HUMAN EVENTS reported earlier today about testimony yesterday in the lawsuit brought by the Pennsylvania GOP against Project Vote, a sister organization of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
I asked about the Obama campaign’s claims that donor information from the Obama campaign was obtained by ACORN from FEC reports on the internet. Pennsylvania GOP attorney Heather Heidelbaugh told me, “They’re making that up. What [Anita Moncreif] testified to under oath is that she was in the D.C. [ACORN] office in November [2007] and Karyn Gillette, her boss, said, 'Here is the Obama donor list, we just got this from Obama, and what I need you to do is take out all of the dupes and then start calling the people who have maxed out so that they can give us money and we can use it for GOTV [get out the vote].'”
Anita Moncreif is the former D.C. ACORN staffer who testified at the hearing yesterday.
Heidelbaugh continued, “When she testified to that, at the break, all of the press went in and called Obama’s campaign. So Obama’s campaign, without knowing anything, not having seen it, nothing, immediately orally said to the press well, that’s public information. She could have just gotten it from FEC reports. Now this is November 2007, so look at the available FEC reports in November of 2007 - what was available online was only the prior reporting period.”
(Note: A fact-check with the FEC showed that in November of 2007, only information through September 30th would have been online.)
The import of Moncrief’s testimony is that Obama’s campaign was sharing its most updated donor information with ACORN at the crucial pre-primary time. How much of that information was used by ACORN to gain donations then used to propel Obama’s successes in the winter and spring primaries?
Heidelbaugh went on to explain that the key ACORN witness disappeared during the hearing after Moncrief’s testimony. She said, “The key piece of this, before we started the hearing, ACORN’s attorney, Catherine Simpson, again before we started the hearing, said one of her witnesses was going to be Karyn Gillette, Anita’s supervisor. After Anita said on the stand that Obama’s campaign contacted Karyn Gillette - Karyn Gillette was gone. She wasn’t in the courtroom. She wasn’t put up on the stand. Why? Because I would have asked her and she would have been under oath and she would have had to answer.”
What happened to Karyn Gillette?
