The Department of Justice’s internal watchdogs are investigating who told the Associated Press that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a grassroots group that has registered hundreds of thousands of new voters, is under federal investigation for alleged voter registration fraud, according to John Conyers, the Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
The DOJ’s inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility, according to Conyers, are probing the leak.
Conyers disclosed the two separate probes in a letter he sent to Attorney General Michael Mukasey to inquire about another leak to the AP: that Sen. Barack Obama’s aunt has been living in the
“I was startled to read in today’s Associated Press that a "federal law enforcement official" has leaked information about an immigration case involving a relative of Senator Obama,” Conyers wrote. “Even more troubling, the AP reports that it could not "could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved," a very disturbing suggesting (sic) indeed. This leak is deplorable and I urge you to take immediate action to investigate and discipline those responsible.
“I note that this is not the first leak of law enforcement information apparently designed to influence the coming Presidential election — in recent weeks law enforcement sources leaked information about an alleged investigation of a community services organization, a leak that the Department of Justice informs me is now under investigation by the Department’s Office of the Inspector General and Professional Responsibility.”
The AP, citing law enforcement officials, reported two weeks ago that the FBI launched a probe into ACORN to examine evidence that the organization committed voter registration fraud around the country.
The reported FBI probe followed a clamor from the right-wing news media and Republican operatives over ACORN’s voter registrations, making a campaign issue out of voter-registration forms with fake names like “Mickey Mouse.”
अपनी ओर से, ACORN ने जोर देकर कहा है कि उसके स्वयं के गुणवत्ता नियंत्रण ने राज्य के अधिकारियों को प्रस्तुत किए जाने से पहले कई संदिग्ध पंजीकरण फॉर्मों को चिह्नित किया था और राज्य के कानूनों में अक्सर बाहरी पंजीकरण समूहों को स्पष्ट समस्याओं की परवाह किए बिना सभी फॉर्म जमा करने की आवश्यकता होती है।
Conyers complained to Mukasey and FBI Director Robert Mueller about the leak to the AP in a letter he sent to them earlier this month.
“As an initial matter, it is simply unacceptable that such information would be leaked during the very peak of the election season,” Conyers said.
“I know it has become a right-wing cottage industry to cry wolf over alleged ‘voter fraud’ during an election season (only to have such claims evaporate after the election has concluded).
“One would hope the Justice Department and FBI would more skeptically examine such sensational accusations than some cable news outlets. And this is particularly true where the allegations, even given their fullest reading, simply do not support such alarmist and unreasonable claims.”
संघीय जांच दिशानिर्देश मतदान से पहले चुनाव-संबंधी जांच को दृढ़ता से हतोत्साहित करते हैं क्योंकि संभावना है कि जांच का राजनीतिकरण हो जाएगा और चुनाव परिणामों को प्रभावित कर सकता है।
अटॉर्नी जनरल के रूप में गोंजालेस के कार्यकाल के दौरान मई 2007 में संशोधित चुनावी अपराधों के लिए न्याय विभाग के दिशानिर्देशों के अनुसार, "ज्यादातर मामलों में, चुनाव समाप्त होने तक मतदाताओं का साक्षात्कार या अन्य मतदाता-संबंधित जांच नहीं की जानी चाहिए।"
Even though those May 2007 guidelines watered down even stricter language in previous editions, the Gonzales-era rules still cautioned:
“Overt investigative steps may chill legitimate voting activities. They are also likely to be perceived by voters and candidates as an intrusion into the election. Indeed, the fact of a federal criminal investigation may itself become an issue in the election.”
The investigations launched against ACORN have raised concerns that Republicans are flogging this issue in an effort to stir up anger, to revive McCain’s campaign, and to intimidate new voters.
अपने अभियान को बचाने की कोशिश करते हुए, जॉन मैक्केन तीसरी राष्ट्रपति बहस में इसका हवाला देते हुए ACORN मामले में भी कूद पड़े हैं। उन्होंने घोषणा की कि ACORN "अब इस देश में मतदाता इतिहास की सबसे बड़ी धोखाधड़ी में से एक को अंजाम देने की कगार पर है, शायद लोकतंत्र के ताने-बाने को नष्ट कर रहा है।"
The McCain campaign’s attempt to politicize the ACORN investigation in the closing days of Campaign 2008 has striking parallels to the Bush administration’s use of the same issue in 2004 and 2006.
In October 2004, Marc Racicot, chairman of the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential campaign, called on Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry to demand that ACORN and other voter registration groups stop engaging in voter registration fraud.
Racicot said these registration efforts would "ultimately paralyze the effective ability of Americans to be able to vote in the next election."
Two weeks before the 2004 presidential election, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie and Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett announced the formation of a media campaign to counter what they claimed was voter registration fraud in nine
“The reports of voter fraud in
In
A press release issued by the Department of Law cited ACORN, which registered more than 212,000 new voters in the state.
In the two weeks before Election 2004, GOP officials raised similar concerns in
Documents have since surfaced showing how GOP operatives recognized the value of this strategy.
An e-mail, dated Sept. 30, 2004, and sent to a dozen or so staffers on the Bush-Cheney campaign and the RNC, under the subject line "voter reg fraud strategy conference call," describes how campaign staffers planned to challenge the veracity of votes in a handful of battleground states, such as Ohio, in the event of a Democratic victory.
E-mails – among Ohio Republican Party official Michael Magan; Coddy Johnson, then national field director of the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign; and Rove associate Timothy Griffin – reveal the men were given documents that could be used as evidence to justify widespread voter challenges if the Bush campaign needed to contest the election results.
Johnson referred to the documents as a "goldmine." The documents were lists of registered voters who did not return address confirmation forms to the Ohio Board of Elections.
David Iglesias, the former U.S. Attorney for
In an interview, Iglesias said he was surprised that the FBI would have agreed to investigate ACORN now and that the inquiry must have received a green light from high levels of the Justice Department.
Iglesias said that in September 2004, when he set up an election fraud task force, he met professional resistance from the FBI.
"जब मैंने मतदाता धोखाधड़ी टास्क फोर्स का गठन किया था, जिसे मैंने 2004 में गठित किया था, तो [न्यू मैक्सिको] में एफबीआई लापरवाह थी, क्योंकि एसएसी [प्रभारी में विशेष एजेंट] ने कहा था कि एफबीआई जनरल काउंसिल ने कहा था कि ऐसी जांच को हतोत्साहित किया गया था क्योंकि ऐसा लगता था कि 'राजनीतिक,'' इग्लेसियस ने कहा।
“मुझे उनके शामिल होने के लिए उनकी बांहें मरोड़नी पड़ीं और उसके बाद ही मैंने उन्हें आश्वासन दिया कि चुनाव से पहले कोई मुकदमा दायर नहीं किया जाएगा। ...मुझे आश्चर्य है कि एफबीआई 2004 में लापरवाह होने से लेकर अब आगे की ओर झुकने वाली क्यों हो गई है। कौन उन पर दबाव डाल रहा है और क्यों?”
Iglesias said Bush’s Justice Department issued a directive to all U.S Attorneys to find and prosecute cases of voter fraud in their states during the hotly contested elections in 2002, 2004 and 2006, even though evidence of such abuses was extremely thin or non-existent.
In his book, In Justice: Inside the Scandal that Rocked the Bush Administration, Iglesias said in late summer 2002 he received an e-mail from the Justice Department suggesting "in no uncertain terms" that U.S. Attorneys should immediately begin working with local and state election officials "to offer whatever assistance we could in investigating and prosecuting voter fraud cases."
When Iglesias faced similar pressure again in 2006 – and refused to bring cases he considered inappropriate – he found himself on a list of U.S. Attorney’s targeted for dismissal.
न्याय विभाग के महानिरीक्षक की एक रिपोर्ट के अनुसार, "न्यू मैक्सिको राज्य रिपब्लिकन पार्टी के पूर्व जनरल वकील और पार्टी कार्यकर्ता पैट्रिक रोजर्स ने [2006 के चुनाव से पहले] न्यू मैक्सिको में मतदाता धोखाधड़ी के मुद्दों के बारे में शिकायत करना जारी रखा।
"मार्च 2006 में [न्याय विभाग के] सार्वजनिक सत्यनिष्ठा अनुभाग में [क्रेग] डोंसेंटो को भेजे गए ई-मेल में, रोजर्स ने न्यू मैक्सिको में मतदाता धोखाधड़ी के बारे में शिकायत की और कहा, 'मेरे पास यूएसए [यू.एस. अटॉर्नी] और उनके लिए कॉल हैं मुख्य सहायक, लेकिन पिछले चुनाव में ACORN धोखाधड़ी पंजीकरण पराजय के दौरान उन्होंने बहुत मदद नहीं की थी।
डोनसेंटो अद्यतन मई 2007 के संघीय अभियोजन चुनाव अपराध मैनुअल के लेखक थे, जिसने चुनाव से पहले मतदाता धोखाधड़ी के मामलों की जांच और मुकदमा चलाने के बारे में चेतावनियों को नरम कर दिया था।
जून 2006 में,
“The voter fraud wars continue. Any indictment of the Acorn woman would be appreciated. . . . The ACLU/Wortheim [sic] democrats will turn to the camera and suggest fraud is not an issue, because the
जॉन वर्थाइम उस समय न्यू मैक्सिको डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी के अध्यक्ष थे।
इग्लेसियस ने कहा कि अब उनका मानना है कि मतदाता धोखाधड़ी के जीओपी के दावे "बुश प्रशासन के लिए अद्वितीय" रहे हैं।
The DOJ’s inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility released a lengthy report last month that concluded Iglesias was fired because he did not pursue voter fraud cases.
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