Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, February 20, 2010, 9:28 AM
Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) from the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released this video at CPAC of Barack Obama discussing his close partnership with ACORN. Obama talked about his long relationship with ACORN privately in this video before the 2008 election:
“When I ran project vote, the voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it. Once I was elected there wasn’t a campaign that ACORN worked on down in Springfield that I wasn’t right there with you. Since I have been in the United States Senate I’ve been always a partner with ACORN as well. I’ve been fighting with ACORN, along side ACORN, on issues you care about my entire career.”
But, when Barack Obama was confronted about his relationship with ACORN publicly before the election he had an entirely different story. This is what he said in October 2008:
Reporter: Senator McCain today said there was voter fraud going on in the battleground states. ACORN has been tampering with America’s most precious right. There has to be a full investigation and he also said you need to disclose your full relationship with ACORN. I’m wondering if you have any reaction to Senator McCain’s charge?
Barack Obama: Well, first of all my relationship with ACORN is pretty straightforward. It’s probably 13 years ago when I was still practicing law, I represented ACORN and my partner in that investigation was the US Justice department in having Illinois implement what was called the motor voter law, to make sure people could go to DMV’s and driver license facilities to get registered. It wasn’t being implemented. That was my relationship and is my relationship to ACORN. There is an ACORN organization in Chicago. They’ve been active. As an elected offiical, I’ve had interactions with them. But, they’re not advising my campaign. We’ve got the best voter registration in politics right now and we don’t need ACORN’s help.
For the record…
ACORN is the largest radical leftist group in America today.
This radical group worked closely with the Obama camp during the election but, the community organizing group was not open about the relationship. The photo below was scrubbed from the ACORN website before the election:
One of Barack Obama’s first big “community organizer” jobs involved ACORN in 1992. He worked along side ACORN before he became an elected official. Obama also trained ACORN employees. He represented ACORN in court. Obama worked with and protested with ACORN. His campaign donated $800,000 to ACORN in 2008 for voter registration efforts.
And, ACORN even canvassed for Obama in 2008.
In 2009 Obama promoted a top ACORN operative, Patrick Gaspard, who’s oranization was fined $775,000 for election violations, to a top post in the White House. Gespard is helping shape domestic policy today.
President Barack Obama’s political director failed to disclose that he was slated to receive a nearly $40,000 payout from a large labor union while he was working in the White House.
Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House.
In a section on his financial disclosure where agreements or arrangements for payment by a former employer must be disclosed, Gaspard checked a box indicating that he had nothing to report.
Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, told POLITICO Monday that Gaspard was in the process of correcting his disclosure form to reflect that he did in fact have an agreement for severance.
“We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms to indicate that part of the final payment to Patrick reflected their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199 of SEIU,” Burton wrote POLITICO in an e-mailed statement.
Such financial disclosures are governed by federal law, but Stan Brand, a former House general counsel and ethics expert, said the Justice Department is unlikely to pursue an investigation unless they suspected a “knowing or willful” intent to deceive.
Gaspard’s omission is a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, which has made a high priority of ethics.
“They’ve made ethics a fetish and they have all kinds of people over there with experience, so I don’t know how they missed this one,” Brand said.
Gaspard spent nine years at 1199 SEIU, a major labor union in New York. Gaspard also worked for Obama’s campaign, and later worked for the transition team, where he earned $11,500, according to the financial disclosure form he filed this year. He was pulling a salary from SEIU until Jan. 16, 2009, shortly before Obama was inaugurated.
Gaspard, who made $172,200 in 2009, has from $35,000 to $80,000 in credit card debt and student loans, according to his financial disclosures.
This SEIU payout was first raised in early June by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the top GOP lawmaker on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He sent a letter to the White House asking for information about the payment. They have yet to respond.
By JAKE SHERMAN | 6/28/10 1:29 PM EDT http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DaDBKVqVOpYJ:www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/39110.html+patrick+gaspard+political+director&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
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