What Happened to That ACORN Investigation Jerry Brown Promised?

by Derrick Roach

California Attorney General Jerry Brown seems to be getting a lot of reminders from his gubernatorial challengers Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman about his failed governorship of the state from 1975-1983 when Californian’s endured high unemployment, home foreclosures, large scale labor strikes and fuel shortages at the gas station. Recognizing the failed policies of then Governor Brown, California voters revolted and passed Proposition 13 which is a landmark initiative that limited politician’s ability to arbitrarily raise taxes on California residents.

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Over a week ago, Attorney General Jerry Brown got yet another reminder, this time coming from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The report “Follow the Money: ACORN, SEIU and their Political Allies” focuses public attention on AG Brown’s failed investigation of ACORN. While some of Brown’s gubernatorial challengers talk of the need for a California Governor to have a spine of steel, AG Brown has instead crumpled like an aluminum can cowardly hiding behind state bureaucrats and a wall of state agencies.

On October 1, 2009, Jerry Brown publicly announced that an investigation had been opened concerning undercover videos that were obtained by citizen journalists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles who videotaped ACORN employees at two California offices. ACORN employees were filmed providing advice regarding tax evasion, prostitution and human smuggling of underage girls. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was informed by AG Brown in a letter that he had “opened an investigation of both ACORN and the circumstances under which ACORN employees were videotaped.” Since that announcement, AG Brown has found himself at the center of a controversy surrounding the mismanagement of the investigation as well as a potential scandal due to a double standard involving one of his own state employees secretly recording conversations with reporters.

Shortly after ACORN had been alerted to the immanent investigation as a result of AG Brown’s public announcement, ACORN employees at the San Diego, CA office were caught engaging in a massive document dump on October 9, 2009. Those records were retrieved from an unsecured shared public dumpster where they had been thrown revealing sensitive personal, financial and banking information for both clients and employees in addition to revelations about the political inner workings of ACORN’s relationship with major U.S. banks and labor unions.

ACORN Dave Photo

Just a few days later, David Lagstein, ACORN’s head organizer in San Diego, was caught on an audio tape bragging how investigators from the Attorney General’s office had visited the local ACORN office that day and that communication from the Attorney General’s office indicates, “the fault WILL BE found with the people that did the video – not ACORN.” Mr. Lagstein appears to have been speaking with greater knowledge and authority than he has led people to believe since my investigation revealed that in addition to being ACORN’s head organizer, he is also married to Clare Crawford who is a National Political Director for ACORN and who has ties to ACORN’s head office in Chicago, IL.

First Clip: Attorney’s General Office Visits ACORN

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Second Clip: Fault Will Be Found With Filmmakers

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On November 22, 2009 while on KFI 640 radio with Andrew Breitbart, the story broke that I had over 20,000 documents ACORN unceremoniously threw into a dumpster in advance of Attorney General Jerry Brown’s visit to the local San Diego office. The following day, in a rambling statement on a Los Angeles radio show, AG Brown spoke about ACORN’s “right to privacy” of their trash. Californians quickly saw an Attorney General shift into political “duck and cover” mode rather than show the leadership that is expected from California’s top law enforcement official.

After being granted access to the documents, photographs and recordings that I obtained, investigators from the attorney general’s office stated in a written letter dated December 7, 2009, “California Teachers Association (CTA) paid California ACORN Special Projects nearly $140,000 in April-May, 2009 to conduct what CTA reported as “voter registration,” yet, according to documents found in the ACORN trash…it is apparent that ACORN workers solicited voter support for Proposition 1B.”

My investigation clearly showed that ACORN’s support of the ballot initiative was done with resources provided by the CTA and their explicit approval that specifically solicited partisan support from Democrat voters in California. Proposition 1B was a California ballot initiative during the May 19, 2009 special election that earmarked $9.3 billion for schools and was supported by CTA. The letter further states, “Because the issues raised by Mr. Roach’s claim seems most appropriately handled by the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), we are referring this matter to you.” The FPPC is a state agency consisting of two republicans and three democrats that investigate violations of California’s Political Reform Act. On December 30, 2009, Roman Porter Executive Director for the FPPC responded to the referral by the Attorney General’s office stating in a written letter, “There is no evidence of a Political Reform Act violation.”


ACORN – FPPC Ltr 12-30-09 –

In the wake of Jerry Brown alerting ACORN to an investigation that was to be conducted by his office, ACORN’s actions of dumping records into a dumpster in what appeared to be possible obstruction of justice, statements from ACORN officials that some interpret as possible collusion between ACORN and the Attorney General’s office and a referral of an investigation to another state agency in what appears to be an abdication of responsibility and the equivalent of a political passing-of-the-buck now comes new allegations that ACORN did in fact violate multiple California state and federal laws.

On February 19, 2010 Congressman Darrell Issa (CA-49) stated on nationally syndicated The Roger Hedgecock Show that documents from the San Diego office of ACORN were vital in showing a pattern of fraud, waste and abuse. The documents also showed that ACORN and the California Teachers Association were directly involved in California elections without the proper firewalls that are legally required to distinguish non-profit from political activities.

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Congressman Issa also referred to the recent report “Follow the Money: ACORN, SEIU and their Political Allies” which was released by the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on February 18, 2009. The report finds, “There is no distinction between ACORN and any of its affiliates. Affiliates share staff, funds, office space, responsibilities, and common controls-there is no real separation between the parts, making it impossible to consider them as truly separate organizations.”

Documents obtained from the San Diego ACORN office included information about Citizens’ Consulting Inc which the report found is “an arm of ACORN that commingles funds from ACORN’s non-profit organizations and transfers this money to organizations to use for political purposes.” Documents that I provided to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee also showed a relationship, not only with the California Teachers Association but with the local chapter of Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The findings in the congressional report found that, “SEIU and ACORN are not only financially but also politically codependent” and that “ACORN directly runs two of the most prominent SEIU locals.” ACORN and SEIU were also found to share offices in nine cities across the United States utilizing staff and resources to advance both organizing and political goals.

Documents obtained from the San Diego ACORN office included financial records for Whitney Bank located in New Orleans, Louisiana. The congressional report that was released found that ACORN maintained nearly 700 bank accounts at Whitney Bank alone not to mention numerous bank accounts at other banks including Bank of America. It was revealed that ACORN had ownership interest in Whitney Bank. The report findings shockingly revealed that Whitney Bank inexplicably wired several million dollars to an ACORN Bank of America account in San Francisco and that money has not been accounted for.

It is astoundingly amazing that with video evidence obtained by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, documents that show an undisputed pattern of political activism by a “non-profit” organization, millions of dollars that have been unaccounted for and a congressional investigation that has documented a pattern of criminal activity that has deprived the State of California from desperately needed tax revenues; that California Attorney General Jerry Brown has yet to show any real sign of leadership or fortitude necessary to protect the citizens of California or seriously investigate ACORN.

Instead he is hiding behind a state bureaucracy hoping that nobody will notice his lack of leadership until after the next election. It is no wonder that Democrat elite are quietly whispering in their inner circles that Attorney General Jerry Brown failed California as Governor and is once again failing to show any signs other than that of a washed up politician who is once again trying to become Governor before heading of to retirement to enjoy his family’s trust fund. Perhaps it is time to investigate those in Sacramento for their ties to this corrupt organization.


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Posted Mar 1st 2010 at 5:27 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Featured Story, Justice/Legal, News, Politics, State Politics | 94 Comments