Investigate Chicago SEIU 880's ACORN-Rathke Connection

If you have been following the unending revelations about ACORN on BigGovernment.com, then you are likely aware of ACORN’s $1 million embezzlement cover-up which has now grown to an alleged $5 million embezzlement cover-up.

This new $5 million revelation was posted just days after ACORN founder and the embezzler’s brother Wade Rathke nonchalantly explained his reasons for the embezzlement cover-up to Megyn Kelly on Fox News:

“Because we made a decision that between restitution and retribution, that restitution was more in the interest of the [ACORN] organization and that decision was unanimous.”

After ACORN’s internal “discovery” of the embezzlement, ACORN Founder, SEIU Local 100 officer, and SEIU International Board member Wade Rathke took charge of SEIU Local 880’s books. Dale Rathke’s name has been replaced with Wade Rathke’s name on Local 880’s original 2002 Department of Labor LM-2 union financial disclosure report, pictured below.

After the ACORN embezzlement became public knowledge in 2007, SEIU Local 880’s 2002 union financial report, the form LM-2 pictured below, was resubmitted to the U.S. Department of Labor on May 16, 2007. This is about five years after the original 2002 report that was filed by ACORN chieftain Wade Rathke.

That 2007 amended filing by SEIU 880 allows federal investigators to open up SEIU 880’s 2002 financial records for a federal investigation. The two trustees who signed the 2007 submission of the SEIU 880 2002 LM-2 are criminally liable for any false statements made on the report.

When the Wade Rathke version of SEIU Local 880’s LM-2 2002 union financial report was amended in 2007, curious differences appeared. The amended 2002 report filed in 2007 shows a drop of about $500,000 in membership dues from the original filing ($3,032,338 compared to the original filing of $3,525,995 of dues received.) This should raise some eyebrows.

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has gutted the small office that investigates labor union embezzlements at the Department of Labor (see related story).

Since we now know that Dale Rathke was in charge of SEIU Local 880’s financial records and we know his brother Wade decided to cover-up the embezzlement as he took control of SEIU Local 880’s books, then it seems reasonable that Department of Labor investigators would want to make certain that Wade Rathke did everything by the book.

Would an investigation expose a more elaborate relationship between SEIU and ACORN? Can there ever be a full accounting of their books?

Don’t hold your breath and expect Obama’s Labor Department to act. With the President’s close personal relationship to ACORN and SEIU, we may start hearing demands that an independent special prosecutor be appointed to deconstruct the ACORN-SEIU-Obama Administration web.

Below are the first pages of the two 2002 union financial reports (click on images for the full reports):

Received at the U.S. Department on 6/23/2003.

In 2007, the books were redone: