Swamp: An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal activist group's Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday, reflecting mounting tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month.
Attorneys for the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now were notifying the FBI and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division of the incidents, said Brian Kettenring, a Florida-based spokesman for the group.
Republicans, including presidential candidate John McCain, have verbally attacked the group repeatedly in recent days, alleging a widespread vote-fraud scheme, although they've provided little proof. It was disclosed Thursday that the FBI is examining whether thousands of fraudulent voter-registration applications submitted by some ACORN workers were part of a systematic effort or isolated incidents.
Meanwhile, Obama calls for an investigation to see how this Acorn thing got started. The McCain camp leaked news of an FBI investigation to the AP. How did the McCain camp know of this when Acorn did not? Is the White House lending a hand?
Bloomberg: Barack Obama's campaign asked the U.S. Justice Department to expand a special prosecutor's investigation to include possible improprieties surrounding reports the FBI is looking into voter fraud in the presidential race. Obama's campaign attorney said the investigation should look into a leak to the news media that the FBI is probing allegations of voter registration fraud by a grassroots organization called ACORN. The group's activities were denounced by Republican nominee John McCain in the Oct. 15 presidential debate. Robert Bauer, general counsel to the Obama campaign, wrote to Attorney General Michael Mukasey a day after the Associated Press, citing unidentified law enforcement officials, reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating ACORN. The name is short for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
