Posted on 06/19/2009 9:12:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
White House officials who fired whistleblower Gerald Walpin last week have sparked a series of investigations that pose both political and policy threats to the Obama administration.
Describing the probe into the dismissal of the AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin, one Capitol Hill source on Thursday compared Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley’s demand for facts in the case to a row of dominoes ready to tip over.
Grassley is asking questions, a team of Senate investigators is poring over documents in the case, and where the investigation proceeds now “depends on what dominoes fall next,” explained the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Already, the FBI is looking into charges that Sacramento, Calif., Mayor Kevin Johnson deleted e-mails relevant to an investigation by Walpin, whose dismissal appears to have violated a law passed last year (and co-sponsored by then-Sen. Barack Obama) to protect inspectors general from political retribution. Meanwhile, Grassley has expanded his own probe to include questions of whether the administration is undermining the independence of other government watchdogs.
Beyond the legal and political ramifications, Republicans in Washington acknowledge that the potential scandal could aid their policy battle against the effort by the White House and congressional Democrats to push sweeping new proposals on health care, energy and financial regulation.
In background discussions Thursday, several GOP strategists spoke of the contrast between Democrats’ effort to impose new government “reforms” while, at the same time, the Obama administration appears to be muzzling inspectors generals, who are tasked with providing independent oversight to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in federal agencies.
The timing of the Walpin firing and the resulting Grassley probe could hardly have been worse for President Obama. On Wednesday — the same day the president unveiled an ambitious plan to overhaul regulations on the nation’s financial system — Grassley fired off a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asking questions about documents reportedly withheld from auditors in the office of Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).
Grassley has long been a champion of the inspectors general program and has supported numerous government whistleblowers during his five terms in the Senate. Grassley’s team on the IG probe is led by Charles Murphy, a veteran Capitol Hill investigator. Both Grassley and Murphy were unavailable for comment Thursday, but sources with knowledge of the investigation expressed confidence in the meticulous research of Murphy’s team.
When there’s this much smoke in Washington, there’s usually a scandalous fire, and reporters have raced toward the Grassley investigation like firefighters scrambling for their trucks on a three-alarm blaze. Just one week after Walpin was fired, the IG probe has already generated extensive news coverage:
* Byron York of the Washington Examiner has filed multiple reports on Walpin and the Grassley investigation;
* Michelle Malkin devoted her weekly syndicated column to outlining the Walpin case;
* Walpin was interviewed by Glenn Beck on Fox News and by Lou Dobbs on CNN;
* ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper reported on the conflict between Barofsky and Geithner;
* Top talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh did a long segment about the Walpin case during his Thursday show, citing accounts by York, Matthew Vadum of the American Spectator, bloggers Dan Riehl, John Hinderaker, and others;
* The Washington Times interviewed a witness who contradicted White House claims that Walpin was “confused and disoriented” during a May meeting; and
* The Chicago Tribune, the Sacramento Bee and the Washington Post, among other newspapers, have produced major stories about the case.
Dozens of reporters from various news organizations are now turning the Grassley investigation into front-page headlines, and other members of Congress — including California Rep. Darrell Issa — are beginning to pay attention to Grassley’s IG probe. Administration officials are being forced to deploy defensively during a summer when they had expected to be on offense, advancing their legislative agenda.
Polls show voters increasingly skeptical of the administration’s policy agenda, and even the popular new president’s job-approval ratings have declined slightly in recent weeks. If the IG investigation uncovers a serious scandal, it could do permanent damage to public perception of Obama as a reformer who promised to bring “Change We Can Believe In.”
Depending on “what dominoes fall next,” Republicans on Capitol Hill may have discovered in the 75-year-old Walpin the one domino that topples the whole stack.
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Robert Stacy McCain is co-author (with Lynn Vincent) of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party . A frequent contributor to the American Spectator, he blogs at The Other McCain.
Does the rule of law meaning anything to the Zero crowd?
When a ground squirrel used to run across the road in front of our car, my wife would say,”they are so fast, 99 out of a hundred get across without getting hit”.
The Muslim in chief might have used up 99.
Right. This “investigation” will be stretched out til 2016..and then will be quietly closed.
We now officially have a one party state that can ignore, silence or imprison the opposition.
Will this really bother Obama, or will his Democrat pawns in the Senate just vote not to hold a hearing? After all, they’ve never seen so much pork in their lives. Would they want to risk losing any of it?
Just about all the news sources mentioned are conservative niches, with the exception of these: “The Chicago Tribune, the Sacramento Bee and the Washington Post, among other newspapers, have produced major stories about the case.”
But what kind of stories? I’m willing to bet that most people haven’t heard a thing about this business.
Nothing will happen unless the Democrats and the Media decide to put aside their selfish wishes and act for the good of the country. How likely is that?
Theres something big behind the whole Americorps/ACORN thing. The democrats are far more desperate to fund them than is normal even for democrats and Obama is awfully desperate to cover it all up.
I just can’t help but feel that there is something here that will go off like a nuke in the center of the democrat party.
But Walpin, now in his late 70s, is a more intriguing figure than Lewis ever was. 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.Typical Dem move...if you can't dispute the facts, smear 'em with the race card. He even managed to play the torture meme as well.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.
Salon: An Obama "scandal" as phony as Whitewater
Hopefully they will find ACORN is somehow involved.
“Theres something big behind the whole Americorps/ACORN thing.” ~ cripplecreek
You forgot to add AARP to that list and the 260+ other groups located at one particular address:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/shock_the_monkey_healthcare.html
It's the old “why do you beat your wife” comment in the middle of any argument, then the person being accused, says “what are you talking about - I don't beat my wife, how ridiculous”. Then the accused spends the rest of their time defending themselves against the false accusation and the real argument/facts are lost in the shuffle. LOL.
“Does the rule of law meaning anything to the Zero crowd?”
They are the ‘rule of law’.
I lived in Massachusetts for two years in the 1980’s and it was the racially segregated—as per schools and communities—at that time than the Deep South.
However, I think Walpin was referring to the Irish-dominated, Boston-based, Democrat political machine sometimes referred to as the “Irish Mafia.” This 150-year-old political syndicate is omnipotent in much of New England. It doesn't get the attention Chicago or New Orleans get but it is equal or worse in institutionalized public corruption.
I just have a hunch that somewhere in the mess is the link between all the money funded to these groups and a backdoor of how the money if finding it’s way back into the dems hands! NO proof mind you just a feeling.
Huh? I thought it was "The Messiah" who had "lost confidence" in him? Don't try that throw someone else under da bus trick again.
Historically, communists/Marxists define "sanity" as embracing the tenets of communism. Anyone who disagrees with communism is "confused" and "disoriented", in need of "re-education". For confirmation all one has to do is look at the history of the U.S.S.R. In short, since they reject divine authority they subsume the role, setting themselves up as the final arbiters of truth.
Does the rule of law meaning anything to the Zero crowd?Sure.
(not kidding)
“I won.”
Yeah..... I forgot about that.
That arrogant twerp is like 'the kid who owned the baseball'.
(his rules or he takes the ball and runs home to mommy)
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