NOTE : Compare Rep. Sanford Bishop’s (D-Ga) statements in this article (published at 6pm) with what he said in this Albany Herald article that was published at 11:30am. In the earlier article Bishop says he was aware of the fraud and it wasn’t his job to police it. By the time he talked to the Atlanta reporter later in the day, he suddenly has no idea at all what the farmers are talking about and insults them by implying that they were drunkards.
From Bob Keefe at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
WASHINGTON — Democratic U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop called Internet insinuations that he was somehow involved in fraud surrounding last year’s settlement between the government and African-American farmers “one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.”
Videos featuring two Georgia farmers that are being circulated on the Web by conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart hint that Bishop, of Albany, may have known about possible fraud in last year’s so-called “Pigford” settlement between the government and black farmers who claimed that a Department of Agriculture farm loan program discriminated against them.
“I don’t know what they were imbibing,” Bishop said of the two farmers after watching the videos. “I’m just perplexed and shocked.”
[…]
In the new Breitbart videos, South Georgia farmers Eddie Slaughter and Willie Head complain that Bishop, who also is an African-American, did nothing when they asked him to investigate the Pigford settlement.
Slaughter and Head say they and other farmers should have gotten a better deal, and that more settlement money went to lawyers and people who aren’t farmers than to them and other active farmers.
[…]
One of the videos posted by Breitbart’s biggovernment.com website comes with an introduction saying Bishop “wanted to keep allegations of the Pigford settlement quiet.” Another is titled “Rep. Sanford Bishop Knew About Pigford Fraud.”
In a posting on his website, Breitbart shows a video of Bishop walking away from a reporter without answering questions about the need for an investigation into the Pigford settlement. Breitbart writes that his site has found that the settlement is “wrought with fraud.”
[…]
Reached by phone, Slaughter and Head told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that they were definitely unhappy with Bishop, their congressman, for not doing more to help them get a better settlement.
“He never even tried,” Head said.
Full must read article here.
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