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SW: →2009 Congressional Research Service report finds no wrongdoing by ACORN: add subhead, re-arrange for better time context
A [http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/CRS-ACORN091222.pdf study] (pdf) performed by the [[Congressional Research Service]] (CRS) of the activities of the community group [[Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now]] (ACORN) found no evidence that the group has engaged in fraudulent voting or violations of federal financing rules. CRS studied the group's activities over the last five years. Two House Representatives ordered the study after conservatives accused ACORN of conducting voter registration fraud in poor neighborhoods and contributing to the country's financial crisis by [http://www.nypost.com/seven/09292008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/os_dangerous_pals_131216.htm "pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans."] The accusations led some members of Congress to push to cut off the group's federal funding -- and action that a Federal District Court Judge ruled an illegal bill of attainder, a term that refers to Congress aiming punishment at specific individuals or organizations. The CRS report also said that conservative activists, [[James O'Keeefe]] and Hanna Giles, may have broken privacy laws in two states when they posed as a pimp and a prostitute and secretly videotaped an encounter with ACORN representatives, to see what kind of advice ACORN representatives would offer them about evading taxes and hiding their activities. <ref>John Schwartz [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/us/24acorn.html?scp=1&sq=ACORN Report uncovers no voting fraud by ACORN], ''New York Times'', December 23, 2009</ref>
==Charges against videotaper and accuser James O'Keefe==In addition, in the wake of the clandestine videotaping affiaraffair, ACORN performed an internal audit and ultimately accused O'Keefe of doctoring some of his videos, including removing comments that indicated ACORN staff did not take seriously the claims of a prostitution business.<ref>Carol D. Leonnig [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/27/AR2010012702917.html?hpid=topnews Conservatives react to charges against ACORN foe] ''Washington Post'', January 27, 2010</ref>
In January, 2010, James O'Keefe, the young conservative filmmaker who made the damaging videotape against ACORN was charged with criminal offenses against the U.S. government in an alleged plot to bug the New Orleans office of Democratic Louisiana Senator [[Mary Landrieu]]. Federal investigators charged that James O'Keefe was among four men who created a ruse to enter the lawmaker's downtown office, saying they needed to repair her telephones. O'Keefe used his cellphone to take pictures of two men involved in the Jan. 25 plot, according to court records unsealed Tuesday. Those men, [[Joseph Basel]] and [[Robert Flanagan]], are accused in an FBI agent's sworn affidavit of impersonating telephone company workers, while O'Keefe and another man, [[Stan Dai]], are accused of aiding the plot.<ref>Carol D. Leonnig and Garance Franke-Ruta, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/01/26/ST2010012604182.html James O'Keefe charged in alleged plot to bug Senator Mary Landrieu's office], Washington Post, January 27, 2010.</ref>
After O'Keefe was was arraigned on federal charges in the telephone scandal, conservatives distanced themselves from him. The Salt Lake City Republican Party canceled his appearance as a keynote speaker at their February 4, 2010 fundraiser. Conservative pundit [[Michelle Malkin]] wrote that exposing wrongdoing is not an excuse to break the law, and that O'Keefe's alleged actions should be taken seriously. Conservative radio talk show host Rick Moran told his listeners that it looked as though O'Keefe had ignored the requirement that journalists be objective.<ref>Carol Leonnig [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/27/AR2010012702917.html?hpid=topnews Conservatives react to charges against ACORN foe], ''Washington Post'', January 27, 2010</ref>
===Rick Berman and astroturf attacks on Acorn===
