ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy

The ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy started in September 2009 when conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe publicized selectively edited hidden camera recordings through Fox News and Andrew Breitbart's website BigGovernment.com. In the videos, Giles posed as a prostitute and O'Keefe posed as her boyfriend in order to elicit damaging responses from employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). The videos were recorded over the summer of 2009 while visiting ACORN offices in eight cities and purported to show low-level ACORN employees in several cities providing advice to Giles and O'Keefe on how to avoid taxes and detection by the authorities with regard to their plans to engage in tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution. After the videos were made public, the U.S. Congress voted to eliminate federal funding to ACORN. Although the resolutions were later nullified in a federal court ruling that the measure was an unconstitutional bill of attainder, on August 13, 2010, a federal appeals court upheld the congressional act that cut off federal funding for ACORN.

On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees. On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office. On April, 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited," and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees. On June 14, 2010, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received.

In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors, partially due to the video controversy.

Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe

Hannah Giles (born 15 March 1989) is an American conservative activist who came to national attention in the United States in September 2009 with James O'Keefe when she portrayed a prostitute in the ACORN undercover video controversy. Giles was an undergraduate studying journalism at Florida International University until she dropped out to "pursue demands to keep up with public appearances and job offers." Giles and O'Keefe first met when she called him to discuss her idea and together spent only $1,300 on what a Washington Post reporter called a "Mission to Fell ACORN." During an interview with Sean Hannity of FoxNews, Giles said she conceived of her idea during a summer jog. Giles was lauded by conservative commentators for what they characterized as a series of investigative encounters with staff at the prominent community organization.

Main article: James O'Keefe

James E. O'Keefe III (born June 28, 1984) is an American activist-filmmaker who came to national attention in the United States in September 2009 with the release of his ACORN undercover videos. O'Keefe describes himself as an "investigative journalist without formal training" who follows Saul Alinsky's rule of making "the enemy live up to its own book of rules." He was once employed by Morton Blackwell at the Leadership Institute. O'Keefe describes his politics as "progressive radical." He has expressed admiration for the philosophies of British writer G.K. Chesterton and Soviet novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Hidden camera recordings and video releases

In July and August 2009, Giles and O'Keefe visited ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington D.C., Brooklyn, San Bernardino, San Diego, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami. Giles dressed as a prostitute, while O'Keefe wore white khakis with a blue dress shirt and/or tie and claimed to be her boyfriend. Giles and O'Keefe recorded the encounters using hidden cameras and pretended to be seeking advice on how to run an illegal business which included the use of underage girls in the sex trade.

September 2009

Edited videos from the visits to ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington D.C., Brooklyn, San Bernardino, and San Diego were released between September 10 and September 17, 2009, and were used to launch Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com website. Unedited transcripts were also released on the site. In the videos, O'Keefe included introductory segments of himself wearing a fur coat, top hat, sunglasses, and wielded a cane in the videos, which caused many viewers, including the media, to perceive that O'Keefe was actually dressed as a pimp when speaking with ACORN personnel. Instead, O'Keefe dressed professionally during his ACORN visits, never turning the camera on himself while inside ACORN offices. Not all the videos show ACORN staff advising the pair and none involved forms for loans or taxes being processed.

September video release summary

ACORN Office Location	Video release date	Transcript release date	Date video taken	Number of videos / total time	Transcripts
Baltimore, Maryland	2009-09-10	2009-09-10	Unknown	2 / 18:07	1
Washington, D.C.	2009-09-11	2009-09-14	2009-07-25	2 / 12:46	1
Brooklyn (New York)	2009-09-14	2009-09-15	2009-08-04	2 / 15:42	1
San Bernardino, California	2009-09-15	2009-09-19	2009-08-17	4 / 28:31	1
San Diego, California	2009-09-17	2009-09-19	2009-08-18	2 / 12:48	1, 2

In the Baltimore office, O'Keefe said that he and Giles were bringing up thirteen girls from El Salvador "like 15" years of age to live in their house and work as prostitutes "just to get them on their feet so they can do this type of thing." Giles remarks "they are kind of dependent." Although the Baltimore ACORN staffer pointed out their plans were illegal, after O'Keefe remarks "we are going to be putting a roof over [their] head" the ACORN employee states "well then you know what you can always claim them as dependents." Later, the employee states "you are gonna use three of them they are gonna be under 16 so you is eligible to get child tax credit and additional child tax credit." When O'Keefe asks "what if they are going to be making money because they are performing tricks too?" the employee replies, "but if they making money and they are underage, then you shouldn't be letting anybody know anyway." The Baltimore employees were fired by ACORN after the video was released.

In the Washington DC office, Giles and O'Keefe ask about how to account for the Giles anticipated prostitution income on tax forms, and Giles asks "is there a way I can make up two years of tax returns?" The ACORN employee tells her "no you can't make it up," but tells Giles that she could form a business and state that she provides a service. The employee goes on to say "you can have a business. She's not going to put down that she's doing prostitution," and "you don't have to sit back and tell people what it is you do." Giles later tells an ACORN employee that she will be giving the money earned from prostitution to O'Keefe and an ACORN employee tells them "when the police ask you – you don't know where it's coming from."

In the Brooklyn office, Giles and O'Keefe tell a loan counselor they want to buy a house, and that an abusive pimp is "aggressively" pursuing Giles and that she "wanted to leave because it is scary being subjected to a huge man who has control over your life." The ACORN counselor advises her "you get a tin if [he] is going to come beat you... you get a tin and bury it down in there and you put the money right in and you put grass over it and you don't tell a single soul." When discussing getting a house and Giles earnings, O'Keefe says that Giles is very honest and an ACORN counselor replies "honest is not going to get you the house that is why you probably been denied cause you probably going in saying." Another stated to the "prostitute," "you can't say what you do for a living." For tax and banking purposes, and to establish a legitimate income and credit history, Giles was told she needed to start saying she was a "freelancer." The ACORN employee also suggested that Giles open two accounts at separate banks, depositing no more than $500 each a week to ensure few eyebrows are raised.

In the San Bernardino office, ACORN employee Tresa Kaelke told O'Keefe and Giles they could classify the underage brothel as a "group home" to avoid detection and suggested the pair "invest in a line of vitamins" to disguise the location's true purpose. Later, Kaelke stated she believed the actors were joking and made a variety of absurd or joking statements to them. She said they were "somewhat entertaining, but they weren't even good actors." Office supervisor Christina Spach said Kaelke "pretended to cooperate with O'Keefe and Giles because she feared for her safety." Kaelke responded to the pair's requests for help setting up a child-prostitution ring on the video by claiming to be an ex-prostitute herself and exclaiming, "Heidi Fleiss is my hero!" but the California Attorney General's investigation of Kaelke determined that "none of her claims" on the video were true, that "she was playing along with what she perceived as a joke," and there was "no evidence she had ever engaged in prostitution." According to CNN, the filmmakers released a transcript of their discussion with Kaelke that included a comment left out of the tape they published on Youtube in which Kaelke said that ACORN would have nothing to do with their prostitution business. Kaelke said her supervisor "would shoot this down faster than a bat out of hell" but Kaelke advised the couple to conceal the prostitution business by calling it a massage parlor. Kaelke was fired by ACORN after the videos were released.

In the San Diego office, edited video showed former ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera telling O'Keefe he had "contacts" in "Tijuana" to help get underage girls across the border. However, after the conversation with O'Keefe, Vera reported O'Keefe's fabricated plan for human smuggling to police. Vera was fired because of what ACORN called "unacceptable conduct," although Vera said he initially wanted to help the fake prostitute because she said that she needed to escape her controlling pimp.

ACORN called the videos "false" and "defamatory" and a spokesman accused O'Keefe of dubbing the audio on the videos. On September 16, 2009, ACORN suspended advising new clients and began an internal review process, headed by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger of Proskauer Rose, due to "the indefensible action of a handful of [ACORN] employees." On September 16, Bertha Lewis, ACORN's CEO, froze admission to all of ACORN's service programs and instituted a review committee to implement organizational reforms. On September 23, 2009, ACORN filed suit in a Baltimore court against the filmmakers, citing "extreme emotional distress" of the ACORN workers and violation of two-party consent recording laws, but the suit was later withdrawn. Lewis said on Fox News Sunday on September 20 that "in a way, this was good for us, so what it did was show up to us what weaknesses we have, and we have moved swiftly... in order to correct that." She reiterated that she immediately fired all the employees featured in the tapes after seeing them and then began a comprehensive internal investigation.

October 2009

At a National Press Club conference on October 21, O'Keefe and Giles released video footage of their visit to the Philadelphia office of ACORN, "contending that it reveals help they received" when ACORN stated the pair had been asked to leave the Philadelphia office. The video was highly edited to remove almost all of the comments of the ACORN personnel. Carol D. Leonnig, a Washington Post staff writer who attended the National Press Club release, stated in an interview with Greta Van Susteren on the Fox News program On the Record that video producer James O'Keefe gave a twofold answer for the heavily edited condition of the video, stating that "on the one hand, the pair are concerned about the legal ramifications." "The other reason he gives," says Leonnig,"is that the tape battery died." Commenting on O'Keefe's Philadelphia video release, Leonnig stated that "...when you go to this office, and you see this tape, I don't think he's got the goods to say that ACORN lied." Both Giles and O'Keefe declined to answer questions after the release.

October press conference release

ACORN Office Location	Video release date	Transcript release date	Date video taken	Number of videos / total time	Transcript
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	2009-10-21	Not available	2009-07-24	1 / Unknown	Not released

November 2009

On November 16, 2009, video was released from the visit to the Los Angeles office of ACORN.

November video release summary

ACORN Office Location	Video release date	Transcript release date	Date video taken	Number of videos / total time	Transcript
Los Angeles, California	Unknown	2009-11-16	Unknown	2 / 15:28	Not released

Aftermath for ACORN

On March 19, 2010, The New York Times reported that ACORN was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy; 15 of the group's 30 state chapters had disbanded over the past six months, and other chapters (including the largest, in New York and California) renamed themselves and severed all ties to the national organization. Two unnamed ACORN officials told the Times that the following weekend, a teleconference was planned to discuss a bankruptcy filing; "private donations from foundations to Acorn [had] all but evaporated," and the federal government had distanced itself from the group. "[L]ong before the activist videos delivered what may become the final blow, the organization was dogged for years by financial problems and accusations of fraud." "That 20-minute video ruined 40 years of good work," said Sonja Merchant-Jones, former co-chairwoman of ACORN's recently-closed Maryland chapter. "But if the organization had confronted its own internal problems, it might not have been taken down so easily."

On March 22, 2010, National ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan says the organization's board decided to close remaining state affiliates and field offices by April 1 because of falling revenues. On April 20, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis reported that ACORN was "still alive. We're limping along. We're on life support." Lewis said that ACORN's annual budget had been reduced from $25 million to $4 million, and that its staff of 350 to 600 people had been reduced to four. Lewis explained the controversies had left a stain on ACORN, "sort of like a scarlet letter," forcing the group to spend money defending itself against "one investigation after another."

Response by government and state authorities

President Barack Obama stated the video content was "certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated." ACORN's partnership in the 2010 United States Census was terminated on September 11, 2009. The United States Senate voted to exclude ACORN from federal funding on September 14, and the House of Representatives voted to eliminate federal funding to ACORN on September 17. Both resolutions were later nullified in a federal court ruling that the measures were an unconstitutional bill of attainder; However, on August 13, 2010 a federal appeals court reversed that decision, and upheld the Congressional resolutions that cut off federal funding for ACORN.

On September 23, the Internal Revenue Service removed ACORN from its volunteer tax-assistance program. On September 24, the US Treasury Department's Inspector General announced it would initiate a broader probe into "the government's oversight of tax-exempt organizations like ACORN when they engage in political activities."

The New York Attorney General began an investigation on September 15, 2009 to ensure that state grants given to ACORN were properly spent. The New York City Council suspended all ACORN grants while Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes conducted an investigation. On March 1, 2010 the DA issued a press release announcing that no criminality on the part of ACORN had been found in the investigation.

On June 14, 2010, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings which showed that the now-disbanded community organizing group ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any of the $40 million in federal money which they had received in recent years.

Investigation by California attorney general

On September 25, 2009, in response to Governor Schwarzenegger's request to investigate the incidents, the California Attorney General's office opened an investigation "into the controversy surrounding videos that purportedly show members of community organizing group ACORN giving advice on how to open a brothel."

By April 1, 2010, the attorney general's office had completed its investigation and Brown announced his findings. O’Keefe and Giles received immunity from prosecution in exchange for providing three full, unedited videotapes. Brown noted that the terms of the exchange did not exempt O'Keefe or Giles from being sued by the ACORN members filmed in the videos. Citing the 1967 Invasion of Privacy Act, Brown's report stated that "an application of these principles to the facts presented here strongly suggests that O'Keefe and Giles's violated state privacy laws and provides fair warning to them and others that this type of activity can be prosecuted in California." Brown also cited O'Keefe for working with the specific intent of damaging ACORN, and not acting as a truly objective journalist reporting a story. In his report on the investigation, Brown stated "The video releases were heavily edited to feature only the worst or most inappropriate statements of the various ACORN employees and to omit some of the most salient statements by O'Keefe and Giles. Each of the ACORN employees recorded in California was a low level employee whose job was to help the needy individuals who walked in the door seeking assistance. Giles and O'Keefe lied to engender compassion, but then edited their statements from the released videos." For instance, a much-publicized recording of a visit to the San Diego office, in which an employee is purportedly seeking information to help smuggle underage girls from Mexico into the United States to work as prostitutes, did not mention that the employee's 'contact' in Mexico was actually a police official. The employee collected as much specific information as possible, then contacted Mexican police, warning them of the plot. Brown stated, "ACORN was not the criminal enterprise described by O'Keefe in his 'Chaos for Glory' statement – it did not receive billions in federal funds and did not control elections. ACORN is, however, disorganized and its operations were far from transparent, leaving it vulnerable to allegations of illegal activity and misuse of funds." Brown also said that despite appearing in the publicized videos as a "1970s Superfly pimp," "in his actual taped sessions with ACORN workers, he was dressed in a shirt and tie, presented himself as a law student, and said he planned to use the prostitution proceeds to run for Congress. He never claimed he was a pimp."

Brown concluded, "Even if O'Keefe and Giles had truly intended to break the law, there is no evidence that any of the ACORN employees had the intent to aid and abet such criminal conduct or agreed to join in that illegal conduct." While faulting a few of the recorded ACORN members for "terrible judgment and highly inappropriate behavior," Brown stated that "they didn't commit prosecutable crimes in California." Regarding the publicity surrounding the videos, Brown stated, "The evidence illustrates ... that things are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality. Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor."

Media controversy

Concerns and complaints about alleged media bias were a consistent feature in the breaking of the ACORN video controversy. Joshua Rhett Miller of Fox News accused the "mainstream media" of purposefully ignoring it, and that in doing so, the media acted on an inherent bias in favor the political left. When the scandal broke on September 10, 2009, the Fox News cable channel devoted extensive coverage to the story, including privileged, in-depth interviews with Giles and O'Keefe. These were conducted on the same day as the videos' first release. As per the counsel of BigGoverment.com's Andrew Breitbart, Giles and O'Keefe were to "... offer Fox News the full footage of each video before each was released." Breitbart assumed that there would be an immediate left-leaning media-bias against the filmmakers, even before the videos were released. He stated that he felt he needed to engaged in a strategy to counter such presumed bias by singularly courting the Fox News Coorporation: "We had to devise a plan that would force the [other news] media to see the evidence before they had enough time to destroy these two idealistic 20-something truth seekers." In keeping with this tactic, Giles interviewed exclusively with Fox commentator Glenn Beck on the day of the first video's release.

CNN began coverage on the story as early as September 9. CBS began to cover the story on September 11, the day after the story first aired on Fox News. According to Fox News, as late as September 15, ABC's Charlie Gibson claimed to be unfamiliar with the story. ABC's Jake Tapper had been covering the issue since September 11.

As the controversy became a media event in the US, it was accompanied by charges by Andrew Breitbart and Fox News that the "mainstream media" did not respond promptly or cover the story in sufficient depth. On September 11, 2009, Fox News's Glenn Beck listed a tally of what he asserted to be the amount of coverage which competing news networks offered the ACORN video scandal. Beck sarcastically remarked, "FOX has had 133 reports on it, CNN, 90, MSNBC, 10. How's that possible? Hey, ABC, how's it working out for you with two?" On a September 15 interview with Sean Hannity, Breitbart stated that O'Keefe and Giles "... have been impugned in the media." Sean Hannity agreed that the pair had been "excoriated."

On September 17, 2009, Turner.com responded to accusations of "ignoring the story" by posting a list of all CNN transcripts covering the ACORN scandal from the day the story was first released. In contrast to Breitbart's critique of CNN's coverage, the transcripts offer no examples of Giles or O'Keefe being either "impugned" or "excoriated" by news commentators. The listed transcripts also include extensive, non-committal coverage and discussion by CNN reporters Abbie Boudreau, Wolf Blizter, Candy Crowley etc... Additionally, CNN's Lou Dobbs offered an impassioned statement in support of Giles and O'Keefe on September 10, the day on which the videos were first aired.

Despite their coverage on the issue, CNN and other news groups were harshly reprimanded by Fox News commentators for allegedly ignoring it. While appearing on Fox News with commentator Sean Hannity, Andrew Breitbart went as far as to state: "We're in day five here of the mainstream media ignoring the story." However, despite Breitbart's assertions, CNN and other networks had covered the story from its first release.

Although Breitbart stated that the ACORN video scandal had been ignored or dismissed by almost all major news groups, both Breitbart and O'Keefe had stated unapologetically that O'Keefe would not be interviewed by CNN staff. Breitbart and O'Keefe accused CNN of favoring ACORN in its coverage, despite the fact that CNN already had a substantial record for pursuing ACORN over allegations of voter-registration fraud. Furthermore, Breitbart assumed that "the mainstream media" would intentionally discredit Giles and O'Keefe on behalf of ACORN, and that the two film-makers required "protection" from that.

On September 11, the day after the first video release, James O'keefe posted a statement regarding the matter on BigGovernment.com. The statement, entitled "Why I Don't Return Phone Calls From an Intrepid CNN Producer," was originally read on Rush Limbaugh's radio talk-show. In this statement, O'Keefe stated that CNN's early coverage of the issue (at least from September 10) had been slanted in favor of ACORN, since CNN had interviewed with both ACORN staff members and defenders. O'Keefe refused to contribute to CNN's coverage, and claimed that "... CNN pushed the false ACORN line that '[t]his film crew tried to pull this sham at other offices and failed.' " Additionally, O'Keefe asserted his belief that if he appeared on CNN, he would subject himself to what he called a "CNN hit job."

On March 20, 2010 Clark Hoyt, the New York Times public editor, wrote an op-ed column in which he conceded that the Times was wrong to have reported that O'Keefe entered ACORN's offices while dressed as a pimp, and that he was wrong in defending the paper's phrasing. Clark wrote, "O'Keefe almost certainly did not go into the Acorn offices in the outlandish costume — fur coat, goggle-like sunglasses, walking stick and broad-brimmed hat — in which he appeared at the beginning and end of most of his videos."

Criticisms of the undercover videos

Some of Giles and O'Keefe's work has been criticized for not providing adequate context, or for presenting inaccurate information. Describing the video ensemble as a "politically motivated piece," Alexandra Fenwick of the Columbia Journalism Review commented that there were elements of the ACORN reporting that were commendable, but in parallel with political use of other un-vetted video footage on the internet, Giles and O'Keefe's work might be more appropriately called political activism rather than true journalism. The videos were also criticized by MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell, who suggested it was entrapment with hidden cameras, while Brian Kettenring, deputy director of national operations for ACORN, said that the tapes were illegally recorded and are examples of "gotcha" journalism. When Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes cleared ACORN employees of criminal wrongdoing on March 1, 2010 after a five-month investigation, a law enforcement source said that while the video by O'Keefe and Giles seemed to show three ACORN workers advising a prostitute how to hide illicit money, an unedited version wasn't as clear cut. "They edited the tape to meet their agenda," the Daily News quoted the source as saying. ACORN lawyer Arthur Schwartz commented that ACORN was "gratified that the DA has concluded something we knew all along," and that O'Keefe and Giles had "used subterfuge to convince congress and the media to vilify an organization that didn't deserve it."

During a September 14 television appearance on FOX, O'Keefe was interviewed wearing a fur coat, sunglasses, and holding a cane. The host announced "... [O'Keefe] is dressed exactly in the same outfit that he wore to these ACORN offices up and down the eastern seaboard," followed by asking him "is that what you think a pimp looks like?" O'Keefe answered yes. Political journalist Mike Stark questioned the accuracy of O'Keefe's portrayal of his ACORN visits dressed as a pimp, noting that O'Keefe never actually wore the pimp outfit inside ACORN offices and on one occasion actually posed as a candidate for Congress. Stark went on to ask, "If they really wanted the truth out there, why do they need to edit these tapes in the first place? Why aren't the unedited videos already in the public domain?"

Washington Post staff writers Darryl Fears and Carol Leonnig wrote "Giles and O'Keefe have been criticized for accuracy problems. Their videos include the oft-repeated conservative claim that ACORN is expected to get up to $8.5 billion in government funds. But that's a bold exaggeration, as it includes $3 billion in stimulus funds set aside for revitalization efforts nationwide, and $5.5 billion in federal community development grants." The number assumed ACORN would apply for and win every project and grant in the country, and ACORN did not apply for any of the stimulus funds. Leonnig also observed that "the videos, in some cases, left out what I would call some exculpatory material ... for example, in one, a San Bernadino [sic] employee at ACORN explains that there is no way ACORN would support what the couple were proposing ..."

External links

• ACORN Caught on Tape - Video posted on YouTube Fox News channel
• 2nd ACORN Tape - Video posted on YouTube Fox News channel
• Judge Instructs Fed Agencies to Resume ACORN Funding - video report by Democracy Now!
• Video and Audio recordings provided by James O'Keefe to the California Attorney General's Office