Freedom Line Blog

Americans concerned about alleged extensive corruption within ACORN can rest easier tonight.

ACORN has launched its very own, no-holds-barred investigation of itself.

Overseeing the investigation will be former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros as an ACORN advisory council member.  Cisneros was forced to resign as HUD Secretary in 1997 as a result of an 18-count indictment for conspiracy, giving false statements and obstruction of justice, regarding payments to a former mistress.  In 1999, he was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of lying to the FBI, getting off with a $10,000 fine and no jail time.  President Clinton pardoned him in 2001, cleaning up that fine mess.

Conducting the investigation will be Scott Harshbarger, former Attorney General of Massachusetts.  Harshbarger certainly knows evidence – and how to trump it up.  In the 1980s, as a district attorney in Massachusetts, he prosecuted a case almost universally regarded as one of the most shameless miscarriages of justice in the country.  Using the coached, nay, manipulated and transparently irrational testimony of children, and exploiting public emotions over sexual predators, Harshbarger prosecuted and convicted Gerald Amirault of the Fells Acres Day Care Center in Malden, Massachusetts.  Harshbarger has to this day never acknowledged the overzealous prosecution, nor has he had to.

With sturdy citizens like Cisneros and Harshbarger at the helm of ACORN’s internal investigation, there is just no need for those state and federal investigations, like with subpoenas and sworn testimony and all that stuff.  Is there?

Oh and by the way, as columnist Deroy Murdoch points out, when “ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis told Fox News Sunday her group ‘absolutely pays its taxes,'” she must have forgotten the state and federal tax liens filed against ACORN’s New Orleans headquarters.  When you’re busy collecting millions from state and federal governments, it’s just ever so easy not to remember a measly $1 million in back taxes.  Surely Cisneros and Harshbarger will want to clear that little misunderstanding up as soon as possible.  Won’t they?