Obama Firing was Retaliatory
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Emphasis is mine throughout)
President B. Hussein Obama has notified Congress that he intends to fire Gerald Walpin, an inspector general of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the federal agency that oversees such subsidized volunteer programs as AmeriCorps.
Why does this matter?
A George W. Bush appointee, Mr. Walpin has been the inspector general for the CNCS since 2007. In April 2008, the Corporation asked Mr. Walpin to investigate reports of irregularities at St. HOPE Academy, a California nonprofit run by former NBA star and Obama supporter, Kevin Johnson. St. Hope had received a grant of about $850,000 from AmeriCorps.
The Academy's mission, according to its website, is "to revitalize inner-city communities through public education, civic leadership, economic development and the arts." Sounds like Johnson and the Academy wanted to get on the ACORN grant-money gravy train, doesn’t it?
St. HOPE’s website states: “Over the last 19 years, St. HOPE has dramatically improved Oak Park through its holistic community development approach, and has made a major economic impact and contribution in the community. St. HOPE has started, attracted or catalyzed the creation of 20 businesses throughout the community resulting in nearly 300 jobs.” The terms “started, attracted, or catalyzed” used in referring to the “creation” of 20 businesses in 19 years, uses the same rhetorical gymnastics as Obama’s “creating or saving” jobs – “achievements” almost impossible to verify. Even so, bringing in 20 new businesses in 19 years is hardly an achievement worth bragging about.
Mr. Walpin's investigators discovered that the $850,000 had been used instead to pad staff salaries, meddle politically in a school-board election, and have AmeriCorps members perform personal services for Mr. Johnson, including washing his car.
At the end of May, Mr. Walpin's office recommended that Mr. Johnson, an assistant, and St. HOPE itself be suspended from receiving additional federal funds. The CNCS official charged with suspensions agreed, and in September, the suspension letters went out. Mr. Walpin's office also sent a civil and/or criminal referral to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California.
"They never disputed it whatsoever," Walpin said. "And indeed the agency itself found that our statements were correct and our findings were correct."
But that all changed last fall, when Mr. Johnson was elected mayor of Sacramento.
Coincidently, Johnson was one of only a few mayors invited to meet with the President and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to discuss how stimulus money could be spent in their local communities.
By this time, news of the suspension had become public, and President Obama began to discuss his federal stimulus spending. A city-hired attorney pronounced in March that Sacramento might be barred from receiving stimulus funds because of Mr. Johnson's suspension.
Mr. Johnson’s suspension could have resulted in Sacramento being left out of the stimulus sweepstakes!
The news caused a public uproar. The U.S. Attorney's office, which since January has been headed by Lawrence Brown, had already decided not to pursue criminal charges but did enter into an agreement with the Academy to repay $400,000 of the misused funds.
Media and political pressure then mounted for the office to settle the issue and lift Mr. Johnson's suspension.
Mr. Walpin agreed that Mr. Johnson should pay back money but objected to lifting the suspension. He noted that Mr. Johnson has never officially responded to the Corporation's findings and that the entire point of suspension is to keep federal funds from individuals shown to have misused them.
Mr. Brown's office responded by cutting off contact with Mr. Walpin's office and began working directly with the Corporation, the board of which is now chaired by one of Mr. Obama's top campaign fundraisers, Alan Solomont. A few days later, Mr. Brown's office produced a settlement draft that significantly watered down any financial repayment and cleared Mr. Johnson
Mr. Walpin brought his concerns to the Corporation's board, but some board members were angry over a separate Walpin investigation into the wrongful disbursement of $80 million to the City University of New York. Concerned about the St. HOPE mess, Mr. Walpin wrote a 29-page report, signed by two other senior members of his office, and submitted it in April to Congress.
Last Wednesday, he got a phone call from a White House lawyer telling him to resign within an hour or be fired.
The phone call came from Norman Eisen, the Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, who said the President felt it was time for Mr. Walpin to "move on," and that it was "pure coincidence" he was asked to leave during the St. HOPE controversy.
The Plot Thickens.
That's because last year Congress passed the Inspectors General Reform Act of 2008, co-sponsored by then-Senator B. Hussein Obama, inspectors general do not serve at the president's pleasure and therefore cannot be fired without 30 days notice and written cause for the decision sent to Congress.
Independent federal inspectors general were granted special protection from political interference to ensure that they are free to investigate waste and fraud uninfluenced by political cronyism.
Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, a co-sponsor of the IG Reform Act, is now demanding that the Corporation hand over its communications on this mess. He also wants to see any contact with the office of First Lady Michelle Obama, who has taken a particular interest in AmeriCorps, and whose former chief of staff, Jackie Norris, recently arrived at the Corporation as a "senior adviser."
Sen. Grassley also wrote a letter to Obama last week saying he was "deeply troubled" by the appearance that Walpin was given an "ultimatum" without sufficient notice.
"Inspectors general were designed to have a dual role reporting to both the president and Congress so that they would be free from undue political pressure," he wrote. "This independence is the hallmark of all inspectors general and is essential so they may operate independently, without political pressure or interference from agencies attempting to keep their failings from public scrutiny."
Grassley agreed with Walpin, saying "it appears he has been doing his job."
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote White House Counsel Gregory Craig a letter on Monday requesting additional documents, explanations, and e-mails surrounding the firing. In the letter, he said Obama may have "violated" the law by giving an explanation that was "insufficiently vague" and immediately terminating Walpin.
Though the Obama letter technically included a 30-day window, Issa said his committee's investigation revealed that Walpin was given scant notice. He wrote that Walpin was given one hour by White House staff to either resign or be fired.
Issa noted growing speculation that the firing was "politically motivated" and retaliatory.
"Bottom line," one source wrote, "getting rid of a tough, Republican-appointed IG who has been aggressively going after waste and fraud gives Obama a chance to replace that IG with a more compliant team player."
My interpretation of that statement is that Obama is determined to replace an IG who was identifying and stopping waste and fraud with one who will ignore waste and fraud when committed by a Team Obama ally.
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A later June 17, 2009 update:
(Thanks to The Crawfish for tipping me off to these latest activities on Hot Air and Michelle’s website (Malkin, not Obama)).
Did the Obama administration rush to close a probe into fraud committed by a political ally before discovering obstruction of justice? The Sacramento Bee reports that a former official at St. HOPE alleges that now-Mayor Kevin Johnson’s emails relating to the fraudulent use of money were deleted from the servers in order to obstruct the investigation that Gerald Walpin conducted.
The FBI’s Sacramento division is investigating a former St. HOPE executive’s allegations of obstruction of justice, Acting U.S. Attorney Lawrence G. Brown confirmed Tuesday.
Rick Maya, who officially left his position as executive director with St. HOPE last week, alleged in an April resignation letter that a member of the charter schools’ board deleted Johnson’s e-mails during the federal investigation. Those claims, uncovered by a public records request by The Bee, caught the interest of Brown’s office, who asked the FBI’s Sacramento division to look into it.
Now, it looks like the White House is the one with a cognitive problem. It seems that they rushed a conclusion to the investigation without checking on the cooperation of the accused or even determining whether they had seen all of the evidence. And when the independent Inspector General tried to make that very point, the White House attacked him instead of the person who defrauded the government and may have obstructed justice on top of it.
Parts of the preceding article are taken from Hot Air, Fox News, World Net Daily, St. HOPE's website, and from Byron York’s piece of June 11, 2009 in the Washington Examiner. Here are links to the complete articles: