Bachmann suggests Obama is buying votes with funds from discrimination settlement

Bachmann suggests Obama is buying votes with funds from discrimination settlement

Rep. Michele Bachmann “sincerely” wants to know: Is President Obama trying to buy votes in minority communities using funds from a class-action settlement against the U.S. Department of Agriculture over discrimination against African American farmers?

Bachmann posed the question in an appearance on the radio show of Andrew Breitbart, a tea party activist who forced the resignation of Shirley Sherrod from her job at the USDA by distributing a video of Sherrod that was selectively edited to make her look like a racist. Sherrod was a recipient of some of the class-action funds after state and federal government declined agriculture grants to a community farm she and her husband ran. The case, Pigford v. Glickman resulted in almost $1 billion in payments due to discrimination.

On Breitbart’s show, Bachmann accused the settlement against the USDA of fraudulently distributing the money to people who didn’t face discrimination (an accusation that has been hotly disputed), but then went on to lament that other communities might file a class-action lawsuit for discrimination as a result.

“There’s calls to give out more, quote, discrimination money to Native Americans who claim they were discriminated against by the USDA, but it doesn’t end there. They want to also have a class of, quote, women farmers who were discriminated against and another class of, quote, Hispanic farmers who were discriminated against,” she said.

Bachmann then accused the Obama administration of buying votes. “There a real question, a sincere question that: Was this really about vote buying? Because before election cycles, that’s when the demand comes to pay out these claims in order to get support.”

“And our president, Barack Obama, filed a piece legislation to fund this Pigford case when he was running for president,” she said. “And at that time we saw the black community in the southern part of the United States turn to Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton. There’s a lot of implications here.”