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inside walpin’s firing – the latest

By American Girl in Italy on June 26, 2009 at 12:00 PM in Current Affairs

Remarkably this story is still moving forward, although it is difficult to find. Byron York from the Washington Examiner wrote two articles this week, Getting to the bottom of the AmeriCorps IG firing and AmeriCorps feared bad press if IG investigation continued

York appeared on Beck to discuss the firing:

Getting to the bottom of the AmeriCorps IG firing – The corporation has told Congress that members of the board, who do not serve full-time and are not closely involved in the day-to-day operations of the corporation, unanimously supported the decision to fire Walpin. But the corporation has never said the board unanimously supported the way in which Walpin was fired.

And indeed, a long discussion with a Republican member of the board suggests that while there was, in fact, agreement on firing Walpin, it’s not clear whether there was sufficient cause to do it. Nor is it clear why the White House decided to lower the boom in a way that defied the law governing how inspectors general can be fired.

Walpin and the management of the corporation clashed repeatedly over his investigations into AmeriCorps projects. The disagreements came to a head at a May 20 board meeting when Walpin, by his own account, “lectured” board members for going along with the corporation’s politically appointed management and closing out his investigation of Kevin Johnson’s educational organization, St. HOPE, which received about $850,000 in AmeriCorps money and misused at least half of it.

From AmeriCorps feared bad press if IG investigation continued

It appears the discussion of the St. HOPE matter was a turning point not only in the May 20 meeting but in Walpin’s tenure at the Corporation. In a recent interview, a Republican member of the Corporation board told me that Walpin told board members at the meeting that he wanted to issue some sort of public statement to the effect that there should be more investigation of the St. HOPE matter. “He said, ‘I feel so strongly about this that today I am going to issue a statement to the press calling for further investigation,’” the member said, recalling Walpin’s words. “The board members all caught that. Several of us wrote down that he was going to be issuing a statement to the press that afternoon.”

It was a distressing scenario for the board. As a favorite program of Barack and Michelle Obama, AmeriCorps was enjoying a higher profile than ever before. The Corporation also stood to receive vast amounts of new funding from the $5.7 billion Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which would triple the size of AmeriCorps. And in the midst of that, here was the agency’s inspector general saying he might re-open an investigation into an embarrassing episode involving hundreds of thousands of mis-spent dollars and a politically prominent supporter of the president. More here.

In addition to the WH smearing Walpin as senile, the Board also tried to drum up a bunch of charges against him. You can read the rest of the article here.

As for the claims by the White House that Walpin is confused and disoriented, colleagues of Walpin, including Democrats and Obama supporters, wrote an open letter to the White House and Congress vouching for his “integrity and competence”. The letter, as noted by HotAir, has 147 signatures, including former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Bernard Nussbaum, Bill Clinton’s White House counsel.

The Washington Post covered the story today, Grassley Presses Obama on Watchdogs

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) this week suggested that the Obama administration is attempting to interfere with investigations conducted by government watchdogs and said he will continue to press the White House for information regarding the recent dismissal of Gerald Walpin, the inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa)”I kind of get the impression that there’s kind of a crusade early on in this administration to, how would you say it, short circuit inspectors general,” Grassley said earlier this week during an interview.

Staffers for the Iowa Republican are seeking information into at least five alleged incidents of interference with inspectors general at Amtrak, the Corporation, the International Trade Commission, the Library of Congress and with the special inspector general for the Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP).

You can continue the article here.