President Obama said yesterday that ACORN should be investigated — though he didn’t specify by who.
Speaking on ABC’s This Week, as part of yesterday’s talk-show blitz, Obama said that what he’d seen on the now-famous ACORN videos “was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.”
He did not elaborate. Some Republicans have called for a Justice Department probe. ACORN has said it’s conducting its own internal investigation. The House voted last week to cut off all federal funds from ACORN.
In his comments yesterday, Obama also distanced himself from the controversy. “Frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely,” he said. “I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.”
In 1995, Obama represented ACORN in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois. Since then he has had almost no ties to the group.
The videos show ACORN employees in at least three different offices advising a man and a woman posing as a pimp and a prostitute on how to break the law in declaring the woman’s income. The videos were filmed on a hidden camera by two conservative activists in costume, then posted on a conservative website earlier this month.