Similarly, a joint congressional report by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., which found the administration had failed to comply with requirements of the law and “orchestrated an after-the-fact smear campaign to justify the president’s action,” has been allowed to languish.

Meanwhile, “Walpingate” fades from the public memory, and the White House has moved on to appoint Walpin’s replacement, as though the scandal were resolved.

The advantage the White House gains by delays in the case hasn’t been lost on a recent Washington Times editorial, which calls for a halt to nomination of Jonathan Hatfield to Walpin’s old position:

“[Judge Roberts] has played into the hands of the Obama administration, which has used every possible stalling tactic to keep the case buried and its merits unexamined,” the editorial contends. “The goal, which is highly improper, seems to be to render Mr. Walpin’s case moot by putting Mr. Hatfield in his place.”

The editorial insists the integrity of the offices of inspector general is even more important for “an administration increasingly known for outlandish stonewalling of Congress and the press and for its Justice Department’s refusal to investigate any purported administration wrongdoing.”

The FBI probe into whether e-mails were deleted during a separate federal investigation of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson’s St. HOPE Academy has been closed without charges being filed.

Federal officials said Tuesday there was not enough evidence to support allegations that the e-mails were intentionally deleted while Johnson’s nonprofit organization was being probed by federal Inspector General Gerald Walpin.

The decision appears to put to rest a controversy that has dogged Johnson since Walpin’s investigation into St. HOPE’s use of federal grant money first became public in April 2008.

“We’re pleased that the FBI has determined what we knew all along – that there was no intentional wrongdoing by the mayor or anyone at St. HOPE,” said mayoral spokesman Steve Maviglio. “It’s time for this book to be closed and for everyone to move on.”

Walpin, who was fired by President Barack Obama last summer amid controversy over his probe of Johnson, revealed Tuesday that he also had been cleared of overstepping his authority in the matter.

Now, he said, he wants his job back.

“It certainly is a vindication that I and my office – and it was mainly my office, the career staff – acted properly in connection with the investigation into St. HOPE,” Walpin said.

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.

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.