reuters
Posted on 11/27/2009 7:35:42 PM PST by NormsRevenge
The Justice Department has ruled that the federal government can honor some existing contracts to fund ACORN, despite a law barring the flow of all federal money to the beleaguered community group.
David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, concluded in a five-page ruling that the funding ban signed by President Barack Obama in October as part of the legislative branch appropriations bill does not direct the Department of Housing and Urban Development to breach pre-existing contracts to pay ACORN. Much of ACORN’s federal funds come in the form of housing subsidies.
The ruling, issued Monday, was made public on Friday.
“We are pleased that commitments will be honored relative to ACORN’s important work to help working families protect their homes from foreclosure,” said Brian Kettenring, ACORN’s deputy director of national operations.
ACORN has been a punching bag for conservatives for some time, but both Republicans and Democrats seized on the group earlier this year when hidden cameras caught the group’s employees advising actors posed as a prostitute and her politician-pimp boyfriend on how to evade taxes and set up a brothel.
Congressional fury followed, with Republicans and Democrats passing resolutions condemning the group, and then a wide-ranging ban on funding the group with federal dollars.
Republicans are already seizing on the DOJ judgment. Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, said the administration is circumventing the intent of Congress. He called the ruling “old-fashioned cronyism” intended to benefit an organization he said is allied with Obama.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
ping
Obama new what the intention of congress was and ordered his DOJ to find a loophole...
What a crock they should all be up on charges.
The MSM can be equally influential in what they don't report as well as what they do report.
reuters
But I guess contract rights are inviolate when it comes to criminal enterprises that support liberal candidates.
Life under the Obama Administration sure takes some getting used to with the two systems of justice.
It begs the question:
Is the law passed by Congress unconstitutional since it nullified previously existing contracts? Something like ex post facto on contracts.
Did the AG with this opinion enforce the Constitution or make law (to fit his/Administrations wants).
I’m no lawyer, so I really don’t know the answer. My opinion is the latter.
Also, does it really matter since the law Congress passed withheld money from them for something like 90 days only.
. . . . .but we can deny pre-existing contracts to pay executive bonuses for people who worked essentially for nothing to be eligible for them!
Geez, are these people really that stupid or just feeling their oats just a bit? No small wonder that Larry Sabato now sees the dems losing up to 9 Senate seats in 2010. He also sees the dems losing the majority in the House as well.
Makes me wonder what is the administration going to do to cause the issuance of Martial Law to cancel elections.
It would seem if illegal conduct/procedures were utilized, or monies falsely attributed to marked use (or not used as proposed), they wouldn’t get said money for contracts.
But i’m no contract lawyer. Just ‘assuming’ there may be clauses or conditions.
No one does ‘laundry’ like ACORN... Ancient Chinese Secret huh?
That’s really weird, when we were doing federal contracts, when you were suspended for malfeasance, it was all contracts, past, present and future.
Must be an important election coming up where the ACORN fraudsters services are needed.
Eff them every one.
The US government under the bamster is an ongoing criminal enterprise.
................The Government didn’t seem so respectful of “contract rights” when it was proposed bonus payments to investment bankers at firms that got bailout money.
But I guess contract rights are inviolate when it comes to criminal enterprises that support liberal candidates.
...................
BINGO!
We can only wish that we whitie’s would receive this “equal treatment uder the law” as does a corrupt corporation to “help” the “disadvantaged”!
Your tax dollars at work, baby.
Someone please tell me... why is this man the Attorney General of the United States of America?
And the corruption continues. It’s way past time to start burning down their houses!
My thoughts exactly. Why was DOJ even making a comment about it? Still if Congress doesn’t provide funding there isn’t anything DOJ can do about it.
If ACORN was using our money to break laws would that not null and void any contract our deranged officials made with them? How can any organization obtain federal funding when it is a given they will continue to use it illegally.
I would like to see detailed receipts of every monetary transaction ACORN or any of its affiliates made with this money.
| That's EXACTLY what I see with this “ruling”. Obama is trying to find a way to funnel that money to ACORN for the upcoming 2010 election. Expect this money to be used for MORE illegal election fraud, a/k/a Obama-style Community Organizing ... which is why Republicans in Congress MUST stop Obama from trying to hijack the purse-strings.
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