Although the Department of Justice is not yet investigating the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), its Inspector General has looked into whether ACORN got any DOJ money. According to a new report from Justice’s Inspector General, the controversial liberal activist group got $200,000 in all, counting one direct grant to an ACORN affiliate and sub-grants from three DOJ grantees between 2002 and 2009.
A release from the Department of Justice related the findings of the Inspector General’s report, including a $20,000 sub-award for “crime stopper activities in New York City,” a $138,130 grant to an ACORN affiliate to form “ACORN Youth Unions” at NYC schools, and a sub-award to canvass neighborhoods in St. Louis for the “Weed and Seed” program.
Another $20,000 went as a sub-grant to an ACORN affiliate in Chicago “to address problems of crime, violence, and substance abuse, and to assist in revitalizing communities,” but DOJ audited that grant because the grantee “had mismanaged the grant and did not properly oversee some of its 36 sub-grantees, including the ACORN affiliate…During our audit, neither [the grantee] nor [the ACORN affiliate] provided evidence of what specific activities the sub-award was expected to fund, or the purposes for which the funds were ultimately used.”
You can read the full report on ACORN’s DOJ dollars here.
