operationally dependent upon the main corporation. . . . ACORN and SEIU’s illegal agreements, and the crimes committed in furtherance of these agreements, constitute a criminal conspiracy.”

Read it all.-SP