Special Report
ACORN’s Big Spender
New evidence of White House political director Patrick Gaspard’s ties to the radical group.
More proof has emerged of White House political director Patrick Gaspard’s ties to the radical advocacy group ACORN.
Gaspard, a longtime operative for ACORN and one of its partisan arms, New York’s Working Families Party, currently holds the title of White House political affairs director, the same title Karl Rove held in President Bush’s White House.
Internal ACORN documents show that Gaspard gave ACORN $40,000 over the past two years. Specifically, while Gaspard worked as an executive vice president of Service Employees International Union Local 1199 in New York he gave ACORN $15,000 in 2007 and $25,000 in 2008.
That’s an awfully large tithe for someone who made $111,894 in 2007 and who has a wife and two children. The $111,894 figure comes from SEIU 1199’s most recent publicly available tax return. (If salary and deferred benefits are combined the total is $151,869.)
Moreover, Gaspard hails from New York which has a crushing tax burden, especially for individuals earning six-figure salaries — and he lived in the upscale neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn. It was unclear at press time if Gaspard’s wife contributes to the family fisc.
It is also entirely possible that the $40,000 Gaspard handed over to ACORN was SEIU money.
And in the scheme of things it really doesn’t matter whether the lefty lucre belonged to Gaspard or SEIU. What matters is the fact that Gaspard handed over the money to ACORN. This is yet more proof of his closeness to the radical group.
Gaspard was previously revealed to be political director for ACORN’s New York operation. Although the source of this information, ACORN founder Wade Rathke, has since feigned senility and claimed he was mistaken, evidence of Gaspard’s ties to ACORN remains plentiful, as demonstrated by Stanley Kurtz, Trevor Loudon, Erick Erickson, and Moe Lane.
When I reported Sept. 28 that Gaspard was ACORN’s man in the White House, the Obama administration promptly went into damage control mode and reflexively denied the report. Although the White House lied, various gullible reporters accepted the denial at face value, doing little or no research on their own.
Particularly risible was the research done by PolitiFact. Its attempt at debunking the story included information provided by less than credible Alinskyite sources for whom truth is a relative concept: ACORN spokesmen Brian Kettenring and Scott Levenson and disgraced ACORN founder Wade Rathke who covered up his brother’s million-dollar embezzlement from the group for eight years.
Incidentally, one thing that journalists don’t get about ACORN, which used to employ President Obama himself, is that it is a strange, complex creature with tentacles that reach into the highest levels of the United States government, the Democratic Party, corporate America, the labor movement, the nonprofit world, the media, foreign governments, and academia.
ACORN has a confusing structure with its network of who-knows-how-many taxpayer-funded tax-exempt nonprofit affiliates. As I’ve written ad nauseam, this is deliberate. ACORN identifies its affiliates as ACORN affiliates when it is convenient and claims the same entities are not ACORN affiliates when it is not. This game of nonprofit musical chairs is standard operating procedure at ACORN whenever things get hot.
Gaspard previously worked for the Working Families Party, which is an integral part of ACORN’s far-flung empire of radical activism — as is SEIU, although the left-wing union is now trying to distance itself from ACORN. ACORN’s chief organizer Bertha Lewis co-founded the Working Families Party. ACORN notes on its website that in 1998 “ACORN members spearhead[ed] formation of the Working Families Party, the first community-labor party with official ballot status in New York state in more than 50 years.” ACORN and the party share office space in Brooklyn.
Even though he’s working in the White House now, Gaspard can’t tear himself away from New York politics. He reportedly helped persuade leftist Republican Dede Scozzafava, who had been endorsed by the Working Families Party in previous elections, to endorse the Democratic candidate in the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district after she dropped out of the race. On Tuesday Democrat Bill Owens beat Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.
Given Gaspard’s longstanding links to ACORN, it’s not at all surprising that Scott Levenson, a lobbyist and spokesman for ACORN, dropped by the White House in March to visit with his former co-worker. The purpose of the meeting was not disclosed.
About the Author
Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative journalist at a conservative watchdog group in Washington, D.C. Vadum is also author of Subversion Inc: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.
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drudge ette obama| 11.6.09 @ 6:49AM
Gaspard may be a tax cheat.
Did he earn the money? If so, then he needs to pay taxes on it.
Was it a gift? Then he needs to pay taxes on it.
Was it money laundering? Oops...Don't worry. Eric Holder will cover his back on that one. Charlie Rangel will cry racism if you go after him.
Did he take a charitable deduction for it? Then that's an additional potential fraud.
Like Al Capone, go after him on the tax dodging issues.
Pingback| 11.6.09 @ 7:22AM
College Frat Boy » The American Spectator : ACORN's Big Spender links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Jim O'Brien| 11.6.09 @ 7:28AM
The Obama Administration is the ACORN Administration.
Bud| 11.6.09 @ 8:13AM
Quite so. I first heard this comment from radio luminary Neal Boortz about ten days ago. It is a label the Obama people cannot dodge, a stain they cannot wash out.
As Saul Alinsky counseled, "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."
Pingback| 11.6.09 @ 7:46AM
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Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : ACORN's Big Spender [spectator.org] links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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S.L. Toddard| 11.6.09 @ 11:07AM
mon⋅o⋅ma⋅ni⋅a
–noun
1. (no longer in technical use) a psychosis characterized by thoughts confined to one idea or group of ideas.
2. an inordinate or obsessive zeal for or interest in a single thing, idea, subject, or the like.
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 11.6.09 @ 2:06PM
You do know what happens when you tell the same joke too many times, now don't you Toddard?
I've got five bucks for you, now run down to the local joke store, and buy yourself a new one, and then, don't come back (now that's funny).
Let's Go Yankees in 2010 (#28 maybe?)
Big J| 11.6.09 @ 2:09PM
Main Entry: os·trich
Pronunciation: \ˈäs-trich, ˈȯs- also -trij\
2 [from the belief that the ostrich when pursued hides its head in the sand and believes itself to be unseen] : one who attempts to avoid danger or difficulty by refusing to face it
Toddard to a tee.
Doorgunner| 11.6.09 @ 4:56PM
Tarded, why is it that when there's an article to which you object there suddenly appears a dozen or so 'pingbacks' to homoerotic websites?
Margie| 11.6.09 @ 10:56PM
ACTIVITIST. n. a person who loves activism for its own sake, without reflection or sustained thought. See LOGOPHOBE.
Anthony| 11.6.09 @ 12:00PM
I think we need a RICO investigation of both ACORN and SEIU. These two organizations seem to always be mentioned in tandem and the money flow between the two is outrageous.
Of course A.G. Holder is far too busy seeking to prosecute CIA officials for their conduct in detainee interrogations.
Actually, the entire Obama administration as well as ACORN & SEIU should be subject to a RICO investigation. Al Capone was an alter boy compared to Obama & his thugs.
Joyce| 11.7.09 @ 8:17AM
How about a RICO investigation into the White House and Democrat party??!! I'm not at all sure the Republic can survive Obama. The only way to stop SEIU and ACORN is to cut off the head and then all the radical arms will die.
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gerald stephens| 11.6.09 @ 2:38PM
PLEASE stop picking on S.L Toddard or he may go away. Then what would we do for entertainment?
But we do have to feed him a tid-bit from time to time to perpetuate his convulsions.
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Osamas Pajamas| 11.6.09 @ 3:46PM
So ACORN and its functional equivalents, some directly affiliated, and some simply fellow-travelers sucking blood out of the taxpayers at every level of American government, are worthy targets for demolition, destruction, by denial of funding by taxpayers, and by investigation and prosecution, and by widespread, public exposure and criticism, put 'em in order however you like.
Osamas Pajamas| 11.6.09 @ 3:57PM
Hmmmm. Looks like no one is managing the American Spectator blogs to weed out the Democrats who are inserting their highly intellectual observations about "twinks" and other sexual references. Par for the course --- the Demos are always pixxing in America's soup.
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Cervantes| 11.6.09 @ 6:42PM
What in the name of Pee Wee Herman is a "Hairy Twink?
Cervantes| 11.6.09 @ 6:45PM
Who in the libuturd hell is this Pingback person?
Margie| 11.6.09 @ 11:03PM
Pingback homosexual activitists are all logophobes.
And what si an activitist?
ACTIVITIST. n. a person who loves activism for its own sake, without reflection or sustained thought. See LOGOPHOBE.
Cervantes| 11.6.09 @ 6:49PM
I think Pingback is a Hairy Twink
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EvilBanker | 11.6.09 @ 7:04PM
If ACORN is radical, how would you describe a group like the old Weather Underground?
Pretty soon you'll be calling the Boy Scouts "radical."
You've turned into a nation of reactive wimps.
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Commie Blaster | 11.7.09 @ 10:42AM
Exeellent reporting! We need more reporting like this! Learn more details about communist organizations, ACORN and SEIU, as well as our communist President here: http://www.commieblaster.com/acorn/index.html
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