NEW YORK (CNN) - Troubled community organizing group ACORN suffered another setback on Monday, when Bank of America announced it is pulling its funding of ACORN Housing.
In a statement, Bank of America said that is it "suspending current commitments to ACORN Housing and will not enter into any further agreements with ACORN or any of its affiliates" until it is satisfied that all issues related to the organization have been resolved.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, has been under investigation by both the Justice and Treasury Department after videos recorded on hidden cameras by conservative activists showed
employees allegedly giving advice on illegal activities.
ACORN is also conducting its own investigation through an independent auditor and it says that it has fired the employees involved in the recorded incidents.
The organization was in the headlines during the recent presidential campaign after allegations of voter registration fraud. Some of its voter registration workers were prosecuted and some other employees resigned.
Even greater controversy was ignited by the videos, which show some ACORN workers advising two conservative activists - posing as a pimp and a prostitute - how to set up a prostitution business involving underage, foreign girls.
Bank of America said it "takes recent allegations made against ACORN and ACORN Housing Corporation employees very seriously."
ACORN did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment.
–CNN's Amy Sahba contributed to this report.
From CNN Politics
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Good. Shut ACORN down! It's a waste of tax payer and shareholder money.
And WE just PULLED OUR MONEY OUT OF BOA
Where is Bertha Lewis?? Why isn't she out grand-standing – calling this a Fox-News conspiracy??
The more I hear about ACORN, the more concerned I get about President Obama. 'Nuf said.
Wasn't this reported in all the main stream media yesterday already? No wonder CNN is tanking in the polls....always a day short on reporting and content!
BOA: Did you pull your funding/payment of exhorbatant fees to executives and brokers who lied, cheated and otherwise squandered the American peoples' money? ...how hypocritical.
Don't you mean " Bank of Unamerican" pulls ACORN funding
This is really too bad. There has never been a documented case of a fraudulent vote cast by an ACORN registered voter; as ACORN usually catches the mistake and notifies the election authorities.
It feels like a continuation of the Right Wing persecution of everyone democrat, poor, not christian, gay, or not white. Republicans have always spent considerable time, money, and energy trying to prevent low income and minority people from regestering and voting. Each election they come up with a variety of tricks to get people kicked off the voting lists; people who have every legal right to register and to vote. I hope some new agencies come to help with the registration process and the census.
I also hope the Republican politicians keep encouraging their people not to cooperate with the census; with their paranoid fantatical fear mongering; since it is the Republican's clear goal to prevent poor people and minorities from being counted in the census.
I understand that ACORN does good work. However, like in many organizations you have corruption. It is the behavior of wishy-washy workers that is now causing its demise.
When will the Obama Justice Department begin their Rico investigation for this blatantly corrupt and criminal organization? And the Rangel and Richardson prosecutions, for that matter. Oh, NEVER – that 's the Obama and Dem banana republic change that you voted for!
Welcome to the Third World!
Yes, leave it to the Republican masters of spin to turn public opinion against a good assistant/advocate for the por. In fact, if you are poor, working poor or middle class, you'd better figure out where Republican loyalties lie! Hint: if you are already wealthy, you are owrthy of assistance here.
What we see in this attack upon ACORN is simply unbridled hate and more of this method of attacking the weaakest links to try to obfuscate the real truths we need to be discussing. I PROPOSE THAT WE ALL JUST BOYCOTT ALL OF THESE BIG BANKS. DID YOU KNOW THAT WELLS FARGO, CHASE, B OF A, HSBC, AND CITIGROUP ARE THE BIGGEST SUB-PRIMERS AROUND? WELLS LIKED TO HAVE CONTESTS TO SEE WHO COULD GET THE MOST SUCKAS OVER TO THE THE SUB-PRIME DIVISION! I SAY LET US BRING AMERICAN CRAPITALISM TO IT'S KNEES BY ENDING OUR RELATIONSHGIPS WITH THESE OFFENDERS! Shop only at smalll businesses-Locally! We are the GOVERNED and it is time for us to show them just what we want and don't want. REMEMBER: They are the Minority, We are the Majority! Peace is upon us if we take it!
Conservaties and fux news pundits alike can sleep well tonight knowing that thousands of poor kids will go hungry due to their valiant efforst to politicize this non-issue. They can hold their heads high and crow about the homless who will freeze to death on city streets, the families dirven to living under bridges because of lack of access to services after their illnesses have driven them to bankruptcy and they have nowhere to turn. Good job, and so very Christian and moral.
Acorn is the only organization in this country helping the poor with housing and job searches , now even the democrats are going against the poor ? This is such a shame, that we don't even bother checking on other government funded organizations like Blackwater , Wackenhut etc, who's employees actually broke laws and the trust of the people. Why is nobody up in arms and wants to stop funding for these organizations?
It seems the poor people don't have lobbyists in Washington I guess, very sad state of affairs.
This liberal progressive thug organization will be toast. Not part of the change Obama saw comming. But change for the better none the less.
Corruption is like an iceberg, if 20% is above water, you can be sure 80% is below.
This is how it should be. More corporations should start pulling their funding of 'corrupt' organizations. If that were done, the GOP would go bankrupt.
Acorn is doing a great job.Every group, including political parties,has some criminal elements,just look at some of the people who post on here and tell outright lies everyday.Republicans just hate Acorn because they get the poor to vote,and we know who the poor will vote for.
Nobody's denying that a thorough investigation should be undertaken, but it's a little silly to get on the bandwagon assuming that this is evidence of widespread and thorough corruption. The "journalists" who set this up are barely credible themselves. They getting sued because they violated MD law with respect to taping people and they had to travel all over the country searching for a couple bad apples who they then claim represent the whole organization...it begs the question since they had to shop around for the patsies in the first place. Where did they get their funding to conduct their little gotcha journalism experiment anyway?
More to the point, I'd like to see what happens if we send some people with a camera shopping around insurance companies, financial institutiona and banks for people stupid enough to give illegal advice. Now THAT would be fun.
Witch hunts are alive and well here in the 21st century. When did community organizing become the devil's work?
The people responsible for the slip-ups have been dealt with, and appropriately. The organization itself is the one to call attention to its workers' misconduct....so what is the REAL reason for the backlash against Acorn?
Everyone in business knows, it's tough babysitting all your employees, even when one has a great employee handbook governing ethics. Trouble is, ethics took a back seat to so called progress. All businesses and organizations should take this time to review and reapply all ethicical standards. We cannot afford another crash like we had financially, and we cannot sustain any more of these rouge type organizations and people who flambouyantly flaunt all disregard to ethics. Everything from voter registration to this latest fiascal was unethical.
It's particularly worrisome when the wolf comes in sheep's clothing, purporting to be 'for' the poor and disadvantaged, when in fact they are exploiting the poor and disadvantaged.
ACORN is a criminal enterprise. Do a search on – ACORN NINJA loans and fraud. The results will make you sick. ACORN and groups like it helped to create our current financial crisis. Also the SEIU has close ties to ACORN they need to be investigated also.
ACORN is also conducting its own investigation through an independent auditor and it says that it has fired the employees involved in the recorded incidents.
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ACORN's response is just as bad as release of the tapes. They need to address this as a systemic problem and go public saying how they will fix their system. These individual employees are not the full extent of the problem that was presented. They are indicative of an unprofessional, poorly managed organization. That's not a good use of our precious tax dollars.
That only means that one crook will not support another crook.
They both need to clean up there act.
Oh yes, here's the liberal response, you hate acorn = you hate poor people. Get a hold of yourselves libs, the poor will get more money once these crooks stop evading taxes and hording the money they already have gotten from US.
Anyone pay attention to where Bertha Lewis' former right hand man is now? Working for Obama in the White House.
ACORN and SEIU are hand in glove.
And not for one minute do I believe Obama had no idea that ACORN was getting millions in federal grants. Or that he didn't know his OWN campaign gave ACORN nearly a million dollars.
Pull the plug on ACORN, SEIU and the rest of the corrupt groups regardless of ideology.