Source of ACORN Embezzlement Payoff Discovered

August 19, 2008 | Filed Under Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Unions, Warner Todd Huston |

-By Warner Todd Huston

You may recall the news that the brother of the chief of the extremist, leftist, activist group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) stole $1 million dollars from the organization? Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade, embezzled the money in 2000.

Well, now it has been determined who tried to secretly pay off the theft so that no one would get in trouble. It appears that Drummond Pike of the Tides Foundation a purveyor of leftist tropes, slipped ACORN the cool mil so that Wade Rathke could keep his little bro out of jail.

As the New York Times reports, the Tides Foundation has since 2000 provided over $400 million dollars to various far left organizations and causes. The Tides Foundation has said that none of their money went to ACORN and that Pike was on a “leave of absence” from their board.

ACORN did its level best to keep everything secret and off the books, too. They way they tried to paper over the theft and pay back is worthy of the best cloak-and-dagger book plot.

That agreement was carried on the books of an affiliate, Citizens Consulting Inc., as a loan to an officer. Sometime in June, Mr. Pike bought the loan from the affiliate, according to e-mail messages between senior executives at Acorn that were provided to a reporter by Acorn employees, who requested anonymity because they feared losing their jobs.

But e-mail messages among Acorn’s senior executives discuss how to keep Mr. Pike’s identity secret, even as they acknowledge that some of the foundations and philanthropic advisers that have supported Acorn and its affiliates know that he bought the note.

All this secrecy is alarming. It should be stressed that this was done to hide the theft from authorities to shield the criminal brother of founder Rathke as well as to hide a potentially embarrassing situation from becoming public knowledge.

And these are the sorts of crooks and cover-up artists that imagine they should be the ones running the economy as well as the rest of the country! They are also the ones closest to Barack Obama and the people he WILL be bringing into government should he win the White House.

____________

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston