Better late then never

Blogs: New York Times vindicates Andrew Breitbart By: Kevin Robillard

Conservative bloggers cheered The New York Times on Friday for a 5,000-word investigative report dissecting abuse of a federal program to compensate farmers who had faced discrimination that writers on the right said vindicated the work of one of their icons — the late Andrew Breitbart. “Today Andrew Breitbart is smiling, and probably amazed,” the Washington Examiner’s Byron York wrote on Twitter. “New York Times goes deep into Pigford scandal.” Lee Stranahan, a Breitbart disciple who also investigated the Pigford case, was jubilant. “I wish to God that Andrew Breitbart were alive to see this,” Stranahan wrote. “He fought this fight for years, was totally right and never got credit for it.” “NYTimes Confirms: Massive Fraud at USDA in Pigford; Breitbart Vindicated,” blared the headline on Breitbart’s eponymous website. (Also on POLITICO: 'This Town': A Washington takedown) The Times’ A1, above-the-fold story — which involved Freedom of Information Act requests, interviews with former administration officials and database work — shows how political appointees in the Obama administration’s Justice and Agriculture Departments turned a potential government court victory into $1.3 billion settlement for Hispanic and female farmers — some of whom never even claimed discrimination in court. The story also detailed how the feds relied on a flawed payout system for black farmers that was ripe with fraud and revealed that career officials in the Agriculture Department had opposed the program. The original black farmers’ case, called Pigford v. Glickman, and the unfair treatment of many of the original plaintiffs in the lawsuit became a personal cause for Breitbart, who died in 2012 of a heart attack. The conservative provocateur published a December 2010 report about the case, entitled “The Pigford Shakedown,” and also spoke about the program at CPAC and other events. (Also on POLITICO: Turbulence at The Times) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who the Times portrays as a driving force behind the settlement, said the payments were justified and fraud was minimal. “We weren’t just writing checks for the heck of it,” Vilsack told the paper. “People were not treated fairly and, in fact, even today there are damages as a result of folks who weren’t treated fairly.” Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey noted the ultimate vindication is still out of reach. “Perhaps now that The New York Times has exposed this, a few lawmakers might get shamed into doing something about it,” he wrote. “That would really put a smile on Andrew’s face.”