From The Commercial Appeal:

Thomas Burrell

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has agreed to a settlement involving a class of at least 40,000 black farmers who claim they were discriminated against by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and who missed the deadline for an earlier settlement.

U.S. Dist. Judge Paul L. Friedman certified a class of plaintiffs aggregated in 23 separate complaints, including one made by the Memphis-based Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Inc., and its president, Thomas Burrell.

Burrell testified against the proposed settlement in a “fairness” hearing on Sept. 1, arguing that potential claimants should be able to access the much more liberal benefits of the earlier, 1999 settlement known as Pigford I. More than $1 billion has been paid out to more than 22,000 claimants in the first settlement.

Burrell said this morning that he plans to appeal Friedman’s ruling on due process and equal protection grounds. He maintains that a 1998 law signed by President Bill Clinton holds open the door to claims the previous settlement labeled too late and that prospective claimants aren’t limited to the cause of action Congress created for late filers in 2008 or to the $1.15 billion Congress appropriated in 2010, which he said is inadequate. (more…)

WASHINGTON (AP) – A federal judge has given final approval to a $1.2 billion government settlement with black farmers who claim they were unfairly denied loans and other assistance from the Agriculture Department over many years.

Federal judge Paul Friedman approved the settlement late Thursday. He said it will likely take about a year for neutral parties to review claims and then all of the settlements will be paid out at once.

This is the second round of settlements in the 1999 case known as the Pigford case, after the original plaintiff, North Carolina farmer Timothy Pigford. The settlement is directed at farmers who were denied payments in the first round because they missed deadlines for filing. (more…)

Every five years, the National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS) conducts a “Census of Agriculture” that includes a snapshot of America’s black farmers–how many, average farm size, sales, etc. Since 2007 was the last year the census was conducted, election year 2012 will give us our next best picture of how agricultural communities generally and black farmers in particular are managing through the economic downturn.

Because the 2007 agriculture census was conducted before the economy began to slide, it is probably safe to say that what we think we know today may not necessarily be true when fresh data becomes available. At the time of the census, there was plenty of room for optimism, though.

The numbers showed that the U.S. farming and ranching population was becoming much more diverse and the number of black farmers and ranchers was on the upswing. Blacks have a history of small business entrepreneurialism in this country, and farming and ranching represent a natural entry point for them. Because their enterprises are smaller, however, economic shocks put them in a more precarious position financially.

Having grown up on a tobacco farm and worked at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, I can tell you that the concerns that keep black farmers up at night are not unique and are shared by farmers of all stripes. Aside from some specific issues of discrimination, black farmers worry about access to capital, pray for a little luck with the weather, and wish for a more predictable regulatory environment. High levels of uncertainty translate into a lack of investments and lack of jobs on the farm, just as on Wall Street. (more…)

One of the key attorneys in the Pigford “black farmers” lawsuit has confirmed, on camera, what we at Big Government have argued for months: that the $2.7 billion Pigford settlement has been corrupted by fraud on a massive scale.

On September 23, 2011, at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., attorney Faya Rose Toure (a.k.a. Rose Sanders) described a conspiracy to defraud the federal government, involving claimants, attorneys, and members of the clergy.

The original Pigford plaintiffs were black farmers who sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture for racial discrimination.

Sanders related how class-action lawyers later recruited claimants by sending representatives to black churches, where they allegedly told congregants that they were eligible for “reparations,” even if they had never farmed.

Sanders’s claims were at least partially corroborated at the press conference by Gary Grant, President of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, who indicated that he knew of the involvement of preachers in Pigford-related fraud.

What Sanders reveals in the clip below ought to be enough to cause the supervising judge, Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to suspend the settlement process.

It ought to be enough to prompt the FBI to re-open investigations into the lawyers and organizations involved.

It ought to be enough to encourage Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) to fire up his magic investigation machine, and start issuing subpoenas–not just regarding the Pigford settlement, but also the Obama-created settlements for women, Native American, and Hispanic/Latino famers who are alleging discrimination.

Watch the clip, then I’ll take you through some of the points that Pigford attorney Sanders is making.

And so after all of that, they are now accusing the farmers of fraud. There is a problem. There are people who are out there hustling, and taking advantage of black farmers. And some of them are our people. They are the ones that are misleading the people, making them believe they are in the lawsuit, making them believe they are eligible. I actually went to a meeting in Alabama, where these white lawyers from Texas had hired–you were there [“Yes, maʼam. And they're still calling me and trying to get me to fraud.”]–hired black people, hired black people to go into all these black churches and they literally told black people: “Oh, you didn’t have to farm. It doesn’t matter if your grandfather never farmed. If you ever thought about farming, youʼre eligible for this lawsuit.” So these people are thinking this is more of a like reparations-type lawsuit. They donʼt know any better. So when they sign up, they just donʼt know. But the government is determined to prosecute [them], and to limit this process, and that is something I think we need to be outraged about. I think we need to somehow get to the NAACP, and I have talked to the NAACP–we’ve got to have a coalition. We–frankly speaking, we’ve got to get away from some of our differences, because our needs are greater than our differences…

Let’s start at the beginning. (more…)

Last week, in Washington, DC, I attended what is is expected to be the last hearing on the Pigford settlement–Judge Paul Friedman, presiding.

Judge Friedman has been in charge of the scandal-infested case since it was conceived during the Clinton Administration. He has overseen a process that has funneled billions of dollars to lawyers, bureaucrats and fraudsters who have never farmed a day in their lives, leaving behind many black farmers who suffered actual racial discrimination by the USDA.

Pigford is an interesting bit of legal chicanery. It works on two different levels: one a false cover story, the other the behind-the-scenes legal reality.

In order for Pigford to proceed, there needs to be a public perception that Pigford is helping poor black farmers. That is the constant public drumbeat, and it works because it plays on people’s natural sympathy with the plight of those black farmers who were, in fact, hurt by the government.

Then there’s the actual legal mechanism, including the “attempted to farm” bamboozle, through which people who were never actually farmers have come forward to claim $50,000 payouts as part of an expanded class of beneficiaries that Friedman certified. (more…)

In the months of stories we’ve done on the Pigford settlement, people often leave comments that say “Hey, I have a houseplant — can I get $50,000, too?!?”

Since you asked — yes, you can. You don’t even need the plant.

Just visit FarmerClaims.gov and go to the bottom of the home page. You’ll find a link to a Summary of the Claims Process that brings up a PDF.  At the top of page 2, it explains what you need to provide for proof if you’re claiming that you made a ‘bona-fide’ attempt to apply but were actively discouraged.

This short video I made lets people know how easy it is to collect.

What does this mean practically?

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I know you need some Pigford to keep you going through the weekend, so here’s a couple of stray thoughts…

1) An Appeal By Any Other Name

This is from Paul Friedman’s decision on the Pigford settlement…

“…there is no right to appeal those decisions, except that the Monitor shall direct the arbitrator or adjudicator to reexamine the claim if he determines that a “clear and manifest error has occurred” that is “likely to result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice.”  Consent Decree at ¶¶ 9(a)(v), 9(b)(v), 10(i), 12(b)(iii)

Well, something must have changed because 10% of the decisions in Pigford were not only appealed but were actually overturned, according to the government’s own official numbers.  There’s a chart showing ‘reexamination results.’ Check it out — thousands of results changed. How is that not an ‘appeal’?

I want to make it clear that I’m not opposed to these appeals. Some of them actually were the only way that bona fide farmers actually got anything  from the settlement. But – something clearly happened and it’s different than Friedman’s decision.

What I think this does show is the whole process was screwed up and needs investigation. But you knew that already, right?

(more…)

I’m looking for some advice. It’s about money.

I don’t need to tell you that times are tough. It seems like half the experts think we are about to plunge into the second part of a double-dip recession and the other half think that we’re there already. Like a lot of people, the week to week struggle is tiring me out and it’s not just about me, either. I have a wife and kids to think about, too.

I won’t lie; the idea of getting $50,000 tax-free sounds pretty good to me.

I know exactly how I can get it, too. It wouldn’t take more than a few hours of work. All I need to do is fill out some forms and talk about the time that my sweet, dearly departed mother tried to get a farm loan from the USDA.

You may be thinking that it sounds too good to be true.

Trust me, it’s not. This is the real deal. I’ve been working on a documentary about the USDA’s “black farmers” settlement for months now. I’ve interviewed dozens of people and it’s very clear that you can collect a $50,000 check if you know how to fill out the paperwork correctly. And I know how to fill that paperwork out.

Basically, you tell the USDA that you or a relative attempted to farm during a certain period of time but that you or the relative were a victim of discrimination and the USDA didn’t even give out the loan paperwork. No proof one way or another. The claim is judged by an “adjudicator” who looks at your paperwork and if it seems specific, detailed and believable, they approve the claim and you collect a $50,000 check tax-free.

In the Pigford black farmers settlement, over 15,000 people collected these checks and I’ve been told by a number of people that over 80% of them collected on this “attempted to farm” standard. If you’re still skeptical, here’s the official government accounting. The U.S. government paid out over billion dollars in claims and most of it didn’t go to farmers.

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Georgia farmer Lucious Abrams knows about Pigford fraud. He’s heard lawyers like Pigford’s mastermind Al Pires tell people that all they had to do was say the USDA threw their applications in the trash can  — a claim impossible to prove or disprove – and they could collect a $50,000 check. And thousands surely did.

Of course, Pires and the lawyers would get THEIR cut, too. And they aren’t the ones at risk of a perjury conviction. The lawyers made $40 million of your tax money, according settlement attorney Othello Cross. The total cost of these fraud filled fake famers settlements is in the billions.

And who had the toughest time collecting? The real farmers who were the victim of the government in the first place; men like Lucious Abrams.

As you can see here, Abrams is ready, willing and able to expose Al Pires. The only question is whether Darrell Issa is ready to listen. After all, Issa voted to keep Pigford funding.

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Congressman Issa,

Back on January 3rd of this year, you said the following in a video interview about the Pigford II settlement.

I have to use every asset I can get including all the other committees to do what they can. So, Pigford, we’ll participate but we’ll make sure other committees do their work.

Now we’re well into the heat of the summer with several major deadlines for Pigford II looming and the American people have yet to see an investigation into the scandal.

Congressman Issa, I’ll be direct — the issue that is most troubling to many people is that you recently voted to keep Pigford funding. I have no idea why you would cast a vote against representative Steve King (R-IA) and his efforts to stop both the fraudulent nature of the settlement and the legislative chicanery that created it. I have seen no explanation forthcoming and frankly I’m not imaginative enough to be able to come up with one that makes sense.

The burden of proof is now on you to show that you will actually ‘use every asset’ to get an investigation into Pigford II started in all due haste, despite casting a vote to continue its funding. In other words, Congressman Issa — you now own responsibility for the billion dollar plus political payback Pigford II settlement.

(more…)

The Pigford “Black Farmers” settlement isn’t just a massive fraud that funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to people who never farmed a day in their life. No, the perversion of Pigford goes far beyond that because the way the settlement is structured it’s actually more difficult for legitimate farmers to collect than it is for an “attempted to farmer”.

Got that? Adding insult to injury, bona fide farmers are less likely to collect a $50,000 check then someone who meets the incredibly low standard by claiming that they attempted to farm.

This is one of the reasons that so many legitimate, hard-working farmers oppose the Pigford settlement and another reason that Congressman Darrell Issa needs to hear from you right now. Remember, Issa voted to keep funds flowing to Pigford when Representative Steve King (R-IA) tried to stop them a couple of weeks ago. And Rep. Issa is the person who should be pushing for investigations. Issa’s Washington phone number is 202-225-3906.

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As I’ve written about before, when Iowa Congressman Steve King recently tried to stop funding for the fraud infested Pigford settlement he was opposed by a number of his fellow Republicans.  At least one of them —  Florida’s Allen West — has admitted that his vote was “a mistake” while others such as California’s Darrell Issa have so far remained silent.

Now Missouri Congressman Billy Long has gone on the record with one of his constituents about why he wanted to continue funding a bill that doesn’t actually help the black farmers that it was designed to aid in the first place.

Here’s what he said in a recent letter…

Thank you for contacting me regarding Roll Call Vote number 444, which addressed the Pigford discrimination case at the United States Department of Agriculture; I appreciate hearing from you.

As you know, the amendment offered by Congressman Steve King (R-IA) would have prohibited funding for payments relating to the final settlement of claims from the Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation, also known as the Pigford case.  I voted against this amendment, along with several other Republicans, because stopping payments could increase the risk for additional litigation.  I firmly believe I must take every step I can to curb costly litigation, which hurts businesses and job creation in this country.  I also believe I must take every step to slow out-of-control government spending at every turn.

A fear of “additional litigation” is a horrible reason to support Pigford. In fact, one of the main reasons that it’s important to stop Pigford II as soon as possible is because of the additional litigation that it supports.

(more…)

Want to hear the sound of people making a difference on the Pigford story?

I mentioned in a previous post that Allen West had voted no on Rep. Steve King’s amendment to stop Pigford funding. This vote struck me as strange because of Rep. West’s reputation as an opponent of wasteful spending.

Talk show host David Webb asked West about his vote today and Rep. West seems to feel that he made an error in his vote. I watched the ‘lightning round’ of forty (40!) or so amendments live on C-SPAN and I can see where an honest error is certainly possible. I accept his explanation and appreciate his straightforward answer.

But listen to what Rep. West as soon as Webb asks him about Pigford – he says he’s answered the question about his Pigford many times. And THAT is the sound of the tide turning. Pigford is clearly getting onto people’s radar, thanks to you. If you haven’t done so, please sign the Pigford Petition.

And blogger The Right Scoop  has another example of West answering a Pigford question.

Here’s Rep. West explanation from his newsletter:

(more…)

Rep. King’s amendment failed – here’s the roll call vote. Every Democrat voted against it – but it lost because 78 Republicans also went against stopping over a billion dollars in money being paid out for fraud. Two votes jumped out at me.

Tea Party favorite Allen West (R-FL) voted with the Congressional Black Caucus to keep Pigford funding flowing to fraudsters.

But worse, Darrell Issa (R-CA), who would be the one to get investigations going.

(more…)

Here’s a chance to stop the Pigford fraud in its tracks – Rep. Steve King (R – IA) has introduced an amendment to halt Pigford Funding. This is about the multi-billion dollar “Black Farmers Settlement” that we’ve been exposing as a fraud for over six months at BigGovernment.com

The last time that King tried to introduce a bill to stop Pigford II funding last year, he was blocked by the Democrat controlled congress and it wasn’t allowed to come up for a vote. Now we have a chance to do the right thing and end the fraud.

You can make a difference, right now – this is a vote we can win.

You just need to make 4 quick calls, visit one site and then send and email or a Tweet.

1. Call your Congressman and tell them you support Rep. Steve King’s amendment to stop Pigford II funding. This is especially important if you have a GOP Congressman.

Not sure who your Congressperson is or how to teach them? Use this website.

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Congressman Steve King (R-IA) released the following statement after filing an amendment today to H.R 2112, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2012, that prevents any funds appropriated under the act from being used to settle claims associated with the controversial and fraud-plagued Pigford II program.

“In the 2008 Farm Bill, Congress limited taxpayers’ exposure to the Pigford II settlement program at $100 million, a figure that was deemed sufficient to resolve the racial discrimination claims leveled against the United States Department of Agriculture by black farmers,” said King. “Since that time, a lame-duck Democratic Congress agreed to President Obama’s request to pump an additional $1.15 billion into the Pigford II settlement program, doing so even though the program is rife with credible allegations of massive fraud that have not been fully investigated. This was an irresponsible act, and it violated Congress’s responsibility to be good stewards of taxpayers’ money.”

(more…)

For some people, it seems hard to believe that the government would actually give $50,000 checks in what is supposed to be a “farmers settlement” to people who never farmed a day in their life. It sounds outrageous to believe that the government would give billions of dollars away to people who have no proof that they even filled out an application with the USDA.

Don’t take my word for it – just ask Obama administration. They are actively advertising the fact that any woman can be eligible to receive up to $50,000 for claiming – without proof — that the USDA refused to give her a loan application.

This is from the FAQ on the official government website FarmerClaims.gov

Who is Covered?

I went into the USDA office and they wouldn’t provide me an application, so I don’t have a denial letter or anything from USDA. Am I eligible for a claim and if so what do I need to provide?

You may be eligible to submit a claim depending on your specific circumstances. You may request a claims package and review the eligibility criteria contained in the claims package. If you have questions, you may consult with counsel or another legal service provider.

Click the link and look for yourself. You need the same information in Spanish? After all, there’s also a “Hispanic farmers” settlement . No problema – aqui!

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Will Senator Chuck Grassley look at THIS evidence about the massive fraud in Pigford? His office number is 202-224-3744. Please leave a comment and let us know what Grassley’s office says to you.

I want you to get a good look at attorney Al Pires, the mastermind behind four different settlements ostensibly created to aid black, women, Hispanic and Native American farmers. I’ve been telling you about the billions of dollars in fraud the settlements actually represent for months and Al Pires is an absolutely central figure in them. The settlements were his idea and he was the lead attorney who recruited other lawyers and helped create the structure of the consent decree that made it easy for people who claimed to have “attempted to farm” to collect $50,000 checks.

But Al Pires is an elusive figure, for reasons I think will be obvious as soon as you watch the video. My Pigford investigative team has known for months that getting Al Pires to talk on the record would be a dream interview and crucial to understanding the scam that’s been perpetrated on the taxpayers and the real farmers for years now. John Stossel first exposed Pires in his great Freeloaders special a few weeks ago and when he called me earlier this week and offered me the opportunity to question Al Pires myself, I realized that it represented a very rare opportunity.

So we should all thank John Stossel for giving us this chance to see and hear the man that President Obama, USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, and the Congressional Black Caucus have invested so much political capital in. Meet Al Pires.

Even though this case goes back to 1999, please bear in mind that Al Pires and “Dr.” John Boyd are currently on the road right now recruiting women “farmers”. In other words, Al Pires still represents a clear and present danger to our nation’s treasury and to the interest of racial harmony. As the interview makes clear, Al Pires is a race baiter of the first order and he needs to foment a race war as a form of misdirection while he lines his own pockets.

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As I was transcribing the undercover audio we have of Tom Burrell, President of the Black Farmers Agricultural Association, Inc. speaking to an all-black audience in Monroe Louisiana this past January , something suddenly jumped out at me. I knew that Burrell was using a number of persuasive techniques such as peer pressure and stirring up feelings of racial victimization but his reason for doing so had danced around the edge of my consciousness.

Then I realized what Burrell is doing is absolutely classic confidence game behavior. Last year, I read Eric Garcia’s excellent con game novel Matchstick Men and of course I’ve seen classic 1970s con man movies like The Sting and Paper Moon. One major trick that conmen use is to get their victim – the mark — to become their “partner” in some sort of borderline unethical or illegal activity. “Hey, that guy dropped his wallet – what do you say you and I split the money, pal?” This ensures that once the victim has been fleeced, that they’re very unlikely to tell the authorities or anyone else what happened.

One way to listen to this audio is to think about the taxpayers who are being ripped off by people filing fraudulent claims that earn them a $50,000 check. That’s one of the bad things about Pigford and it obviously has affected taxpayers, both black and white.

But there’s another way to hear the audio, as well — everyone who Burrell is trying to convince and cajole into committing fraud is also a victim of Burrell’s game. His goal is to get as many people to give him $100 a year as he can and when I interviewed him, Burrell told me that the BFAA Inc. has nearly 10,000 members. Do the math and you’ll see that he is playing a very profitable game, indeed.

The first video gives a few examples of con game techniques that Tom Burrell uses on the crowd.

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There are number of factors that could lead to the Pigford scandal becoming a political issue in Iowa, of all places. The state’s demographics – about 95% Caucasian – might make this seem unlikely but it’s very interesting how many of the major political players in the Pigford scandal are from the heartland state.

1) One of the major Senate proponents of Pigford is Republican Chuck Grassley

2) The major political opponent of Pigford is Republican representative Steve King

3) USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, a Democrat, is also the former governor of Iowa who also served in the state legislature with Steve King. Vilsack has made Pigford a priority in his administration and has opposed any efforts to investigate fraud in the settlement.

4) Vilsack was also the fall guy in the forced resignation of Shirley Sherrod; Mrs. Sherrod has stated publicly that she believes the White House was behind her firing because she was told this by USDA Undersecretary Cheryl Cook. Vilsack has denied White House involvement. The White House and the USDA both had good reasons for not wanting publicity about Pigford and Mrs. Sherrod; she, her husband Charles and the New Communities farm that she helped manage were by far the largest single recipients of Pigford money, getting over $13 million.

5) Vilsack’s USDA also did an end run around the court decision and created their own expedited process to give money to women and Hispanic farmers — and significantly, women and Hispanics who claim to have attempted to farm. This “attempted to farm” distinction is exactly what led to significant fraud in Pigford.

6) Sec. Vilsack and Sen. Grassley have both praised “Dr.” John Boyd and have advocated using Boyd for outreach in the Pigford, women and Hispanic farmers cases. For more on John Boyd watch the segment from my documentary Pigford Blues.

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