Dale Rathke

Some coincidences are just too rich that you have to start drawing conclusions. Here are four facts that suggest that there might be a line between them:

• Dale Rathke embezzled money from ACORN totalling about $950k. Apparently, commitments have been made to return about $210k, for a total of $740k still missing.
• Barack Obama's campaign paid ACORN, via a political consulting affiliate, $830k, but ACORN says that they only received $80, leaving $750k unaccounted for.
• Dale Rathke embezzled this money in the period of 1999-2000, when Barack Obama was running for US Congress with the backing of SEIU Local 880 and ACORN. SEIU Local 880 is basically ACORN controlled. Rathke even filed the LM-2 form with the Department of Labor in 2000, signing it as "Treasurer", which I have previously written about.
• Obama, ACORN, SEIU 880, and Rep. Danny Davis, appeared to act together in a number of local political engagements.

Here's my question: Did SEIU Local 880 and/or ACORN use some or all of that embezzled money to fund operations for Obama's Congressional race in 1999 and 2000?

Details and sourcing after the jump.

The AP drops a story about a power and money scandal at ACORN involving the founder of ACORN, Wade Rathke and his brother Dale:

The lawsuit filed in August by two board members accuses ACORN founder and former chief organizer Wade Rathke of either concealing or failing to properly report that his brother Dale embezzled around $948,000 from New Orleans-based ACORN and affiliated charitable organizations in 1999 and 2000.

I wonder if this might expand to SEIU in general, which has been getting a lot of scrutiny due to a fight with the California Nurses Association and corruption in the LA branch, ably reported by the LA Times' Paul Pringle.

The issue is that Wade and Dale Rathke have also been leaders of significant SEIU multi-state locals.

Wade Rathke also founded SEIU Local 100 in New Orleans (more broadly Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas) and is still the "Chief Organizer" of the local, which is headquartered at the ACORN office.

Meanwhile, in 2000, Dale Rathke, was the Treasurer for Local 880 in Chicago, while at the same time being CFO of the national ACORN organization. According to the Illinois State Senate in 2001, Local 880's email address was seiu880ch@acorn.org.

So in 2000 while Dale Rathke was embezzling money from ACORN he was also the Treasurer for one of the most important SEIU mega-locals and filing their compliance forms with the Department of Labor. See the filing after the jump.

Seems like it might be worth some investigation.