from the New York Times
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November 28, 2009

Justice Dept. Says Acorn Can Be Paid

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress enacted a law banning the government from providing funds to the group.

The department’s conclusion, laid out in a recently disclosed five-page memorandum from David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, adds a new wrinkle to a sharp political debate over the antipoverty group’s activities and recent efforts to distance the government from it.

Since 1994, Acorn, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has received about $53 million in federal aid, much of it grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for providing various services related to affordable housing.

But the group has become a prime target for conservative critics, and on Oct. 1, President Obama signed into law a spending bill that included a provision that said no taxpayer funds — including funds authorized by previous legislation — could be “provided to” the group or its affiliates.

A Housing and Urban Development lawyer asked the Justice Department whether the new law meant that pre-existing contracts with Acorn should be broken. But in a memorandum signed Oct. 23 and posted online this week, Mr. Barron said the government should continue to make payments to Acorn as required by such contracts.

The new law “should not be read as directing or authorizing HUD to breach a pre-existing binding contractual obligation to make payments to Acorn or its affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations where doing so would give rise to contractual liability,” Mr. Barron wrote.

Meanwhile, attorneys representing the Mafia have filed suit in New York District Court alleging the obuma administration has failed to pay their organization millions of dollars in back payments due for insurance and commissions.

The State Department has been notified by the "Barbary Coast" association of North Africa that they intend to pursue legal remedies through the United Nations for two centuries of missed tribute payments since the unilateral abrogation of a pre-existing agreement during the administration of president Thomas Jefferson.