Gerald Walpin vindicated! IG who exposed Obama/Kevin Johnson corruption cleared!

gerald-walpinObama exposed yet again! Remember back in June, the White House fired Gerald Walpin as Inspector-General of the Corporation for National and Community Service? This happened after he objected to an unusually-favorable settlement of fraud charges against Obama’s pal and mayor of Sacramento named Kevin Johnson. Shortly thereafter, Obama claimed that Gerald Walpin got fired for instability and strongly hinted that Walpin was senile. Yesterday, according to Hotair, the IGs struck back and cleared Walpin of the White House’s allegations through their professional board! Walpin also now wants his job back! The Sacramento Bee has more:

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November 11, 2009 · Filed Under Corruption, Gerald Walpin

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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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