Acorn Follow-up In California

The last video released in the ongoing Acorn expose’ showed a staffer in California not only helping the pimp and prostitute to set up their underage brothel, but also claiming she’d killed her former husband… after laying the groundwork for a self-defense case.

The San Bernardino Police are in the process of investigating the possible crime, and their preliminary investigation shows no evidence that the murder claimed by the Acorn worker ever occurred.
http://biggovernment.com/2009/09/16/police-report-san-bernardino-county-investigating-alleged-homicide/

Many liberals are using this as an excuse to paint the entire undercover investigation as bogus… and the woman has come forward to claim she knew they were bogus and was “playing with them.”
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_webtape16v2.406d524.html?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:9ca89ec5-7ab2-454c-bdc2-2197e13f7f79

ACORN employee Tresa Kaelke is shown meeting with them, telling them that she once was an escort and got away with killing her husband.

But Kaelke insisted Tuesday she made up her story for shock value.

"They were clearly playing with me," she said in a written statement released by ACORN, "I decided to shock them as much as they were shocking me."

My own personal opinion is that it’s a nice attempt to CYA. Unless, of course, you believe that the best way to deal with people trying to catch you on video providing illegal help is to provide that help and admit to numerous crimes that you didn’t commit. Sure… Public Relations 101.

But if this is true, and Acorn truly believes they have not done anything wrong, why have they fired at least four people? And why have they essentially closed down to “new intakes” while they establish reforms?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,550941,00.html

And the White House has weighed in on the controversy, with White House Spokesman Gibbs saying that the behavior witnessed on the tapes is “unacceptable.”
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/white-house-calls-acorn-employees-behavior-unacceptable.html

It doesn’t really matter what excuse or explanation that Acorn gives at this point, the images captured were too stark and graphic to be explained away. They’ve already lost their census gig and are in serious danger of losing all access to HUD funding… at the very least. Congressman are calling for an IRS audit and Congressional hearings to review all Acorn activity. They can (and should!) defend themselves as best they can, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are defending criminal actions (conspiracy to defraud the US government) taken by their own employees.

And here’s another thing to consider… what ELSE did the filmmaker discover before he went public with his findings? Be on the lookout for further releases…