ACORN names former Mass AG Harshbarger to investigate housing program

ACORN names former Mass AG its investigator

WASHINGTON — The community activist group ACORN said Tuesday it has selected a former Massachusetts attorney general to investigate its housing program and other public service projects after employees were caught on video giving advice to a couple posing as a prostitute and pimp and Congress moved to cut off its federal funding.

Democrat Scott Harshbarger, a lawyer whose specialties include corporate governance, will handle the internal investigation. He said he will “conduct a full and complete independent investigation” and give the group a report on his findings and recommendations.

“It’s very important that they get this independent assessment,” Harshbarger told The Associated Press on Tuesday in an interview at a court symposium in Boston. “I think they understand the need to respond in a way that talks about their institutional integrity, and I will do the best I can to get there.”

Video shot by the couple in Brooklyn appears to show ACORN employees advising the pair to lie about the source of their income or to launder the money to get housing assistance. The Brooklyn video and footage shot by the couple in other cities has been running on the Internet and television news programs for days.

ACORN, short for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, said last week that it was suspending the admission of new clients into its service programs pending the outcome of its investigation and had fired several employees. Harshbarger will look at ACORN’s housing program, tax preparation program and other public service work, such as screening for benefits like food stamps.

Harshbarger said ACORN asked him to conduct a comprehensive inquiry into issues surrounding the videos and take a more general look at the systems and management relating to its services. He said he will determine whether ACORN’s problems represent patterns and practices or are isolated cases.

“Many people believe it is isolated and that to some extent, there’s been an overreaction based on a couple instances that can occur to any organization,” Harshbarger said.

The embarrassing video is the latest of ACORN’s problems. Its board forced its founder out last year after his brother embezzled nearly $1 million from the organization. The money was later repaid by an anonymous donor.

Republicans, who previously accused ACORN of voter registration fraud, are calling for federal and state investigations into the group. The inspectors general for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Justice Department have confirmed they are investigating their agencies’ involvement with ACORN.

President Barack Obama, who was endorsed as a 2008 presidential candidate by ACORN’s political action committee, is among Democrats who have criticized the actions of the employees in the videos. The Democratic-controlled Congress last week began taking steps to cut off federal funding for the group.

ACORN has condemned the actions of the two employees who appeared in the Brooklyn footage, but also contends parts of the video shot there and elsewhere by the hidden-camera couple were manipulated.

Harshbarger was Massachusetts attorney general in the 1990s. He later ran unsuccessfully for governor before becoming head of the government watchdog group Common Cause, where he pushed for tougher campaign finance laws.

Harshbarger currently is an attorney in Boston with the law firm Proskauer Rose LLP. He was a fundraiser for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards’ 2008 presidential campaign, and donated $2,800 to Obama’s campaign after Edwards left the race.

Associated Press writer Russell Contreras in Boston contributed to this report.

On the Net:

ACORN: www.acorn.org