Posted on 06/24/2009 12:59:27 PM PDT by kristinn
One of the mysteries surrounding President Obama's firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin is what prompted the White House, supported by the board of directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, to try to get rid of Walpin so quickly and quietly?
On the evening of Wednesday, June 10, an official of the White House counsel's office called Walpin to tell him he had one hour to resign or be fired. The action flew in the face of a law (sponsored by Barack Obama when he was a senator) that requires the president to give Congress 30 days' notice, plus cause, when he intends to fire an IG. In this case, the White House apparently wanted to dispatch Walpin quickly by pushing him to resign, which would not have required the president to go through the congressional notification process. Instead, Walpin refused to quit, and only then did the White House tell Congress.
Why the rush? Walpin had certainly displeased the board by his aggressive investigation into the misuse of AmeriCorps funds by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, California and a prominent supporter of President Obama. Prior to his election as mayor, Johnson ran an educational organization called St. HOPE, which received $850,000 in AmeriCorps money. Walpin discovered that Johnson and St. HOPE had failed to use the federal money for the purposes specified in the grant and had also used federally-funded AmeriCorps staff for, among other things, "driving [Johnson] to personal appointments, washing his car, and running personal errands."
Walpin recommended that Johnson be banned from ever receiving any more federal funds. But after the passage of the $787 billion stimulus bill, amid worries that such a ban on the mayor would keep Sacramento from receiving its share of the stimulus cash, the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service reached an agreement with the acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento under which Johnson would repay some of the mis-spent money and also be eligible to receive new federal grants in the future. Walpin strongly objected to the agreement. (Knowing his opposition, the board excluded him from the negotiations.)
Walpin's objections were the subject of a now-controversial May 20 meeting in which Walpin, to use his term, "lectured" the board on what he believed was its mistake in approving the Johnson settlement. On the morning of the meeting, the Sacramento Bee reported that a man named Rick Maya, who worked with Kevin Johnson in the St. HOPE project, claimed that Johnson's emails had been deleted during the time of Walpin's investigation. The Maya news suggested that there might have been obstruction of justice in the St. HOPE affair, and Walpin used it to drive home his point that the board should have let his investigation stand.
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.
"Right now, when there is such a great emphasis on service, we did not need any press out there on this St. HOPE matter, which was already settled," the board member told me. "We thought he was going to use the press…He had an issue with the fact that a settlement was reached…and he was doing everything he could to continue to keep the issue at the forefront."
As it turned out, Walpin did not issue any statement, to the press or anyone else. (He doesn't recall whether he said precisely what the board member recalls, although, he told me, "There wouldn't have been anything wrong if I had.") Instead, Walpin contacted the FBI in Sacramento with word of the Maya allegations, and agents there are now investigating the matter.
Later in the meeting, members questioned Walpin about his intentions. It was at that point that they say Walpin became confused and disoriented. But whatever Walpin's demeanor, it appears that board members, of both parties, were worried about the possibility of embarrassing new revelations involving a sensational case they thought had been closed. After the meeting, the board began an accelerated effort to remove Walpin, compiling an informal list of grievances against him -- he could be difficult, he telecommuted, he was somehow disabled -- that the White House would ultimately cite as cause for his firing. But there is no doubt that, whatever the other reasons, the board feared that a revival of a scandal they thought was in the past would be embarrassing to the newly-prominent AmeriCorps.
For more background on the Walpin firing, see here and here and here and here.
Byron York has been doing some great reporting. We need to pay closer attention to his work.
from related article Here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2278590/posts
“Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of officials — including four former U.S. attorneys, three former federal judges, one former attorney general and a former counsel to President Clinton — sent a letter to the Senate Wednesday defending the integrity and competence of Walpin.”
Contact your senators! Contact information on this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2180833/posts
Not so. I saw it first thing when I logged in at work (0800 CDT)
This story adds a critical new detail - the deleted e-mails and possible obstruction charges. Had not heard that before. That changes this from political payback to obstruction and evidence tampering.
“AmeriCorps Feared Bad Press If IG Investigation Continued”
And assumed the firing story would just get buried by the MSM-as it was.
Here’s all you need to know to understand why the *confusion* excuse was a load.
Great piece by Byron York, now if he’ll just stay with it!
It’s pretty clear that this is one of the more heinous crimes committed by the 0. However, with the push for investigation much less prosecution being public and media driven, it will take enormous amounts of luck and activism for this to go anywhere besides being a blurb in the very back of a small town paper.
After checking the other links there’s no doubt he’ll stay with it. :)
As always, it’s not the crime as much as the coverup that will get you in trouble.
Now, what we need to play up on this is - how much did this “0bama supporter” contribute to 0bama’s campaign?
This was simply money laundering. Taking taxpayer money and giving it to a democRat politician, it just happened to go through AmeriCorps, to Kevin Johnson, then to 0bama.
On the evening of Wednesday, June 10, an official of the White House counsel's office called Walpin to tell him he had one hour to resign or be fired
I find this so offensive and dirty and mob like I just want to SCREAM.
Especially when you consider that Walpin is a GOOD GOOD man who had done NOTHING!
We cannot let this go. It is vile and ya know what, I WANT THE NAME of the WH COUNSEL who called WALPIN. Who was this creep who is so knee padded to uhbama that he would forego his bar oath and engage in this PATHETIC THUGGERY-now including trying to SMEAR the sanity of WALPIN since this attorney BROKE THE LAW, the 30 day law.
WHAT IS THE COUNSEL's NAME?
Is it by any chance gregg craig....the man who helped send Elian back to hell?
Good idea, sending it to our reps and senators demanding action. Posting locally too. Fingers crossed the this injustice won’t be swept away.
If Obama had been a Republican, the WussHouse press conferences would have seen 50 questions about this already.
American Journalism is a Fraud.
Does the White House have an email address? I would like to send this to Uhbama where he resides...smokey pig pen that it is now.
My question since this incident broke is: Does Kenvin Johnson have a friendship with Michelle Obama’s brother, Craig Robinson? How did he become friends with the Obamas? Is a pay for play involved? Craig has been involved in others.
Highly Nixonian. But Woodward and Bernstein are dead (or may as well be), and there are no MSM jornalists who care about integrity.
We can’t let this die.
We must contact all news outlets and ask why they’re not covering this. We must SHAME them into it.
We must contact our Congressmen and ask why they aren’t raising a stink.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.