Obama Fires Inspector General

Gerald Walpin, an Inspector General recently tasked to investigate Obama supporter, former NBA player and Sacramento, California Democratic mayor, Kevin Johnson. An article reporting on the firing may be found here.

A New York Post piece explained the administration's position, reporting,

"We also highlighted numerous questions and further investigation they needed to conduct, including the fact that they had not done an audit to establish how much AmeriCorps money was actually misspent," Acting U.S. Attorney Lawrence Brown said in an April 29 letter to the federal counsel of inspectors general.

Walpin's office made repeated public comments just before the Sacramento mayoral election, prompting the U.S. attorney's office to inform the media that it did not intend to file any criminal charges.

The U.S. attorney's office reached a settlement in the matter. Brown cited press accounts that said Johnson and the nonprofit would repay half of nearly $850,000 in grants it received."

However, that passage makes very clear that Johnson was mishandling the funds.

On the other side of the issue, the Fox News article notes,

"Obama's move follows an investigation by IG Gerald Walpin of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, who is an Obama supporter and former NBA basketball star, into the misuse of federal grants by a nonprofit education group that Johnson headed.

The president didn't offer any more explanation, but White House Counsel Gregory Craig, in a letter to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, cited the U.S. attorney's criticism of Walpin to an integrity committee for inspectors general.

Alan Solomont, a Democrat and the board chairman of the government-run corporation, and Stephen Goldsmith, a Republican and the board's vice chair, said they strongly endorsed Obama's decision."

It's pretty clear that this is a classic case of scandal at a government-funded agency which is striking someone close to a sitting president. The agency's heads of course want the IG canned. The target, a Democratic mayor close to the president, wants help quashing the developing investigation.

Despite his many promises of running an administration with heretofore-unapproached ethical standards, and transparency, Wonderboy is covering up scandal and is silent on the reasons. While also violating the law which is in place precisely to prevent this sort of cashiering of IG's for doing their job and uncovering abuses of funds which are embarrassing to an administration.

Hopefully, this story will blossom, rather than die. And develop into a major scandal for the administration, Johnson, and Americorps.