Obama gave former ACORN official $445 million taxpayer-funded gift?

Join us at 7:07AM MDT today on The Morning Zone. Host Dave Chaffin will be talking with Jim about this column in detail. Jim Kouri, CPP, is the fifth Vice President and Public Information Officer of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, has served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country.

~~By Jim Kouri~~~06-12-2012

In a report released on Friday, a government watchdog group revealed that the Obama Administration gave a former director at the scandal-ridden left-wing front group, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- otherwise known as ACORN -- nearly half-billion dollars to assist “struggling” homeowners in President Barack Obama's home state of Illinois.

According to the public-interest group Judicial Watch, the former ACORN official, Joseph McGavin, will go from operating a corrupt leftist community group, that’s banned by Congress from receiving federal funding, to controlling over $445 million in U.S. taxpayer funds.

"The money is part of a $7.6 billion Treasury Department program to help the “unemployed or substantially underemployed” make their mortgage payments," said Judicial Watch officials.

In this alleged corruption case, JW investigators discovered that a subcomponent of the state-run Illinois Housing Development Authority, known as the Illinois Hardest Hit Program, received a generous $445,603,557.00 Obama Administration gift of taxpayer cash.

"It's always heartwarming to see progressives who are so generous and helpful to their fellow man. Of course, they're usually generous and helpful with other people's money. In this case, the IRS practically puts a gun to a taxpayer's head and takes his hard-earned money to give it to someone who is far more comfortable than the taxpayer," said political strategist Michael Baker.

One of Barack Obama’s first big “community organizer” jobs involved ACORN, Baker added.

"He worked along side ACORN before he became an elected official. Obama also trained ACORN staff members and represented them in court cases. In short, Obama worked with and protested with ACORN. During his 2008 presidential campaign, he donated $800,000 for ACORN to register voters. Besides that, using government money, ACORN canvassed for Obama's campaign," said Baker.

In 2009, Obama paid back ACORN-alumnus Patrick Gaspard by appointing him to a White House position shaping public policy, in spite of the fact that Garpard was fined close to $750,000 for election violations.

Barack Obama was simply not honest about his working for ACORN during the 2008 election, and few if any newspeople mentioned his ACORN-connections, Baker noted.

Established in 2010 by the Obama Administration, Illinois Hardest Hit's goal is to provide "targeted aid to families" in states hit hardest by the economic and housing market downturn, according to its web site.

In early 2011, Joseph McGavin was named the director of Illinois Hardest Hit. Prior to his present post, he was director of counseling for ACORN Housing in Chicago and operations manager for a Chicago ACORN offshoot called Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA). His strong ties to ACORN make him a suspect candidate to handle such a huge amount of taxpayer dollars, according to Judicial Watch's Corruption Chronicles.

ACORN supposedly shut down after a series of exposés about its illegal activities, including fraudulent voter registration drives and involvement in the housing market meltdown, according to a Judicial Watch special report.

The legal scandals led Congress to pass a 2009 law banning federal funding for ACORN, which for years enjoyed a huge flow of taxpayer dollars to promote its various left-wing causes.

The Obama Administration has violated the congressional ACORN funding ban, however. Last summer Judicial Watch uncovered records that show ACORN got tens of thousands of dollars in grants to “combat housing and lending discrimination.” The money came via Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which awarded a $79,819 grant to AHCOA.

In addition to violating the ACORN funding ban, the grant was astounding because federal investigators had previously exposed fraud by the same Florida-based ACORN/AHCOA affiliate. HUD’s inspector general found that the group “inappropriately” spent more than $3.2 million in grants that were supposed to be used to eliminate lead poisoning in its housing program, according the Corruption Chronicles.

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Special thanks to Judicial Watch director of public affairs, Jill Farrell, for her continued help and support in providing valuable information.