Obama Fires Inspector General

[William Haskins]

WASHINGTON – An inspector general fired by President Barack Obama said Friday he acted "with the highest integrity" in investigating AmeriCorps and other government-funded national service programs. Gerald Walpin said in an interview with The Associated Press that he reported facts and conclusions "in an honest and full way" while serving as inspector general at the Corporation for National and Community Service.

In a letter to Congress on Thursday, Obama said he had lost confidence in Walpin and was removing him from the position.

Walpin defended his work on Friday. "I know that I and my office acted with the highest integrity as an independent inspector general should act," he said.

Obama's move follows an investigation by Walpin finding misuse of federal grants by a nonprofit education group led by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, who is an Obama supporter and former NBA basketball star. Johnson and a nonprofit education academy he founded ultimately agree to repay half of $847,000 in grants it had received from AmeriCorps.

<snip>

Grassley said Walpin had identified millions of dollars in AmeriCorps funds that were wasted or misspent and "it appears he has been doing a good job."

The inspector general found that Johnson, a former all-star point guard for the Phoenix Suns, had used AmeriCorps grants to pay volunteers to engage in school-board political activities, run personal errands for Johnson and even wash his car.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090612/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_national_service_inspector_general

 

[Jean Marie]

I suppose the Pay Czar shall investigate, or will that job fall to another Czar.

 

[Ken]

... what he said sounds too wordy to be true: "I know that I and my office acted with the highest integrity as an independent inspector general should act." Reads like fine print. I'm sure Obama had his reasons for kicking him to the curb.

 

[William Haskins]

yes, i reckon it either has to do with purging a bush appointee, the guy really being incompetent at his job (which runs counter to the results of the investigation by all accounts), or obama doesn't want anyone embarrassing, defunding, or otherwise interrupting americorps, which is one of his pet projects to take his methods of community organizing to the nation at large.

 

[Ken]

... you can never be sure. I'm not familiar with Obama's ties to Americorps so can't really offer an opinion on possible ulterior motives in this firing. (In my own view, you've gotta be half a fool to take any politician's actions at face value. There's always more than meets the eye; or am I just being unreasonably cynical?)

 

[dclary]

I'm guessing that he was just finishing his "Americorps" file, and the next one on his desk was "ACORN" when the call came in.

 

[William Haskins]

... you can never be sure. I'm not familiar with Obama's ties to Americorps so can't really offer an opinion on possible ulterior motives in this firing. (In my own view, you've gotta be half a fool to take any politician's actions at face value. There's always more than meets the eye; or am I just being unreasonably cynical?)

The $5.7 billion measure triples the size of the AmeriCorps service program over the next eight years and expands the ways people, from middle-schoolers to baby boomers, can earn money for college through volunteer work.

At the bill signing, Obama, who worked as a community organizer in Chicago, called on more Americans to serve.

"We need your service right now, at this moment in history. I'm not going to tell you what your role should be; that's for you to discover. But I'm asking you to stand up and play your part. I'm asking you to help change history's course, put your shoulder up against the wheel," Obama said.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...on/stories/042209dnmetamericorps.3b8d308.html

His plan would:
—Expand AmeriCorps from its current 75,000 positions to 250,000, with new units to deal with education, clean energy, health care and homeland security.
—Expand service programs involving retired individuals and those over age 55.
— Double the size of the Peace Corps from its current 7,800 volunteers to 16,000 by its 50th anniversary in 2012.
— Set goals for middle-school and high-school students to serve 50 hours a year of public service, and for college students to serve 100 hours a year.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/200...poses-new-expanded-national-service-programs/

 

[Ken]

... what he said sounds too wordy to be true: "I know that I and my office acted with the highest integrity as an independent inspector general should act." Reads like fine print. I'm sure Obama had his reasons for kicking him to the curb.

INDEED!

 

[Plot Device]

I'm guessing that he was just finishing his "Americorps" file, and the next one on his desk was "ACORN" when the call came in.

That settles it then. He was fired for his inability to alphabetize.

 

[Magdalen]

WASHINGTON – An inspector general fired by President Barack Obama said Friday he acted "with the highest integrity" in investigating AmeriCorps <snip>

The inspector general found that Johnson, a former all-star point guard for the Phoenix Suns, had used AmeriCorps grants to pay volunteers to engage in school-board political activities, run personal errands for Johnson and even wash his car.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090612/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_national_service_inspector_general

I wonder if they get to keep their National Service hours?

 

[MattW]

The question becomes, does the DNC get to keep the Americorps brownshirts volunteers working on political activities?

 

[Gregg]

Time to put ACORN in charge?

I'm already longing for the good old days of the Bush 43 Presidency......


(there's a lesson is all this: when you vote for President, do not listen to your heart alone. Emotion has no place in selecting the leader of our country.)

 

[nighttimer]

Time to put ACORN in charge?

I'm already longing for the good old days of the Bush 43 Presidency......


(there's a lesson is all this: when you vote for President, do not listen to your heart alone. Emotion has no place in selecting the leader of our country.)

Neither does intelligence when one considers how atrocious and inept The Bush Years were.

Fortunately for him in 2000, despite the majority of Americans voting for the other guy, five activist Supreme Court justices decided to say screw the will of the majority and the rest is infamy.

 

[dclary]

After firing two more inspectors general who were coming up with discrepancies, the White House has said that firing this guy was an act of "political courage."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...-IG-an-act-of-political-courage-48538447.html

 

[tarcanus]

Obama's move follows an investigation by Walpin finding misuse of federal grants by a nonprofit education group led by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, who is an Obama supporter and former NBA basketball star. Johnson and a nonprofit education academy he founded ultimately agree to repay half of $847,000 in grants it had received from AmeriCorps.

I dunno, this seems to me that the guy was doing his job well, if he found someone using federal money inappropriately. I call political shenanigans.

 

[Joe270]

This article gets a bit more in depth:

http://www.examiner.com/x-7507-Fris...or-General--Politically-motivated-and-illegal

When President Bush fired a handful of U.S. Attorneys in 2006, all of which were appointed by him and "serve at the pleasure of the President," the cries of "political corruption" from the newly Democrat-controlled Senate could be heard across America.

Today, President Obama has terminated a government inspector general, possibly in violation of laws established to prevent the same kind of political influence Bush was accused of using.

In a letter to Congress, Obama stated that he simply had "lost confidence" in Mr. Walpin, but that simply isn't supported by the facts. Just a month ago, Mr. Walpin had discovered a multi-million dollar fraud scheme involving a project at the City University of New York. His investigation determined that the U.S. Government was entitled to a refund of $75 million. I wonder what it takes to "gain confidence" in the eyes of Mr. Obama.

One of the most important provisions of the legislation we cosponsored was Section 3 which amended the procedures for the removal of Inspectors General. Specifically, Section 3 requires that, "the President shall communicate in writing the reasons for any such removal or transfer to both Houses of Congress, not later than 30 days before the removal or transfer." No such notice was provided to Congress in this instance.

Mayor Johnson is a huge supporter of Barack Obama's, and this link between the two of them gives every appearence of political payback, not to mention the possibility of serious illegalities by the President.

 

[nighttimer]

... what he said sounds too wordy to be true: "I know that I and my office acted with the highest integrity as an independent inspector general should act." Reads like fine print. I'm sure Obama had his reasons for kicking him to the curb.

Indeed he did as Joe Conason at Salon elaborates.

June 19, 2009 | To Barack Obama's most excitable adversaries, the firing of the Americorps inspector general that the president ordered last week is an incipient scandal, as loud and thrilling as Whitewater once was. Their fond memories of that ancient controversy (and its many sequels) were revived by the sudden dismissal of Gerald Walpin, a Bush administration appointee who has depicted himself as the victim of a political conspiracy. Insinuations and smears abound already -- including an attempt by the usual suspects to drag the first lady into the mud, Hillary-style, on the basis of anonymous allegations.

The latest accusations of White House impropriety are indeed reminiscent of the Clinton wars. But before conservatives spin themselves into a grand mal frenzy, they ought to understand that the strongest parallels between "Walpingate" and Whitewater are the palpable flimsiness of the charges and the questionable motives of the chief accuser. Unless there is much more to this story than what responsible journalists have found so far, the buzzing chatter on the right will soon subside into a disappointed murmur.

According to the wingnut version, Walpin is a heroic investigator who was ousted simply because he exposed misspending of hundreds of thousands of federal dollars by an Obama ally, namely former NBA star Kevin Johnson, who ran a nonprofit organization in Sacramento that received Americorps funding before he was elected mayor of the California state capital last fall. Walpin had to be removed on June 11, after he refused the president's request that he resign, because the White House was trying to cover up Johnson's wrongdoing and permit his city to receive federal stimulus money.

That simple and sinister scenario, like so many of the media descriptions of Whitewater, omits crucial facts.

It is true that Walpin found evidence of misuse and waste of Americorps funds by St. Hope Academy, a nonprofit community group started by Johnson after he retired from the NBA. It is true that Johnson and St. Hope have acknowledged that they must refund roughly half of the money that the group received from Washington. But it is also true that Walpin, a Republican activist attorney and trustee of the Federalist Society before Bush appointed him as inspector general, went well beyond his official mandate last year by publicizing supposed "criminal" wrongdoing by Johnson in the days before the Sacramento mayoral election.

And it is true as well that Lawrence Brown, the United States attorney in Northern California who received Walpin's findings, decided not to bring any criminal charges against Johnson and instead reached a settlement with him and St. Hope.

That settlement, filed last April, is a public document that reflects no great honor on Johnson, to put it mildly. But it also voided any possibility of a "coverup" by Obama or anyone in his administration. The case against Johnson had concluded months before the president acted to dismiss Walpin -- and in fact only drew attention to the case by doing so, as he must have known would happen.

Just as salient as the accusations against Johnson, however, are those brought by Brown against Walpin. A Republican named as the acting U.S. attorney by Bush, Brown filed a sharply worded complaint against Walpin with the oversight office for the federal inspectors general that charged him with ethical violations in an overzealous assault on Johnson and St. Hope. The U.S. attorney said that Walpin had "overstepped his authority by electing to provide my office with selective information and withholding other potentially significant information at the expense of determining the truth" -- in other words, Walpin had failed to provide substantive exculpatory facts to the U.S. attorney, while trying to push the government into opening a criminal probe of Johnson. During the election season in Sacramento, Brown noted that Walpin had sought publicity for his findings against Johnson in the local media before discussing them with the U.S. Attorney's Office, "hindering our investigation and handling of this matter."

A hard-line conservative with a résumé that dates back to the early '60s, he was a curious choice for a position that requires dispassionate judgment and nonpartisan fairness. Although he developed a reputation as a highly capable litigator at a major New York City law firm, he has devoted much of his life to the causes of the extreme right, in particular as a trustee of the Federalist Society and as a director of the Center for Individual Rights, a right-wing law foundation devoted to overturning affirmative-action programs.

He appears to have continued acting in those capacities even after his appointment as inspector general. In November 2007, for instance, he delivered a speech at a Federalist Society function titled "Inherent Presidential Wartime Powers -- The Wiretap Program is Constitutional." Then in March 2008, he wrote an Op-Ed essay for the New York Daily News berating human rights lawyers at Yale Law School for pursuing a legal action against John Yoo, the former Justice Department official famous for his memoranda justifying torture of terror suspects.

Media profiles of Walpin now often mention his nasty quip at a November 2005 luncheon when he introduced Mitt Romney, then governor of Massachusetts, as the leader of a state dominated by "the modern-day KKK ... the Kennedy-Kerry Klan," a reference to the Bay State's U.S. senators, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. Joking about Catholic politicians belonging to the Klan is always obnoxious, but Walpin was guilty of worse than poor taste.

Aside from its ferocious pursuit of lawsuits against affirmative action, the Center for Individual Rights, where Walpin served as director for many years, has displayed an enduring attraction to academic racism, or at least to its practitioners. That attraction led CIR to represent both Michael Levin, the notorious racist professor at the City University of New York, and Linda Gottfredson, an obscure University of Delaware professor whose negative research on African-Americans has made her a heroine to racial extremists. To finance this kind of litigation, CIR accepted thousands of dollars from the Pioneer Fund, a foundation dedicated to proving that blacks are racially inferior to whites and Asians -- in short, the intellectual equivalent of the KKK.

For that reason and many others, Walpin didn't fit very well within the Obama administration. He served at the pleasure of the president, who may well have taken some pleasure in ousting him -- and need make no apology if he did.

The usual suspects who have tried to make Walpin into some sort of martyr who was unfailry fired and nailed to a cross. If Walpin is as cozy with racism as Conason suggests he is, it might be more appropriate to believe Walpin would be happier burning one.

 

[Ken]

... all of the reasons for why politicians are fired should really be made clear to the public, instead of vague reasons for their termination being handed out that usher in massive amounts of speculation from both sides of the fence till a fellow can't tell what to believe. Kudos to those of you who have clear opinions on this issue, amidst such conflicting "facts." And now, without further ado, I retire to the couch to clutch my head.

 

[Diana Hignutt]

yes, i reckon it either has to do with purging a bush appointee, the guy really being incompetent at his job (which runs counter to the results of the investigation by all accounts), or obama doesn't want anyone embarrassing, defunding, or otherwise interrupting americorps, which is one of his pet projects to take his methods of community organizing to the nation at large.

Bingo! We have a winner, folks.

 

[robeiae]

The usual suspects who have tried to make Walpin into some sort of martyr who was unfailry fired and nailed to a cross. If Walpin is as cozy with racism as Conason suggests he is, it might be more appropriate to believe Walpin would be happier burning one.

All of this suggests--to me--that the real bad guy here might very well be KJ. That's too bad. I always liked him.

 

[dclary]

Nighttimer... How does any of that relate to the fact that Obama signed a law stating that inspector generals were required by law to get 30 days notice, and congressional notice before being fired, and Walpin was summarily dismissed on the day of his notice?

If it's in your quote I apologize, you just posted so much black it was too much to wade through.

 

[nighttimer]

Nighttimer... How does any of that relate to the fact that Obama signed a law stating that inspector generals were required by law to get 30 days notice, and congressional notice before being fired, and Walpin was summarily dismissed on the day of his notice?

If it's in your quote I apologize, you just posted so much black it was too much to wade through.

You're welcome to read Conason's original article that I hotlinked. I felt it was necessary to highlight some key passages in the story.

Regarding if all the "i's" were dotted and "t's" were crossed in the firing of Walpin, I really don't know enough to comment. Perhaps you could provide more details?

How "any of that" relates to Walpin's firing is a political appointee serves at the pleasure of the president and when a new president takes office he is under no restriction to keep all of the previous administration's appointees.

Particularly so when you're talking about a conservative Inspector General in a liberal President's administration. Walpin also contributed to the campaigns of both Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. He was definitely not aboard with the direction of the new president.

Absent any proof of a quid pro quo between President Obama and Mayor Johnson a difference in philosophy between the I.G. and the president is all that happened here.

 

[dclary]

It sounds that way. That, at least on closer look, that the firing wasn't specifically about the americorps results.

I'd find the link that stated something about a new law disallowing same-day firings for IGs, but the blogosphere has erupted over this and I don't have the time right now to filter through it all.

Suffice to say -- as in most things -- clearly there's more nuanced layers to this case than anyone wanted to believe at the outset.

 

[Joe270]

I'd find the link that stated something about a new law disallowing same-day firings for IGs, but the blogosphere has erupted over this and I don't have the time right now to filter through it all.

It's actually listed in my post above Night's.

How "any of that" relates to Walpin's firing is a political appointee serves at the pleasure of the president and when a new president takes office he is under no restriction to keep all of the previous administration's appointees.

There are restrictions, as noted in my post above yours. Congress is supposed to get a notice 30 days before with a reason.

This all stems from the Bush fed procecutor firing, which got him grilled for years. But there was no law requiring the 30 day notice then, there is now.

Obama violated that law. Pretty simple, really.