ACORN

An Iowa congressman is questioning the timing of the sudden resignation of a controversial Obama administration official, whose husband has had close ties to ACORN and has recently been named President Obama's White House counsel.

In serving as White House communications director, Anita Dunn had created a stir when she told school children earlier this year that Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse Tung was one of the people she admired the most. She also launched a public attack against the Fox News Channel for its reporting on the ACORN prostitution scandal.

Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) thinks it is curious that Dunn abruptly resigned from her White House post, just four days after Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell raided ACORN's national office, seizing paper records and computer hard drives...

An organization affiliated with ACORN is still eligible for charitable donations through a federal program for government employees, despite complaints that the program violates recent legislation targeting the now-scandalized community group.

The affiliate organization, the ACORN Institute, will not be barred from participating in the Combined Federal Campaign, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management said. The program encourages federal employees to give to local charities.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, raised concerns earlier this month over the government's refusal to omit the ACORN Institute from the campaign. But Personnel Management Director John Berry said in a letter delivered to Grassley that the institute is legally eligible to receive donations through the program...

Las Vegas (AP) - Lawyers for the political advocacy group ACORN and a former supervisor say they'll plead not guilty to charges that they illegally paid canvassers to register Nevada voters during last year's presidential campaign.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and former regional supervisor Amy Busefink are scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Las Vegas...

Democratic lawmakers in a handful of states are facing pressure from Republicans to distance themselves from the Service Employees International Union as a result of its ties to ACORN.

Republicans in Kansas, Virginia and Illinois in recent weeks have called on union-backed Democrats to return SEIU campaign contributions, citing the close connection between the union and the community organizing group, whose full name is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

ACORN has been under fire in the past month after secretly recorded videos showed ACORN employees offering advice on evading taxes, setting up brothels and smuggling illegal immigrants...

Baton Rouge, La. (AP) - An internal review by ACORN's board of directors found that $5 million was embezzled from the community organization, far more than a previously reported sum of $1 million, according to documents from the Louisiana attorney general's office.

The new amount was reported in a subpoena released Monday from an investigation by Attorney General Buddy Caldwell. It is unclear if the money was taken from state, federal or private funds, according to the subpoena...

A public-interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption has filed three Freedom of Information Act lawsuits seeking documents related to the controversial community activist organization ACORN.

Judicial Watch wants the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Labor, and the parent company of AmeriCorps -- the Corporation for National and Community Finance -- to turn over documents related to their relationships with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

Spokesman Chris Farrell says Judicial Watch is concerned that ACORN has basically served as an agent of the federal government in doling out housing funds....

A former member of the Federal Election Commission is calling on the Department of Justice to launch an extensive investigation into the activities of the controversial community organizing group ACORN.

The Justice Department's inspector general said earlier this week that he will look into whether the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) received grant funds from Justice -- and if it did, what it did with that money...

BALTIMORE (AP) -- Community activist group ACORN is suing the makers of a hidden-camera video that showed employees of its Baltimore office giving tax advice to a man posing as a pimp and a woman posing as a prostitute.

The liberal group contends that the audio portion of the video was obtained illegally because Maryland requires two-party consent to create sound recordings.

The two employees seen in the video were fired after it was posted online. The lawsuit says the employees, Tonja Thompson and Shera Williams, suffered "extreme emotional distress"...

Majority Leader Harry Reid rebuffed a Republican request that he call Senate hearings and an investigation into recent allegations against the scandal-tainted community organizing group ACORN.

Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday that he would not ask the Senate committee chairmen or Congress “to do anything that would distract from efforts to address” health care, climate change, an overhaul of the nation’s financial regulatory system and oversight of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Reid made the comments in letters to 28 Republican senators, who had asked for the investigation into the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now...

Community-organizing group Acorn said Thursday it was considering quitting its voter-registration work amid a growing political storm over its activities, a move that could hurt Democrats at the polls.

In the latest rebuke, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Thursday to block the group from receiving federal funds. Republicans attached the measure attacking Acorn to an unrelated bill that advances a top Democratic priority: making the federal government the sole provider of college loans under federal programs, forcing private lenders out of the origination market.

The Acorn measure passed with strong bipartisan support, 345-75, while the student-loan bill passed by 253-171, largely along party lines...