mr. caldwell. let me recognize the gentleman from north carolina, mr. kobul for his questions. >> thank you, mr. smith and thank you all for being with us. mr. von spakovsky, the attorney general recently told the "new york times" it is legal -- approved prior to laws that were enacted that prohibit acorn from receiving money. do you believe this is an accurate reading of the law? >> no. i've read the opinion released by the office of legal policy. i think it's quite a stretch to come up with that opinion. and it ignores, for example, the federal acquisition rules which specifically say that all government contracts have to have a provision in them that specifically say that all payments are "conditioned upon availability of funds." and congress has said there is no availability of funds. so i think they are misinterpreting the law. >> i concur with that. mr. caldwell, in north carolina's early days there was a popular presbyterian minister who answered to the name of david caldwell. any relation? >> no relation. >> well, he would have been a good ances

mr. caldwell. let me recognize the gentleman from north carolina, mr. kobul for his questions. >> thank you, mr. smith and thank you all for being with us. mr. von spakovsky, the attorney general recently told the "new york times" it is legal -- approved prior to laws that were enacted that prohibit acorn from receiving money. do you believe this is an accurate reading of the law? >> no. i've read the opinion released by the office of legal policy. i think it's quite a stretch to come up with that opinion. and it ignores, for example, the federal acquisition rules which specifically say that all government contracts have to have a provision in them that specifically say that all payments are "conditioned upon availability of funds." and congress has said there is no availability of funds. so i think they are misinterpreting the law. >> i concur with that. mr. caldwell, in north carolina's early days there was a popular presbyterian minister who answered to the name of david caldwell. any relation? >> no relation. >> he would have been a debt and sister

mr. caldwell. your invitation to come forward leads to our next witness, thank you. [inaudible] . >> acorn political project vote, all across the board. the reason why i came forward is because i've noticed some things that happened within acorn, such as in dealing with project vote. project vote violated its 501 c 3 status. that's something that i saw and testified to in pennsylvania in october of 2008. i also testified that acorn project vote and c.s.i. were operating as basic lit same organization and there was money being funnelled between the organizations through c.c.i. i also testified that acorn promoted a culture of dishonesty that was moat -- they didn't get 20 cards per day whether or not they'd be correct or not these people were fired. they also were forced to sign contracts saying that acorn would prosecute them. in most cases they did not understand what they were filing, and therefore acorn was able to throw them under the bus. i have the complete testimony here and i'll be glad to submit this and to answer any questions. >> thank you, ms. monkrief. t

mr. caldwell. dollars thank you for holding this hearing. can you hear me?ep my comments very brief. i do not want to rehash any of the stock already talked about. i did want to answer a question mr. king had with regards to the massive investigation, whether we have the resources to do that, just in case i kick off. i would like to say no to start off with. but we are going to do what we can with what we have. it is probably unusual that a number of law enforcement and the investigating agency is here to testify before a committee regarding an ongoing investigation. we are aware of that but in this case it is necessary, because this is a nationwide issue. acorn is based out of new orleans. there is an allegation of fraud in several different areas, particularly involving taxpayer money, which is what we are principally interested in. and the public nature of this has been very helpful to us through the committees here. we have seen a lot of information and witnesses have come forth. you have been a great help enlighten us on a lot of different issues to hel