WEBCommentary Contributor

Author: Michael J. Gaynor
Date:  May 18, 2009

Topic category:  Government/Politics

Exposing the Truth About ACORN, Obama and New York Times Expose Spiking


Message to Public Editor Hoyt: ACORN has been an unofficial arm of the Democrat Party for years, Obama misrepresented his connection to ACORN in the last presidential debate, ACORN's Project Vote and the Obama campaign were improperly coordinating and the Obama donor list (2d quarter, 2007) that the Obama campaign provided to Project Vote in 2007 was the COMPLETE list, including the small donors, not the much shorter list that it filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Last October, The New York Times killed an ACORN-Obama campaign expose, fearing that it would be a game changer and preferring no change.

Although The Times had never mentioned this matter, its Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, finally did, in a column titled "The Tip That Didn't Pan Out" and published on May 16, 2009.

BAD MOVE!

Yes, that column establishes Hoyt as a loyal apologist for The Times, like his predecessor (whose defense of Times coverage of the so-called Duke lacrosse rape case was deplorable).

BUT, by addressing the matter instead of continuing to ignore it, in the arrogant expectation that it would put an end to it, The Times threw down the gauntlet before ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief, attorney Heather Heidelbaugh and King of Cable News Bill O'Reilly and they have the ability and the will to pick it up. The facts and the law are on their side and they will share the ugly truth with the American people.

Message to Public Editor Hoyt: ACORN has been an unofficial arm of the Democrat Party for years, Obama misrepresented his connection to ACORN in the last presidential debate, ACORN's Project Vote and the Obama campaign were improperly coordinating and the Obama donor list (2d quarter 2007) that the Obama campaign provided to Project Vote in 2007 was the COMPLETE list, including the small donors, not the much shorter list that it filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Apparently The Times felt a need to defend itself as a result of Congressional testimony last March and subsequent Fox News coverage and Hoyt obliged.

As Hoyt conceded: "The charge, amplified by Bill O’Reilly on Fox News in April and reverberating around the conservative blogosphere, is about the most damning allegation that can be made against a news organization. If true, it would mean that Times editors, whose job is to report the facts without fear or favor, were so lacking in integrity that they withheld an important story in order to influence the election."

Hoyt is right about the nature of the charge: it's so explosive that an admission can't be made.

Instead, a "whitewash" is needed and Hoyt brought the paint.

Hoyt insists that he investigated thoroughly: "I have spent several weeks looking into this issue — interviewing and e-mailing those involved, reading transcripts, looking at campaign finance records and conferring with legal experts. In a nutshell, I think the charge is nonsense." The charge is true!

Hoyt: "The story involved allegations that Barack Obama’s campaign, in league with Acorn, a left-leaning community activist group, was guilty of technical violations of campaign finance law. Evidence supplied by the source could not be verified. Even if the story had panned out, it is hard to see how any editor could have regarded it as momentous enough to change an election in which the Republicans were saddled with an unpopular war and an economic meltdown."

"[C]ould not be verified" means that New York Times national correspondent Stephanie Strom confirmed that she had been ordered by her editors to "stand down" on the story, but did not admit that she not admit that the reason why was that her editors feared "a game changer."

Ms. Strom had no choice but to admit the "stand down" order, since it was memorialized on a voicemail that Bill O'Reilly played for the world.

And, truth be told, Hoyt's own email shows that Ms. Strom did NOT flatly deny making the "game changer" remark (and risk being proven to be a liar).

Predictably, Public Editor Hoyt not only defended other Times editors, but attacked "partisans."

Hoyt: "...the controversy offers a look at an aspect of journalism the public seldom sees: the delicate relationship between a reporter and a source who approach a story with different standards and motivations. And it shows how partisans can twist normal editorial processes until they appear sinister."

What the public seldom sees is the communication between a public editor purporting to investigate a "controversy" and "a source" whose reporter was told to "stand down" because her editors feared "a game changer."

Hoyt: "Strom’s version is...supported by her editor and e-mail between her and Moncrief."

Wrong!

Hoyt: "Moncrief answered some of my questions by e-mail but then went silent and never responded to requests for an interview."

See the whole email exchange between Hoyt and Ms. MonCrief (see "Times Public Editor Seeking Facts About Times Killing ACORN-Obama Expose Before 2008 Election From ACORN Whistleblower Anita MonCrief" (April 21, 2009), at www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=090421, and below) and you will see who chose not to comply with what requests and that Ms. MonCrief wisely communicated with Hoyt only by email, so that she would have a written record!

Here's Hoyt's characterization of events (and Ms. Strom claiming poor memory and sympathy for Ms. MonCrief):

"On Sept. 7, Moncrief wrote to Strom that she had donor lists from the campaigns of Obama and Hillary Clinton and that there had been 'constant contact' between the campaigns and Project Vote, an Acorn affiliate whose tax-exempt status forbids it to engage in partisan politics. Moncrief said she had withheld that information earlier but was disclosing it now that the conservative columnist Michelle Malkin was 'all over it.'

“'I am sorry,' she wrote, 'but I believe in Obama and did not want to help the Republicans.'

"Strom wrote back: 'Am also onto the Obama connection, sadly. Would love the donor lists. As for helping the Repubs, they’re already onto this like white on rice. SIGH!' Was Strom betraying her own political leanings, even as she asked for the lists that could make the story? Or was she expressing sympathy for Moncrief, who was unhappy about possibly hurting her own candidate? Strom said she does not know what was on her mind eight months ago, but that she is careful to keep her political views private. 'I tended to be sympathetic to her throughout,' she said. She was also trying to get information.

"After some delay, Strom said, Moncrief sent her a spreadsheet purporting to be the Obama donor list, but there was no on-the-record source or other way to verify that the list came from the Obama campaign. Strom said Moncrief finally agreed to go on the record, though there was a credibility problem: Moncrief had been fired by Acorn for using an official credit card for personal expenses.

"But before they were to meet, Strom said, another source gave her an internal report detailing concerns about impermissible political activity by Acorn and its tax-exempt affiliates. The resulting article was published on Oct. 22.

"Suzanne Daley, the national editor, said she then called a halt to Strom’s pursuit of the Obama angle. 'We had worked on that story for a while and had come up empty-handed,' Daley said. 'You have to cut bait after a while.' She said she never thought of the story as a game-changer and never used that term with Strom.

"On Fox, O’Reilly played part of a voice-mail message from Strom to Moncrief canceling their appointment but did not tell his viewers that he had deleted the reason: the article running the next day spelling out Acorn’s partisanship problems. Nowhere in the message were the words 'kill the story' or 'game-changer' used. David Tabacoff, O’Reilly’s senior executive producer, said the tape 'was simply edited for time.'

"O’Reilly also said that Moncrief made her allegations about The Times under oath, to Congress. But Moncrief did not testify at the hearing. Tabacoff said she had testified in Pennsylvania, and Heidelbaugh was simply relaying her accusations. But Moncrief never made any such accusations under oath in Pennsylvania. I have the transcript.

"Strom said she does not believe she ever used the term 'game-changer' with Moncrief because, like Daley, she did not think the story would have been that. (I agree: Obama’s maxed-out donors are public record, making the issue of who provided the list to Acorn of questionable news importance.) Moncrief, in e-mail to me, said Strom did, but in more benign fashion. She said Strom told her 'it was their policy not to print a game-changer for either side that close to the election.'"

Let's focus on the key facts, not distracting errors by Mr. O'Reilly or his staff.

It's a fact that Ms. MonCrief was a confidential source for Ms. Strom for months and therefore had been found to be credible by The New York Times.

It's a fact that Ms. MonCrief told me on October 21, 2008 precisely what Ms. Heidelbaugh testified before Congress last March that Ms. MonCrief had told her and I posted an article publicly identifying Ms. MonCrief and reporting the spiking of the story Ms. Strom had been working on with Ms. MonCrief because Times editors feared that it would be "game changing."

Opinion differ on that, but Times editors were not taking a chance.

Hoyt:

"Representative James Sensenbrenner, the Wisconsin Republican who called Heidelbaugh to testify, told me that he thinks the Obama campaign and Acorn clearly broke the law and that if The Times had published the story, it could have angered enough people over voter fraud to change the election. But Lawrence Norton, who was general counsel to the Federal Election Commission from 2001 to 2007, said he doubted the commission would even have opened an investigation because the evidence was so speculative and coordination between a campaign and a support group is difficult to prove. 'It’s hard for me to see how this is a game-changer,' he told me.

"I have to vote with Norton, and I think The Times handled the story as any responsible news organization would."

So the message that The New York Times still is peddling, as it did earlier this month, is that ACORN is not a big problem corrupting America's political process and there was no cover up.

After ACORN was indicted on felony charges in Nevada, the Times article reporting that appeared on page A18 on May 5, 2009 and the article stated:

"In the final months of the campaign, supporters of Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, charged that Acorn was trying to fraudulently enroll Democratic voters likely to support Mr. McCain's opponent, Senator Barack Obama.

"Yet on Monday, Nevada Republicans said they doubted Acorn's activity had any impact on the outcome of the 2008 election in Nevada. Mr. Obama won the state by 12 percentage points.

"'It wasn't that close,' the state Republican chairwoman, Sue Lowden, said."

But voters did not know the relationship between ACORN and then Senator and Democrat presidential candidate Obama or that the Obama campaign was coordinating with ACORN and had provided a donor list with donors more complete than the one that it eventually filed with the Federal Elections Commission!

Many voters were not deterred from voting for Obama by his associations with domestic terrorist William Ayers and his pastor of choice for many years, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., but would those voters have been deterred if they had learned before Election Day 2008 of the coordination between the Obama campaign and ACORN and that ACORN was an unofficial arm of the Democrat Party using donor lists from the Kerry and Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee as well as the Obama campaign while purporting to be non-partisan?

On April 21, 2008, I posted email between ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief and New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt in an article titled "Times Public Editor Seeking Facts About Times Killing ACORN-Obama Expose Before 2008 Election From ACORN Whistleblower Anita MonCrief."

A search of The New York Times revealed that the name Anita MonCrief never had been mentioned, but nevertheless Mr. Hoyt had emailed Ms. MonCrief, claiming to be "following up on a number of reader inquiries [he had] received since Heather Heidelbaugh testified before Congress."

Why?

Mr. Hoyt put it this way to Ms. MonCrief: "Ms. Heidelbaugh quoted you as saying that you had been a confidential source for articles by Stephanie Strom about ACORN but that after you sent Ms. Strom donor lists supplied by the Obama campaign to ACORN, she reported to you that 'her editors at The New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote, 'it was a game changer."'

In my prior article, the most recent email the text of which I quoted was an April 20, 2009 email from Ms. MonCrief to Mr. Hoyt stating:

"The demands on my time currently are considerable, but if you send me statements by Stephanie and Heather to confirm or correct, I will try my best to do so.

"So far Heather and I are the only ones who have provided pertinent sworn statements.

"I had hoped that Stephanie would report the real story of ACORN, but as published her articles on ACORN after I contacted her were 'watered down.'

"I remained hopeful, but in early October of 2008 I contacted an independent Internet columnist named Michael Gaynor as a back up plan in case Stephanie's editors continued to edit in such as way that less than the whole story was reported.

"After Stephanie left me that voicemail on October 21, 2008 and then told me that her editors had refused to print 'a game changer,' I called Mr. Gaynor and he offered to try to help me get the whole story told if I agreed to let him publicly identify me. I had wanted to remain anonymous, but I reluctantly agreed.

"In an article posted on October 29, 2008, Mr. Gaynor reported the following statements by me:

1. Project Vote has violated its 501(c)(3) status by using government and private grants that ultimately go directly or indirectly to ACORN (based on direct knowledge).

2. ACORN, Project Vote and Citizens Services Inc. (CSI) are essentially the same organization with different tax designations that are used to facilitate the transfer of money between them (based on direct and indirect knowledge).

3. ACORN has promoted a culture of dishonesty motivated by reaching target Voter Registration goals and senior staff have portrayed an attitude that allows for some 'bad' cards in order to reach these goals (based on direct and indirect knowledge).

4. Karyn Gillette, Project Vote Development Director, Jeff Robinson, senior Project Vote 'money man' and Nathan Henderson James, Project Vote Research and Political Director are all employed by CSI and may have worked directly with anyone seeking the services of CSI and money paid to CSI would have obvious ACORN ties (based on direct and indirect knowledge and documents).

5. Zach Polett, former Executive Director of Project Vote and former director of ACORN Political Operations mentioned that Obama had worked for us and that he even supervised him during a ACORN Political staff retreat in November 2007 (based on direct knowledge).

"Mr. Gaynor also posted this in the same article:

'Anita reports revealing connections between ACORN and the Obama campaign based on personal knowledge.

In late 2007, Anita reports, Anita received a call from the Obama campaign asking if this was the same Project Vote that Obama worked for in the 90's. With the staff retreat fresh in mind, Anita answered yes and sent an email to Zach Polett, Karyn Gillette, Nathan Henderson James, and Kevin Whelan stating that the campaign wanted someone to call them back regarding some media questions that were being asked at the time.

In late 2007, Anita reports, Karyn Gillette approached Anita to tell her that she had direct contact with the Obama campaign and had obtained their donor lists. This meeting took place sometime in November of 2007 and may have even been a conference call between the campaign and Project Vote. Anita was given an excel spreadsheet to work with for cultivation of new donors. When Anita had trouble because of the duplicates, Karyn stated that she would contact her person at the campaign and see if they had another one.

Anita reports that Karyn Gillette also provided lists obtained from the Kerry and Clinton campaigns, as well as the 2004 DNC donor lists, and that these lists were shared with the Political directors of roughly 12 ACORN battleground states in order to raise money for a $28 million dollar (number as of 11/2007) voter registration drive (based on direct and indirect knowledge and documents).

Anita reports that research uncovered after the Radke embezzlement scandal showed that persons demanded a forensic audit and suggested a well-known, credible firm to do it, but Bertha Lewis told them that the auditors came back with a contract that was 'too expensive' and that's what Dale Radke told funders back when they were hoping Arthur Anderson would take over auditing (based on indirect knowledge and documents).

Anita reports that ACORN and Project Vote used CCI to transfer money between the organizations and may be guilty of violating RICO statues (based on indirect knowledge and documents).

Anita reports that Sidley Austin, Obama's old law firm, is representing ACORN pro-bono and Mesirow Financial, the firm hired to provide financial advice to ACORN, is headed by a major Obama donor, Richard Mesirow (based on indirect knowledge and documents).

Anita also notes that questions have been raised about the shredding or destruction of documents by ACORN's own lawyers (based on documents).'

"Here's a link to the article setting forth those statements: www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=081029"

On April 22, 2009, Mr. Hoyt replied to Ms. MonCrief as follows:

"I have talked with Stephanie and her editor. Stephanie tells me that, after she left you the voicemail on Oct. 21, you and she had a subsequent phone conversation. She said she does not remember using the term 'game changer' and doesn't believe she did because she said she never saw the story as a game changer. She said she is a reporter whose beat is non-profits. She wasn't a political reporter. She said she was approaching the ACORN/Project Vote story from the standpoint of Project Vote's 501(c)3 status -- whether that had been violated. When she obtained the internal report written by Elizabeth Kingsley -- and it dealt with problems of mixing staff and resources between Project Vote and ACORN -- she and her editors felt as though that dealt with the question of questionable partisan activity by ACORN and affiliates and was especially strong because it represented the judgment of a lawyer hired by the organizations to examine their structure and activities.

"Stephanie said that you provided her the donor spreadsheet in August but that, try as she might, she could not verify it as coming from the Obama campaign. It had no electronic fingerprints on it that would attest to it origin. She said that after you and she discussed that, you agreed to go on the record, and she planned her Oct. 22 trip to Washington. Her editor told me that Stephanie had already spent weeks on this project, that the violations, if any, seemed fairly technical in nature -- hardly a game changer -- and that she told Stephanie not to make the trip and to move on to other subjects. The editor said she never used the term game changer because, like Stephanie, she didn't think the story was that. She said there was no Times policy or practice of not printing game changing stories that far ahead of the election.

"I spoke this morning with Heather Heidelbaugh. She told me that you called her on the 21st because you had heard about her lawsuit and wanted to go on the record about your concerns about ACORN and its activities and wanted to do so under oath. She regards you as a reliable witness. She said that Stephanie told you that she had found a second source to confirm a meeting between ACORN staffers and the Obama campaign. I would like to know more about that.

"I'd appreciate your thoughts about all this. Also, I wonder if you would share with me your e-mail exchanges with Stephanie as they might help me get a clearer picture of what transpired between you. I realize the words 'game changer' didn't originate in e-mail, but the exchanges might enlighten me on state of mind.

"I appreciate your patience on this. I want to fully understand what happened here before coming to any conclusions about it.

"At some point, I would appreciate talking with you."

Ms. MonCrief replied to Mr. Hoyt the same day:

"I just got this on my blackberry. I have to take my daughter to a play date and will review this after bedtime.

"Have you seen this?

"http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Did-the-Times-bury-its-story-in-interrogations-effectiveness-43425137.html"

The next day (April 23, 2008), Mr. Hoyt emailed back:

"I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for sending the link. Yes, I saw that article, and, in fact, I'm getting a rush of reader mail about various aspects of the interrogations story. It's going to need to be my column topic for this week because of that, and because my reporting isn't done on ACORN and The Times."

On April 24, 2008, Ms. MonCrief emailed Mr. Hoyt again:

"I apologize for not getting back to you yesterday, as stated before, there is a lot on my plate at the moment, and I wanted to devote my full attention to your requests.

"In reference to your email from yesterday, you did not mention when you talked with Stephanie and her editor. Did you wait until this week to talk with them?

"I now wonder whether Stephanie would have remembered telling me that she had been told to 'stand down' if a tape of her voicemail was not available to refresh her recollection and it had not been played on 'The O'Reilly Factor.'

"I note that Stephanie is NOT actually denying that she used the term 'game changer' in our subsequent conversation (in which I called her).

"I remember our subsequent conversation clearly, and she told me that she had been told to 'stand down' because her editors (plural) told her that it was not their policy to print a story that could be considered 'a game changer' for either side. I was told that it was too close to the election and this puzzled me since we had been working on this for a number of months.

"In a September 7, 2008 email to me, Stephanie wrote: 'Am also onto the Obama connection, sadly. Would love the donor lists. As for helping the Repubs, they're already onto this like white on rice. SIGH!'

"Stephanie was responding to my email stating: 'I mentioned before that i had info that my blackness would not let me confirm, but since [Michelle] Malkin is all over it, i will tell you of constant contact between the Obama and Clinton campaign and Project Vote. I even have the donor lists from Clinton and Obama. Malkin also exposed the money connection and I was aware of that. I am sorry, but I believe in Obama and did not want to help the republicans.

"On September 12, 2008, Stephanie emailed me: 'Separately, I'm wondering whether you can give me any more details about the Nov. 2007 meeting with the Obama camp. Where did it take place? Who was involved? Any details would help.'

"Stephanie also emailed me on September 16, 2008:

'I just dawned on me that the law firm doing the scrub of the ACORN embezzlement is Sidley Austin, i.e. Obama's old law firm. Also, that Mesirow Financial, the firm hired to provide financial advice to Acorn, is headed by a guy who's a major Obama donor.

'Do you have any idea if the campaign played a role in recommending these outfits?'

"In order 'to fully understand what happened here before coming to any conclusions about it,' [I] suggest you do the following:

(1) send me 'the internal report written by Elizabeth Kingsley' as an email attachment, so that I can explain how it relates,

(2) tell me what Stephanie is saying with respect to her second source on the ACORN-Obama campaign meeting about which you would like to know more, so that I can comment, and

(3) get my email exchange with Stephanie from her first and then send it to me as an email attachment to check for completeness."

On April 24, 2009, Mr. Hoyt emailed back:

"No need to apologize. I have been tied up yesterday and today with the writing and editing of this week's Public Editor column in The Times, which is about a subject related to the link you sent me. It's about the terminology the newspaper has used in covering the controversy over interrogation of terrorism suspects. I didn't touch on that Byron York blog post you sent, but I will say I think it was making a mountain out of a molehill. The Times broke the story of the edited statement on its Web site, which has more readers than the printed newspaper. The story was featured prominently on the home page. For the following morning's paper, virtually all of it was folded into the newsier story that President Obama indicated that he might be open to a truth commission and prosecutions. That seems to me like a normal news judgement of the kind that is made every day.

"But back to ACORN:

I had preliminary conversations with Stephanie and her editor when I first started looking into this. I talked on the record with both this week.

With respect to your four suggestions:

I don't have the Elizabeth Kingsley report in electronic form. I have a paper copy from Stephanie. If she is comfortable with my sharing it with you, I will.

I asked Stephanie via e-mail earlier today about the second source for the ACORN/Obama meeting but have not heard back from her.

I had asked Stephanie earlier for the e-mail exchanges between the two of you, but she didn't want to provide them because they contained the names of other sources whose names she had agreed to keep off the record, a principled decision I understand. If you would be willing to share the e-mails -- and don't have any similar agreements with anyone mentioned in them -- I would appreciate that. I have no interest, in any event, in revealing anyone's confidential sources and would not do that.

"I look forward to hearing from you."

That was the last email until May 5, 2009, when Mr. Hoyt emailed:

"I am coming back to this issue after dealing with other matters over the past couple of weeks.

"Here is where I am at this point: I have obtained and read your testimony in Pennsylvania. Stephanie has provided me with the donor list that you sent to her, and my assistant and I have been trying to match it up with Federal Election Commission records.

"I hope to wrap this up this week, with the aim of a public editor column on it for Sunday.

"With respect to your three suggestions in your message of 4/23:

1) Stephanie provided me with a paper copy of the Elizabeth Kingsley report. She asked that I not share it with you, and I have to respect that. It may have identifying marks on it that would indicate where she obtained it. She said she believes that you have a source for obtaining the report.

2) Stephanie told me that she did have a second source who told her that Obama campaign officials had met with Project Vote officials. As time went on, however, the second source said she could not say for certain that such a meeting had taken place, that she thought the Obama people had met with Sandy Newman, the founder of Project Vote, who had moved on to Wellspring Advisers.

3) Because the e-mails contain references to other sources who remain confidential, Stephanie has declined to share them with me. She does confirm the September 7 exchange that you sent to me.

"I am puzzled by the donor list. There are no markings that would indicate where it came from. Was this list generated by ACORN/Project Vote from something provided by the Obama campaign, or is it the exact list they provided? The list has a column called 'FEC Code,' which I presumed referred to the Federal Election Commission. In fact, the FEC has no such numbers, and two staff members there could not tell us what they might be. Do you have any idea what they are and who created them? The list has people who do show up as Obama donors and others who do not. If they were maxed out donors, everyone on the list should have shown up in the federal records.

"In your testimony in Harrisburg, you said the list came to you 'with the understanding that it had come from the campaign.' Did you have first-hand knowledge that it came from the campaign, or is that what Karen Gillette told you? FYI, I have asked to speak with her.

"Again, I am grateful for your help on this. I'll repeat my request to speak with you. I'm in New York today and tomorrow at [telephone number redacted]. Or, to save you the price of a call, e-mail me a convenient time and number for me to reach you, and I'll call."

By the time Mr. Hoyt replied, Ms. MonCrief was already scheduled to appear on Fox News on Mother's Day morning.

Ms. MonCrief was not avoiding the uncooperative Hoyt. Last week, when not taking care of her baby, Ms. MonCrief was appearing on television with Eric Shawn and Megyn Kelly of Fox News and, with Matthew Vadum of Capital Research Center, on The G. Gordon Liddy (Radio) Show and at a press conference with Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann and Ms. Heidelbaugh, telling America what it doesn't know but needs to know. Ms. MonCrief must have made a significant impression, because Mr. Hoyt apparently felt a need to try to discredit her, even though it meant ending the embargo at The Times on the spiking story and mentioning Ms. MonCrief and Ms. Heidelbaugh.

In addition to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, let's polygraph Ms. MonCrief, Ms. Strom and Mr. Hoyt. I think only one of them would pass. I know one of them is willing to be polygraphed!

Michael J. Gaynor


Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.


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