Earlier this week, BigGovernment revealed another chapter in the scandal ridden saga of Georgia Congressman Sanford Bishop. Representative Bishop has represented South Georgia’s second district for nearly 20 years. He’s an under the radar member of the Congressional Black Caucus, seemingly without the temperament or ambition to achieve the high visibility of a John Conyers or Maxine Waters. His relative anonymity has allowed him to avoid much close scrutiny but because of his active role in helping to cover up the Pigford scandal, we are keeping a close eye on him and his race for reelection in 2012. For those of you not familiar with Congressman Bishop, here’s a quick recap of some of his career low lights.

Despite the relative lack of progress and growth he’s delivered to his district, Congressman Bishop is an expert in delivering earmarks. In fiscal year 2010, he was ranked 42nd out of 435 Congressmen.  In 2008 he was ranked 28^th. He generally delivers a combination of military and agricultural pork that has given him the behind-the-scenes support of some in the political class beyond his African-American voter base.

He’s had a couple of scandals that have involved his wife Vivian Creighton-Bishop diverting money to friends and family. Vivian Bishop is the Municipal Court clerk in Columbus, Georgia. In March 2009, Frank Castiglione reported;

During an internal audit of the Junior Marshal Program at the Marshal’s Office in Columbus, it was discovered that two part-time employees had been paid over $7,000 each over a period of some months.

The employees lived in Lithonia, Georgia, well over 100 miles away from the Columbus office. In light of rumors regarding the part-timers, Marshal Greg Countryman called in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) to launch an inquiry.

The GBI found that the part-time employees, Aayesha Reese and Stephen Reese, are the daughter and son-in-law of Municipal Court Clerk Vivian Creighton Bishop. With more digging, it was discovered that the paychecks, sent via direct deposit, had actually been diverted to Creighton-Bishop’s bank account.

This would seem to be the stuff that would end a political career, but Mr. and Mrs. Bishop appear to possess considerable skill at keeping much of the local press under their sway.

(more…)

Thomas Burrell, head of the Black Farmers Agricultural Association, Inc., is not ready to leave the Pigford settlement business without a fight.

Despite recent court setbacks, he is still threatening legal action. The fact that Burrell is calling out President Barack Obama seems to signal that Burrell feels he has to play hardball and threaten the tacit agreement that was made between candidate Obama and a number of self-styled “black leaders” about the Pigford settlement and the African-American vote several years ago.

This recent news report from Tennessee shows Burrell and local clergymen taking public aim at the President. Burrell correctly points out that the Pigford 2 settlement for black farmers has a number of restrictions on it that new settlements for women and Latino farmers do not have. The disparity is actually somewhat bizarre, and will be the topic of further reporting in the future.

However, Burrell’s refusal to go down quietly on the issue signals a potential problem for Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign strategy that would be missed by many observers who don’t understand the connection between Obama and Pigford.

(more…)

From the Department of Justice:

Attorney General Eric Holder and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack released the following statements on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia approval of the historic Pigford II settlement:

“This settlement allows the Department of Agriculture and African-American farmers to focus on the future, and brings us one step closer to giving these farmers a chance to have their claims heard,” said Attorney General Holder. “Accomplishing this settlement has been a top priority of this Administration and I am pleased that the court has approved it.”

“Since my first day at USDA, I made it a priority to treat all Americans with respect and dignity and to ensure equal access to our programs.  Court approval of the Pigford settlement is another important step to ensure some level of justice for black farmers and ranchers who faced discrimination when trying to obtain services from USDA,” said Secretary Vilsack. “President Obama, Attorney General Holder and I are thrilled by the court’s approval so we can continue turning the page on this sad chapter in USDA history. In the months and years ahead, we will not stop working to move the Department into a new era as a model employer and premier service provider for all Americans regardless of race, ethnicity or gender.” (more…)

At the National Press Club in Washington DC in September 2011, Ridgely Muhammad, Minister of Agriculture for the Nation of Islam, was a featured speaker on a panel discussing the Pigford black farmer settlement.
(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?

(more…)

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.

(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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

Here’s another ‘rough cut’ segment from Pigford Blues — this time, what probably will end up being the film’s intro. Please feel free to email this video to someone who might be interested or embed it on your own website.

It’s one the most troublesome aspects of the Pigford settlement – how could thousands (or tens of thousands) of people knowingly commit fraud to receive a $50,000 check that they weren’t entitled to?

We have the answer in the form of undercover audio that was recorded at a meeting that taught potential Pigford claimants exactly how to commit fraud. The meeting was conducted by a man named Thomas Burrell, the head of the Black Farmers Agricultural Association, Inc. At CPAC in February, we held a press conference where we released a two hour unedited section of audio. Now I’m releasing the first in a series of shorter excerpts that take you through some of the key points. I

There are two parts to the full answer of how such massive fraud could come to be ; one practical, the other ethical. Practically speaking, they were coached. They were told precisely what to say in order for their claim to pass muster with the adjudicator. Who told them? People like who conducted meetings for years throughout the country.

The ethical question is the more troubling part. I believe that thousands of basically honest people were induced into committing fraud by people like Mr. Burrell. How? As you will hear in this excerpt from undercover audio that we recorded earlier this year, Thomas Burrell uses a powerful combination of persuasive techniques including literally invoking the name of God, telling his audience that their ancestors were owed the money and the technique of “social proof”, which makes collecting a $50,000 check seem like something many people have done. Stir this together with the basic human failing of greed and frankly it’s a wonder that many more people do not file fraudulent claim.

Here is the first excerpt:

(more…)

I’ve often said that the Pigford scandal isn’t a partisan issue. This is about fraud and corruption and while there are many Democrats involved, one of the biggest promoters of Pigford has been Republican Senator Chuck Grassley. Grassley was the Senate sponsor of the Pigford Claims Recovery Act that extended Pigford to another 70,000+ claimants.

Even more troubling than Senator Grassley’s support of the Pigford Legislation, however, has been his explicit support of “Dr.” John Boyd.

Boyd is head of the National Black Farmers Assocuation, a group that he runs out of his house in Virginia. Boyd claims to represent ‘the farmers’ but in fact, he’s personally profited from the Pigford settlement to the tune of over $1,000,000. Boyd aggressively plays the race card against his critics, including Andrew Breitbart and this site.

In 2009, attorney Rose Sanders – a major advocate of Pigford, mind you –  said this about “Dr.” John Boyd…

Less than two years ago, I attended meetings by John Boyd where he and his attorneys were soliciting contracts from hundreds of eligible and ineligible claimants before the Pigford II legislation was passed in Congress. These contracts obligated citizens to pay 1/3 of their recovery to John Boyd’s attorneys plus expenses. Expenses had to be paid even if the claimant was unsuccessful. I objected to these outrageous contracts.

For more on Boyd, you can watch this clip from Pigford Blues about Boyd’s Institute and Doctorate and you can also read this post that shows how Boyd manipulates the press.

I contacted the office of Republican Senator Chuck Grassley today about his support for John Boyd. Here’s the response I got from Grassley’s press secretary, Beth Levine.

Senator Grassley’s support for Pigford II isn’t about John Boyd, it’s about the thousands of black farmers who were unable to have their cases heard before a neutral arbiter. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the courts and the Congress have all said that these farmers deserve to have their cases heard based on the merits. Pigford II simply enables the farmers, or those who attempted to farm, to plead their case in front of a neutral party and be judged on the merits. The law was also specifically written with extra protections to help ensure that fraud is kept out of the program. Those changes have been made to the settlement agreement that will enhance the Department’s ability to fight fraud including requiring adjudicators to be a truly neutral party; allowing that neutral adjudicator to ask the claimant for additional documentation if he or she suspects any fraud; requiring the claimants’ attorneys to certify that there is evidentiary support for the claims; and requiring the Office of Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office to evaluate the Department’s internal controls and audit the process in adjudicating the claims. (emphasis mine.)

This is all standard runaround that Pigford II somehow has higher standards – and it’s not true.

(more…)

It’s back to business on our investigation of the Pigford story – the ongoing fraud that needs your help and attention to make it stop. The mainstream – with a few exceptions like John Stossel – are ignoring the story of the one of the biggest frauds in U.S. history because it doesn’t fit their narrative. The good guys are the real farmers who faced discrimination at the hands of the UsDA and the people, mostly conservative at this point, trying to bring their story to light. The bad guys are the trial lawyers, politicians, race hustlers and those inside the USDA who profit by lying to the public about how the Pigford settlement is a ‘victory’ for black farmers.

In this video, we introduce you to Lucious Abrams, a Georgia farmer who was one of the seven original claimants. Abrams has spent years working for justice only to be betrayed by people like the Congressional Black Caucus.  Now Lucious is speaking out and speaking truth to the power structure that doesn’t speak for him.

(more…)

In a Friday afternoon news-dump, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and a representative of the Obama Justice Department announced a bombshell: the Obama administration has set up their own “streamlined process” for women and Hispanic farmers to collect damages from the federal government for alleged past discrimination.

Like the fraud-filled Pigford claim persons who claim to have “attempted-to” farm will be eligible for awards of up to fifty thousand dollars each. In response to a question from Big Government’s Lee Stranahan the Department of Justice laid out a set of requirements that is eerily similar to the Pigford claims process, such as categories of “farmed” or “attempted-to-farm,” “owned land” or “attempted-to-own land,” standards that will almost certainly result in thousands of fraudulent claims.

(more…)

Georgia farmer Willie Head discusses how and why the government and USDA county committee members who had no oversight and their own agenda, were able to create a situation where black farmers have lost their land.

Be wary when you hear, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”

“We could hold 600 investigations perhaps.”

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who will become chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee when the 112th Congress is sworn in this week, announced tonight that the Pigford Scandal will be investigated though not by his committee.

Representative Issa also said that there are 600 investigations perhaps he could hold on the previous Congress and administration but he does not have the time or resources.

Here’s the transcript:

Rep. Issa: “We’ve been asked for quite a while to begin to talk about the order to which we will take on important hearings so we released the first six. We could have released sixty. We could have released 600 perhaps. At the end of the day there is so much in government that in the next two years even if we did a hearing every single day on every single sub committee, we couldn’t do all the areas of waste, fraud and abuse…”

Jim Hoft: Another item that I don’t think is getting a lot of attention but has been out on the internet some and that is the Pigford Scandal. That is not one of the items you have listed. Is it because it is so, it’s a billion dollars. Is it just chump change compared to some of these other items?

Rep Issa: As you know the Pigford Scandal is really one that falls under two other committees. One of the things that I have to know in my committee is I have to leverage my resources.

(more…)

Incoming House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tx) appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show today.  When asked about the Pigford Settlement the congressman said “There are still a lot of questions about that money that was spent and whether individuals were discriminated against or not and that would be a right subject for an oversight hearing.”

The mainstream media has treated accusations of large-scale fraud in the Pigford settlement with overt skepticism and a distinct lack of journalistic curiosity. The press has blindly repeated the Obama Administration’s claim that there are only a handful of fraud cases among the twenty thousand or so paid Pigford claims.  Worse, the media has helped promote the narrative that those raising concerns about fraud in Pigford are racist.

You’re about to watch a video clip where Othello Cross, an attorney for Pigford claimants with about fifteen years of experience on the case, admits that he is personally aware of hundreds of cases of fraud in the state of Arkansas alone. Furthermore, he explains how easy it was to commit that fraud and receive a $50,000 check from the government; it’s appropriate to deduce from Cross’s revealing statement that the actual number of fraudulent claims is likely much higher than the hundreds he knows about.

You’re about to watch this clip for the first time, but the USDA watched it over a week ago — I sent it to them for comment about 10 days ago.

After a number of phone calls to the USDA, I was given the response that Secretary Vilsack now acknowledges around ten cases of fraud, up from his original statement that there are only three known cases. If I were inclined to spin the government’s response, I’d praise the USDA for finding 300% more instances of fraud in just a few days, but the reality is that the USDA can watch a video where a pro-Pigford claimant lawyer says in no uncertain terms that he knows about hundreds of cases of fraud — over ten million dollars worth at bare minimum — and still will only acknowledge ten cases.

As Andrew Breitbart points out, the media simply doesn’t want to cover Pigford. I also sent this video to a few major media outlets that stated they wanted to “research” this. I haven’t heard back from any of them. (more…)

Both left media and right media are afraid to report the Pigford story.

Those on the left are fearful that BigGovernment.com’s reporting is true – and our biggest detractors are conspicuously silent since we launched our report two weeks ago.

And the right media is fearful of the story because of race.

So far Rep. Steve King is already proving that to discuss Pigford on TV means having to deal with unfounded knee-jerk accusations of racism. First King was swarmed by the left-wing word police for using the word “urban” when describing Pigford legislative champion then Sen. Obama (D-Ill.).

Spend five minutes investigating Pigford the words “urban” and “rural” are integral to report the story.

Then Rep. King was castigated by Anderson Cooper on CNN for using the word “reparations.”

In fact, most of the key Pigford advocates not only use the word “reparations,” but Pigford has been sold to claimants as “reparations,” even at yearly “reparations conventions.”

Accepting the premise that “reparations” was the context that churchgoing folk were rounded up to sign up for Pigford by glorified carnival barkers, who illegally financially profited by signing up prospective claimants for $100 per person per year, will go a long way to explain why so many non-farmers signed up to get a piece of the action. They were fraudulently induced into the Pigford class and, in essence, signed off without reading like many of us do when signing a Blockbuster Video user agreement.

But so far the media has not only been cowed not to dig deeper into Pigford by those who would be exposed as billion dollar fraudsters, the media has been doing some of the heaviest lifting, as evidenced by Cooper’s attack on Rep. King opposite John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmer Association (NBFA).

(more…)