Gerald Walpin suing Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps for wrongful termination!

Gerald Walpin, the AmeriCorps inspector general who was fired in June amid controversy over his investigation of a politically-connected supporter of President Obama, has filed suit alleging that the firing was “unlawful,” “politically driven,” “procedurally defective” and “a transparent and clumsily-conducted effort to circumvent the protections” given to inspectors general under the Inspectors General Reform Act of 2008, according to the Washington Examiner!

Walpin’s suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is against the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps. Also named are Nicola Goren, the acting CEO of the Corporation, Frank Trinity, its general counsel, and Raymond Limon, the Corporation’s “chief human capital officer.” The suit asks the court to declare Walpin’s firing unlawful and restore him to his position as the Corporation’s inspector general.
At the time of his firing, Walpin was involved in a dispute with the Corporation’s board over his handling a case involving the misuse of hundreds of thousands of dollars in AmeriCorps funds by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, California and a prominent supporter of President Obama. The board disapproved of Walpin’s aggressive probe of Johnson, and the investigation also sparked conflict with the acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento, because of fears that the probe — which could have resulted in Johnson being barred from ever winning another federal grant — might stand in the way of the city receiving its part of billions of dollars in federal stimulus money. This spring, the Corporation’s top management decided to lift sanctions against Johnson. Walpin strongly disapproved; at a board meeting on May 20, he frankly criticized board members for going along with that decision to let Johnson off easy.

On June 10, Walpin received a call from Norman Eisen, the Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, giving Walpin an hour either to resign or be fired. Eisen’s ultimatum appeared to be a violation of the Inspectors General Reform Act, which requires the president to give Congress 30 days’ notice, plus an explanation of the reasons for his action, before firing an inspector general. (Then-Sen. Barack Obama was a co-sponsor of that legislation.) It also appeared that Eisen’s call to force Walpin to resign was an effort to push Walpin out of his job so the White House would not have to go through the 30-day process, or give a reason for its action. When Walpin refused to quit, the White House informed Congress and began the 30-day countdown.

July 18, 2009 · Filed Under AmeriCorps, Gerald Walpin

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The AmeriCorps/Walpin IG scandal that just wouldn’t go away (despite Obama’s wishing it would)

“We’re not there yet,” one Democratic source on Capitol Hill said last week, when asked about the prospect for hearings on the Obama administration’s firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin. According to the American Spectator and The Other McCain:

Congressional investigators are still conducting interviews in the case, so the question of whether to “pull the trigger” on a full-blown inquiry — with subpoenas for witnesses to testify under oath at committee hearings — has yet to be decided.

The fact that both Democrats and Republicans are involved in investigating the Walpin dismissal is, however, highly significant. With Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, bipartisanship is absolutely necessary to getting the truth about the AmeriCorps case, as with the other cases in the smoldering “IG Gate” scandal.

Sensitive political considerations are involved, given the potential fallout from investigations into whether the Obama administration — which promised to be the most “transparent” in history — is trying to muzzle the independent watchdogs tasked with preventing waste, fraud and abuse in federal agencies.

In the span of barely a week, beginning with the White House’s quit-or-be-fired ultimatum to Walpin on June 10, two other inspectors general left their posts in what appears to be a pattern of administration pressure against IGs:

• International Trade Commission IG Judith Gwynne was told June 17 that her contract would not be renewed, shortly after Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to ITC asking about a March incident in which “certain procurement files were removed forcibly from the possession of the Inspector General by a Commission employee.” Grassley had also asked questions about the unusual arrangement in which Gwynne was employed by the ITC on a series of six-month temporary contracts, a situation scarcely conducive to the IG’s independence of agency authority.

July 14, 2009 · Filed Under AmeriCorps, Corruption, Gerald Walpin

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Michelle Obama to deliver keynote address at the 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service in SF on June 22nd

Why is it significant that Mrs. America hater, Michelle Obama is delivering the keynote address at the 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service in San Francisco? Well, aside from it being San Francisco, the most Anti-American city in the country, there is another connection. Guess who is co-sponsoring the conference? If you guessed the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). then you’d be right. The same CNCS that is the parent organization of AmeriCorps. This is also the same CNCS that last year Sacramento mayor/Dirty NBA player/Obama slurper Kevin Johnson was suspended from receiving federal funds after then-inspector general Gerald Walpin blew the whistle on massive fraud and abuse of AmeriCorps dollars for personal and political gain. Of course now, Walpin was mysterious fired for being “disoriented”.

June 20, 2009 · Filed Under AmeriCorps, Michelle Obama

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Obama broke a law he co-sponsored firing of Inspector General Gerald Walpin

Last week it was revealed that Mrs. America hater about Michelle Obama’s meddling in reshuffling the fraud-friendly AmeriCorps management. Inspector General Gerald Walpin was fired after he refused to turn a blind eye to the likely squandering of AmeriCorps funds by the huge Obama supporter, Sacramento mayor and one of the dirtiest players in the NBA history from the Phoenix Suns Kevin Johnson. Today Byron York of the Washington Examiner reveals that not only was there something fishy about the firing, but also possibly illegal. According to York’s article:

The method of Walpin’s firing could be a violation of the 2008 Inspectors General Reform Act, which requires the president to give Congress 30 days’ notice, plus an explanation of cause, before firing an inspector general.

Even Sen. Claire McCaskill, (democrat from Missouri) says Obama broke the law!

Check out Michelle Malkin’s syndicated column for more info.

June 15, 2009 · Filed Under AmeriCorps, Michelle Obama

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