ACORN Smear Collaborator Claims Persecution to Raise Money for Her Legal Troubles

Late last week, a large pink envelope arrived in our mailbox bearing a "USA NONPROFIT" stamp and, in lieu of a return address, a black and white image of a smiling young woman, her name printed underneath, in lavender script:

If the name or the photo didn't ring a bell, the text on the envelope certainly did:

 

The contents of the envelope were no less hyperbolic:

"Dear Fellow American," the pitch begins. "Let me be direct: Obama's ally ACORN is trying to destroy me."

This is the main thrust of the four-page fundraising appeal by Hannah Giles, the 20-year-old former college student who gained notoriety for posing as a prostitute in the ACORN "sting" carried out with conservative activist James O'Keefe last year.

After O'Keefe's arrest for allegedly trying to tamper with the phones in Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's office, Giles has distanced herself from her co-conspirator, re-inventing herself as a pioneering champion of the First Amendment and freedom in general. Since being threatened with litigation by ACORN and former ACORN employees, in part on the grounds that she and O'Keefe violated state wiretap laws and engaged in entrapment, Giles set up a legal defense fund, courtesy of the Liberty Legal Institute, and has now started  soliciting donations, non-profit style.

Giles’s fundraising appeal, printed on pink paper and decorated with stars in what is supposed to look like purple marker, portrays her looming legal fights as nothing less than an epic battle between good and evil. Warning that her "ordeal is far from over" -- "I fear it's just the beginning," she writes (emphasis hers) -- Giles says that ACORN has no choice but to "make an example" of her.

 

They know they must destroy me if they are to survive. If they let me get away with exposing them, then more reporters will do more investigative work uncovering even more of ACORN's dirty secrets.

And that will lead to ACORN's implosion once and for all!

The letter contains a number of inaccuracies, large and small. She claims to be a humble college student who cannot afford to defend herself. She is not. (Until last year she attended Florida International University, but has since dropped out, reportedly “in order to keep up with demands for public appearance and job offers,” according to Politico.)

She claims that "Congress is on the verge of pulling ACORN's funding for in (sic) federal funding -- delivering a mortal blow to this corrupt and evil taxpayer funded organization."

In fact, Congress's cynical Defund Acorn Act, which was passed last fall, was declared unconstitutional by a federal judge in December, who ruled that ACORN was "singled out by Congress for punishment that directly and immediately affects their ability to continue to obtain federal funding, in the absence of any judicial or administrative, process adjudicating guilt ... The public will not suffer harm by allowing the plaintiffs to continue work on contracts duly awarded by federal agencies."

Giles wildly over-exaggerates Obama's ties with ACORN -- she refers to it as "Obama's ACORN" -- not to mention her role in "exposing" it. "I lifted the veil on Obama's long history of 'community organizing' and close personal ties with ACORN," she writes, adding in a P.S. (in case her point didn't come across), that "Obama's ally ACORN wants to take its revenge on me for exposing its massive corruption."

She vaguely refers to “ACORN’s involvement in mortgage rackets for unqualified borrowers that led to the financial crisis,” a whopping claim with little basis in reality. (The irony being that ACORN has actually been devoted to combating predatory loans.)