{"id":17812,"date":"2013-04-26T14:27:54","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T18:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=17812"},"modified":"2013-04-26T14:27:54","modified_gmt":"2013-04-26T18:27:54","slug":"nyt-confirms-pigford-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/17812\/nyt-confirms-pigford-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"NYT Confirms Pigford Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Remember the <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/index.php\/commentary\/54-state-of-affairs\/835-pigford-settlement-fraud-opening-floodgates-for-other-groups-reparations-claims- \" target=\"_blank\">multi-layered<\/a> Pigford <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/index.php\/commentary\/47-legal-reform-tort-reform\/756-feds-pigford-settlements-leave-taxpayers-picking-up-the-tab\" target=\"_blank\">scandal<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>After years of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/Big-Government\/2013\/04\/26\/NYTimes-Confirms-Massive-Fraud-at-USDA-in-Pigford-Settlements-Breitbart-Vindicated\" target=\"_blank\">criticisms by conservatives<\/a> that the controversial lawsuit settlements were politically-engineered windfalls paid at taxpayers\u2019 expense, The New York Times, flagship publication of the mainstream media, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/04\/26\/us\/farm-loan-bias-claims-often-unsupported-cost-us-millions.html?pagewanted=1&amp;_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">confirms every word<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But a succession of courts \u2014 and finally the Supreme Court \u2014 had rebuffed their pleas. Instead of an army of potential claimants, the government faced just 91 plaintiffs. Those cases, the government lawyers figured, could be dispatched at limited cost.<\/p>\n<p>They were wrong.<\/p>\n<p>On the heels of the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling, interviews and records show, the Obama administration\u2019s political appointees at the Justice and Agriculture Departments engineered a stunning turnabout: they committed $1.33 billion to compensate not just the 91 plaintiffs but thousands of Hispanic and female farmers who had never claimed bias in court.<br \/>\nThe deal, several current and former government officials said, was fashioned in White House meetings despite the vehement objections \u2014 until now undisclosed \u2014 of career lawyers and agency officials who had argued that there was no credible evidence of widespread discrimination. What is more, some protested, the template for the deal \u2014 the $50,000 payouts to black farmers \u2014 had proved a magnet for fraud.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The total cost of the Pigford-related settlements could exceed $4.4 billion.<\/p>\n<p>With the facts undisputed, it\u2019s time to get answers and, perhaps, resignations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remember the multi-layered Pigford scandal? After years of criticisms by conservatives that the controversial lawsuit settlements were politically-engineered windfalls paid at taxpayers\u2019 expense, The New York Times, flagship publication of the mainstream media, confirms every word: But a succession of courts \u2014 and finally the Supreme Court \u2014 had rebuffed their pleas. Instead of an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3242,2103,2104],"class_list":["post-17812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-fraud","tag-pigford","tag-usda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17812"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17816,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17812\/revisions\/17816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}