Census Director to Acorn "Go to Hell"

Credit Foxnews.com

The Census Director has sent a letter to the National Headquarters of ACORN notifying the group that the Census Bureau is severing all ties with the community organizing group for all work having to do with the 2010 census. ACORN had previously been tapped to help with low level data gathering. A copy of the Director's letter has been sent to Congress and relevant committees, as well as ACORN.

This latest news comes as two more ACORN officials were fired Friday after a second video surfaced showing staffers in the community organizers' Washington office offering to help a man and woman posing as a pimp and prostitute acquire illegal home loans that would help them set up a brothel.

The firings came less than 24 hours after another pair of ACORN officials from the group's Baltimore office were canned for instructing the "pimp" and "prostitute" how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 "very young" girls from El Salvador that pair said they wanted to import to work as child prostitutes.

Both of the encounters were videotaped on a hidden camera wielded by 25-year-old independent filmmaker James O'Keefe, posing as the pimp — tapes that have ignited calls for investigations of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

The group's leaders said Friday they were "appalled and angry" at what their staffers had done, but insisted the videos were part of a political "smear" campaign and not representative of the institution as a whole.

"But that does not excuse the behavior of the employees," wrote ACORN's president Alton Bennet and executive director Mike Shea. "We have fired them and are initiating an internal review of practices and reminding all staff of their obligation to uphold the highest legal and ethical standards."

Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., called for a hearing to investigate ACORN's tax filing assistance programs following the release of the videos he said suggested multiple incidents of tax fraud.

"In light of the apparent flagrant and willful attempts to suborn tax fraud, I ... (am seeking) a hearing of the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee as soon as practicable to investigate ACORN’s activities," he said Friday.

O'Keefe, the filmmaker, was accompanied by 20-year-old Hannah Giles, who posed as a prostitute. On a videotape of their visit to ACORN's Washington's office, they are seen receiving guidance to establish the woman as the sole proprietor of a bogus company to mask the nature of her business.

"She's not going to put on (the loan application) that she's doing prostitution ... she doesn't have to," a now-fired ACORN staffer says. "You don't have to sit back and tell people what you do."
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