I just have to wonder what kind of uproar and front page news stories would be coming out daily if the Walpin/Johnson IG Firing Story had happened during Bush’s watch.
You know the answer to that question. We would be blasted by the story daily, for weeks on end.
But under the Obama administration the MSM doesn’t utter a peep.
Except for Byron York reporting in The Washington Examiner that is.
Before I get to his story let’s do a recap of the scandal, since it’s been weeks and weeks since the story came out.
There are four players in this drama.
Gerald Walpin – Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service
Kevin Johnson – Mayor of Sacramento
Lawrence Brown – Acting US Attorney in Sacramento
Barack Obama – President of the United States
AmeriCorps is the outfit which Obama planned to expand with his forced “volunteerism” operation, which pretty much amounts to his own version of slavery. Of course that plan disappeared and the Serve America Act came out of it. However, as with most things Obama planned to do, it’s run out of money
But I digress.
This whole story started when AmeriCorps decided they would give some cash, to the tune of 800 grand, to a influential friend of Obama’s, Mayor Kevin Johnson. Walpin began investigating Johnson’s misuse of that federal money which effectively suspended him from receiving any new federal money for the city of Sacramento. This, as you can imagine, pissed off the local population which caused some bad press to be generated for the friend of Obama’s.
But then what happened? The Acting US Attorney, Lawrence Brown, somehow made a deal to get Johnson off the hook and the money flew in again, to much hoopla, and the denouncement of Walpin. Walpin objected vigorously and then he was fired.
Now, knowing all that, do ya think this would be huge if Bush was in office?
You betcha!
After seven weeks of trying, investigators looking into President Barack Obama’s abrupt firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin are still unable to answer the most basic question of the whole affair: Why did the president do it?
They know the reasons the White House has given: That the 77-year-old Walpin was addled and not up to the job, that he had too many conflicts with the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, that his office had once distributed a parody newsletter that contained an allegedly sexist remark.
~~~During the time his case was under review, did Johnson, or anyone acting on his behalf, ever get in touch with the White House? Did the White House get in touch with him? And did Johnson’s relationship with Obama, plus the Sacramento political establishment’s desire to get the stimulus cash, play any role in Brown’s actions?
Those are the key underlying questions in the AmeriCorps affair, but investigators have been stymied by the White House’s refusal to answer any inquiries about any communications or other dealings it might have had on the subject. Brown has also refused to answer questions.
Now, investigators are trying a new route, examining the role of the Justice Department. Sen. Jeff Sessions, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked the committee chairman, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, for a hearing on the AmeriCorps/Walpin affair, focusing specifically on the role of Brown and his bosses at Justice.
According to a senior Republican aide, Sessions’ interest was piqued by a statement made in a late March television interview by Rep. Doris Matsui, the Democratic congresswoman who represents Sacramento. Asked whether Johnson’s problems could prevent the city from receiving stimulus funds, Matsui said that, at Johnson’s request, she had “been in conversation with officials at the White House and OMB [Office of Management and Budget] and others to ensure that we don’t lose any money at all.”
Within days of Matsui’s statement, a settlement was reached. Johnson was unsuspended, and in a particularly unusual move, acting U.S. Attorney Brown issued a press release hailing the arrival of stimulus funds. “The lifting of the suspension against all parties, including Mayor Johnson, removes any cloud whether the City of Sacramento will be prevented form receiving much-needed federal stimulus funds,” Brown wrote.
Republicans on the Judiciary Committee want to know why a U.S. attorney was touting his own actions in bringing stimulus money to the city. That’s not the normal role of prosecutors. “We need to hear whether the settlement in this case was tainted in any way by political influence or political factors,” says the senior Republican aide.
Rep Issa has sent a list of 20 questions, twice, to Brown and over two months later has yet to receive a response. The White House has refused to answer questions over their communications.
A bit suspicious eh?
And the only one who objected to this deal was fired. Just a little more then a week ago Walpin mused on why he doesn’t just go back to private practice and leave this all behind:
“For a second I was thinking, ‘Why do I need all of this?’ I’ll just resign and go back to my good legal practice in New York,” Gerald Walpin told The Washington Times’ “America’s Morning News” radio show Tuesday.
“But I would then be part of the apparatus that is totally torpedoing the inspectors general,” Mr. Walpin said. “The watchdog would not really be a watchdog. He’d just be afraid of his shadow.”
He is fighting the good fight and filed a lawsuit challenging his firing on July 17. But our MSM, in the Obama Age, can’t be bothered with this story. Can’t hurt Obama you see.
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