Free Republic

Remember the Gerald Walpin affair? Republican Sen. Charles Grassley does. Walpin was the inspector general of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the organization that runs the AmeriCorps service program. In June 2009, Walpin received a call from Norman Eisen, who was then the Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform. Eisen told Walpin he had an hour to either resign or be fired. Eisen's call appeared to violate the 2008 Inspectors General Reform Act, which is designed to protect inspectors general from political interference. The Act requires the president to give Congress 30 days'...

In a remarkable development, the beleaguered Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) actually awarded the employee who botched the investigation of the largest Ponzi scheme in history with a cash bonus for a great job performance. It marks the latest of many scandals for the famously inept federal agency charged with policing the nation’s financial industry. An SEC Inspector General probe discovered that the agency rewarded an incompetent investigator who missed Bernie Madoff’s illegal, $50 billion Ponzi scheme with a cash bonus for good work. Released this week, the IG report doesn’t name the SEC investigator but confirms that he (or...

Operation Fast and Furious — and other alleged “gunwalker” programs — only ended when whistleblowers came forward from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) after a firefight in Rio Rico, Arizona, left Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry dead.NPR – yes, NPR – is now reporting that the Department of Justice inspector general is launching an investigation into whether or not the DOJ illegally retaliated against one of the agents that revealed the gunwalking plot: The Justice Department’s inspector general has opened an investigation into possible retaliation against a whistleblowing agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,...

An Interview with Gerald Walpin First, a full disclosure: Gerald Walpin is a friend whom I greatly admire and respect. On August 3, 2006, President George W. Bush nominated him as Inspector General (IG) of the Corporation for National and Community Services (CNCS), an office charged with conducting independent audits and investigations of the CNCS and its service programs which include AmeriCorps, Volunteeers in Service of America (VISTA) and Senior Corps. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 2006 and sworn into office in January 2007. On June 11, 2009, President Obama, only five months into his...

Jama'a al-Islamiya leader Omar Abdel Rahman, who is being held in a prison in North Carolina, US, in a 15-minute telephone conversation with his wife Aisha said “the Egyptian revolution achieved the impossible.” His son Mohamed said an officer from the prison called Abdel Rahman’s home on the landline first to make sure that his wife was there, and that her voice matched the registered "voiceprint." He added that a recorded message from the prison’s phone said the line would be cut immediately if any person other than Aisha talked on the phone. He also said that his father was...

The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report. In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG...

Neil Barofsky is a lifelong Democrat who was appointed by George Bush to be the Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP). He has done superlative work over the last two years in uncovering vast waste of taxpayer dollars. He also has started looking into whether the car closings ordered by the Obama administration were influenced not by efficiency or economy but whether dealers were chosen to be saved based on their minority status. His latest report - buried by much of the media - was highly critical of how the Treasury was using suspect methodology...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-nsc-spokesman-mike-hammer-council-inspectors-general-integrity-and-effici Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release July 15, 2010 Statement by NSC Spokesman Mike Hammer on the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency Evaluation of the IG's Operations in Afghanistan A joint team at NSC and OMB received a preliminary briefing today from the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), which is a statutory body of IG’s. At the request of the NSC and in coordination with the Department of Defense and the Department...

A new report released yesterday (.pdf) by Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) warns that Obama administration efforts to bailout homeowners through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) are ineffective and will not stem the sweeping tide of foreclosures. The $75 billion HAMP program was created with a promise to bailout 3 to 4 million homeowners in foreclosure, paying lenders to modify troubled mortgages. Foreclosures reached 2.8 million in 2009 and are on track to exceed that total with over 932,000 foreclosures filed in the first three months of 2010, the report found.

Violating its own guarantee of unprecedented transparency, the White House is blocking an investigation into the controversial firing of an inspector general who exposed one of President Obama’s political supporters—a California mayor—for misusing federal funds. First Lady Michelle Obama was reportedly behind the contentious June dismissal of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin and congressional investigators want to interview the aide (Jackie Norris) who may have given the order. At the time Norris was the First Lady’s chief of staff but the White House counsel’s office has blocked investigators from interviewing her, according to a national news report. Norris is currently...

Complete with a raft of documents and exhibits, fired AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin on Wednesday filed a motion for summary judgment in his lawsuit demanding reinstatement to his job -- his own motion not even waiting for the judge to rule on the Obama administration's motion to dismiss the case without hearing or trial. A close perusal of his motion, affidavits, and exhibits suggests to me, for the first time, that this case has potential to reach the Supreme Court regardless of how the lower court rules.... Thus we get a glimpse of the tangled web of interests and...

Even as congressional investigators demolish White House explanations for its firing last summer of a key inspector general, new documents show that an entire second area of misleading administration statements has gone largely unexplored. Each new revelation in the case suggests that Gerald Walpin, the fired IG for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), ought to be reinstated to his job. We'll get to that second area of dispute in a few moments; it's a doozy. First, though, because this is all rather confusing, a review of the particulars is in order. ~snip~ Yet just two days after...

Oversight: After an unjust firing and campaign of character assassination, the former AmeriCorps inspector general has been cleared of acting improperly. Now where does he go to get his job and reputation back? On June 10, Gerald Walpin was fired with one hour's notice as the watchdog of AmeriCorps in violation of a federal law requiring Congress to be given a heads-up 30 days in advance. He then fell victim to a campaign of character assassination. When pressed for a reason for the sudden and improper dismissal of a federal watchdog, the White House responded with a letter to Sens....

Just hours after Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa released a report Friday on their investigation into the abrupt firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin, the Obama White House gave the lawmakers a trove of new, previously-withheld documents on the affair. It was a twist on the now-familiar White House late-Friday release of bad news; this time, the new evidence was put out not only at the start of a weekend but also hours too late for inclusion in the report.

A federal appeals court has ordered a civil rights lawyer convicted in a terrorism case that originated in Minnesota to begin serving her prison sentence. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan today also upheld Lynne Stewart's conviction, which was based in part on illegally aiding her client, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, during a visit with him at the federal prison in Rochester, Minn., in May 2000. She was convicted of smuggling messages between Abdel-Rahman and a terrorist group. Stewart was sentenced to a little more than two years in prison.

Well before Gerald Walpin was fired as the inspector general of AmeriCorps, government documents show that he and the agency’s management did not get along, to say the least. Documents obtained by CNSNews.com through a Freedom of Information Act request, including e-mails, letters and memos, demonstrate a confrontational relationship between the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the agency that runs AmeriCorps, and its inspector general, whose ouster in June prompted questions from Congress. A corporation board member wanted to “let the record reflect” what he says was Walpin’s confusion at a Mar. 20 board meeting, the member’s notes...

"The Justice Department's inspector general has agreed to investigate whether ACORN has applied for or received any DOJ grant money, in the wake of bipartisan criticism of the community activist group's operation. And seven other inspectors general are being asked by two congressional members to take a look at their funding mechanisms."

Former Vice President Dick Cheney never attempted to influence or intimidate the CIA's inspectors in order to get the findings he wanted on the CIA's review of enhanced interrogation techniques, the agency's inspector general has told FOX News. In a rare response for a request to comment, CIA IG John Helgerson confirmed Tuesday that he met personally with Cheney during the course of the investigation, and despite allegations on Web blogs, the former vice president made no effort to influence his work. "The VP (whom I had long known reasonably well, as, in a non-IG capacity, I used to brief...

Republicans this week pronounced Barack Obama’s six-month-old $787bn (€553bn, £477bn) stimulus a failure. But Earl Devaney, the former secret service agent who heads Mr Obama’s stimulus monitoring board, says critics do not yet have the tools to judge accurately. Mr Devaney, who meets weekly with Joe Biden, the vice-president, to monitor the outflow of stimulus money, is scrambling to set up the most complex government website in history by the October 10 deadline imposed by Congress. He predicts that the site, which will enable journalists and citizens to monitor every dollar that comes out of Washington and match it with...

First it was I.G. Walpin who was investigating BO 's supporter on the misused of Americorp funds. Now it is I.G. Weiderhold for investigating Amtrak’s activities. The Inspector General Act, amended last year and CO-SPONSORED by Barack Obama to: require the President to notify Congress in writing within 30 days the reasons for removing an Inspector General from office. Did Obama knowingly break the law on this one or did TOTUS forget to tell him he couldn't do it.

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...

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?

The Special Inspector General for TARP, Neil Barofsky, made headlines this week when he estimated that the Obama administration had committed itself to spending as much as $24,000,000,000,000 to fix the American economy. The Treasury fired back at its own SIGTARP, saying that Barofsky inflated the numbers and that they had no intention of spending almost twice America’s annual GDP. In an interview with ABC’s Jake Tapper, Barofsky explains that the White House currently has dozens of programs dispensing cash, and that the caps on all of those add up to the $24-trillion mark:

Just six months into his presidency, President Barack Obama's administration is the target of a federal lawsuit, and that by a civil servant who alleges he was dismissed from his post in violation of the requirements of a law that Barack Obama himself once sponsored in the Senate. Yet despite all this, the July 21 Washington Post print edition failed to carry the story, directing readers with this 39-word teaser atop page A15 (The Fed Page) to a Post blog: Former Inspector General Files Suit: Gerald Walpin, an inspector general who was fired last month by the Obama administration, has...

Gerald Walpin, the former Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service whom President Obama took the unusual step of firing last month, filed a lawsuit against the CNCS on Friday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia The suit seeks to force "to reinstate Mr. Walpin as the Inspector General and to declare unlawful and ineffective the efforts to date to terminate him from his office." In addition, the suit seeks that Walpin be awarded "costs and legal fees associated with this action" as well as any "further relief as may be appropriate in this...

"Staff doesn't speak for the committee," a source on Capitol Hill explained last week. "The committee speaks for the committee." That's the practical meaning of Senate Rule 29, which has been invoked regarding the Homeland Security and Government Oversight Committee investigation into last month's firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin. The committee's chairman, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, is entirely within his prerogative to protect the integrity of the investigation via Rule 29, which reads, in part:

Gerald Walpin, the AmeriCorps inspector general who was summarily fired in June amid controversy over his investigation of a politically-connected supporter of President Obama, has filed suit alleging that the firing was "unlawful," "politically driven," "procedurally defective" and "a transparent and clumsily-conducted effort to circumvent the protections" given to inspectors general under the Inspectors General Reform Act of 2008. Walpin's suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is against the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps. Also named are Nicola Goren, the acting CEO of the Corporation, Frank Trinity, its general counsel, and...

I'm going on staycation this week, but soon after returning from tending my tomatoes and taking afternoon naps, I'll be cooking Kass' Beer Can Chicken for 100 lucky loyal Tribune subscribers, and we'll drink beer and talk politics and anything else. Details at the end of this space. But first, let's welcome two new members into the Society of the PLMSRCS. Everybody knows this snappy acronym: the Society of People Lord Mayor Shortshanks Really Can't Stand. *snip* He's investigated the mayor's nephew receiving $68 million in city pension investments that Daley doesn't know anything about. He's teamed with the feds...

The chairman of the board that convinced President Obama to fire its inspector general last month complained that Gerald Walpin was creating too much friction with agency administrators, according to notes from a May meeting obtained by FOXNews.com. The account adds a vital new layer to the explanation the White House gave for the firing, which made only passing reference to such concerns in justifying the removal of Walpin, former IG for the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees the volunteer service AmeriCorps. The official explanation emphasized Walpin's personal behavior at the May 20 meeting. The informal meeting...

Photo illustration by Matthew Sheffield Key Republicans in both the House and the Senate are accusing the White House of giving “incomplete and misleading” information to investigators probing the president’s abrupt firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin. In return, the White House is hinting that documents concerning its actions in the Walpin affair may be protected by executive privilege. Both developments are part of an escalating conflict between GOP lawmakers and the Obama administration. Republicans are deeply skeptical of the White House explanation for the June 10 firing of Walpin, a tough investigator who had been probing misuse of...

Nearly 150 prominent attorneys, of all political stripes have banded together to support one of their own who went to Washington, D.C., to serve as a government watchdog, only to be unceremoniously dismissed by the Obama Administration earlier this month.

Documents Detail Case for Walpin's Dismissal Documents delivered to lawmakers this week expose a frequently confrontational and petty relationship over the past several years between officials at the Corporation for National and Community Service and the group's inspector general, Gerald Walpin. President Obama fired the Bush appointee last month, citing a lack of confidence. Former Corporation for National and Community Service Inspector General Gerald Walpin. (AP)Lawmakers almost immediately raised concerns with the dismissal, suggesting the White House failed to follow proper procedure in removing the Bush appointee and did not provide adequate reasons for the dismissal. The White House outlined...

Watchdogs are an endangered species in the Age of Obama. The latest government ombudsman to get the muzzle: Amtrak Inspector General Fred Weiderhold. The longtime veteran employee was abruptly "retired" this month -- just as the government-subsidized rail service faces mounting complaints about its meddling in financial audits and probes. Question the timing? Hell, yes. On June 18, Weiderhold met with Amtrak officials to discuss the results of an independent report by the Washington, D.C., law firm Willkie, Farr and Gallagher. The 94-page report has been made publicly available through the office of whistleblower advocate Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. It...

WATCHDOGS are an en dangered species in the Obama Age. The latest government ombudsman to get the muzzle: Amtrak Inspector General Fred Weiderhold. The veteran employee was abruptly "retired" this month -- just as the government-subsidized rail service faces mounting complaints about its meddling in financial audits and probes. Question the timing? Hell, yes. On June 18, Weiderhold met with Amtrak officials to discuss the results of an independent report by the Washington law firm Willkie, Farr and Gallagher. The 94-page report has been made publicly available through the office of whistleblower-advocate Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). It concluded that the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Republican senators asked Monday for a congressional hearing to look at whether President Barack Obama acted appropriately when he fired the national service agency's inspector general earlier this month. Sens. Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Orrin Hatch of Utah said they were concerned about "significant questions raised regarding the propriety of the decision to remove the IG." Obama fired Gerald Walpin, the inspector general who investigates AmeriCorps and other programs that are part of the Corporation for National Community Service, saying he had lost confidence in him. The firing followed an investigation by Walpin finding misuse...

Nobody would fault you if you haven't really heard much about this currently brewing catastrophe, what with ABC whoring itself to the President to slang the rocks of nationalized healthcare to the American public in prime time, or with the greatest tax increase in the history of all the universe ready to be sprung upon us by congressional democrats, but nevertheless IG-Gate is now growing into a swine flu-like pandemic.

Allies and former colleagues of Gerald Walpin, the inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service fired by President Obama, are mounting an aggressive defense of his integrity and competency. A bipartisan group of 145 current and former public officials, U.S. attorneys and legal scholars signed a letter vouching for his competency. The June 23 letter was sent to White House Counsel Gregory Craig, as well as the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, the Senate Finance Committee and the House Government Oversight panel. “We have known Gerald Walpin as a...

Last week, Sen. Charles Grassley raised questions about the sudden “retirement” of Amtrak IG Fred Weiderhold: As a senior member of the United States Senate and as the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Finance (Committee), it is my duty under the Constitution to ensure that Inspectors General, which were created by Congress, are permitted to operate without political pressure or interference from their respective agencies. Inspectors General were designed for the express purpose of combating waste, fraud, and abuse and to be independent watchdogs ensuring that federal agencies were held accountable for their actions. I understand that Inspector...

The White House is on a witch hunt against inspectors general who blow the whistle on waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars. And now, taxpayer-subsidized ACORN affiliate Project Vote — where President Obama cut his teeth as a community organizer and learned Leftist intimidation tactics up close and personal — is going after whistleblower Anita MonCrief and an anonymous “John Doe” defendant for posting invaluable documents that reveal the money-shuffling racket. Obama. ACORN. Project Vote. Corrupt birds of a feather bully together.

WASHINGTON - The inspector general of Amtrak unexpectedly resigned Thursday night, becoming the third such federal official to leave prematurely since the Obama administration took office and the latest in a string of potentially controversial moves involving government watchdogs. Discuss COMMENTS (6) Fred E. Weiderhold, a 35-year veteran of the agency who was responsible for rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, is the most high-profile change among the group of senior government officials who have responsibility to conduct independent investigations of federal agencies and institutions. “As Amtrak’s first and only Inspector General, Fred has made important contributions in helping the...

President Barack Obama (AP Photo) (CNSNews.com) – The ousted inspector general who reported that his office found misuse of AmeriCorps funds granted to a charity run by a political ally of President Barack Obama sees an assault on the institution of government watchdogs, noting that besides himself, the inspectors general in both the Treasury Department and the International Trade Commission (ITC) have faced reported hurdles in doing their jobs. He says he wants Congress to hold a hearing on his firing. “I certainly don’t know the facts about any of the other IGs. But I don’t think you can find in the history of IGs such an administration attack on...

President Obama's excuses for firing AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin look weaker every day. The FBI has opened an investigation into a Sacramento program formerly run by a close ally of President Obama's, giving credence to the IG's work.

President Obama's excuses for firing AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin look weaker every day. The FBI has opened an investigation into a Sacramento program formerly run by a close ally of President Obama's, giving credence to the IG's work. The president fired Mr. Walpin June 11 after Mr. Walpin filed two reports critical of Obama friends. The highest-profile of the two reports focused on misuse of funds at Sacramento's St. Hope Academy, then run by former NBA star Kevin Johnson before Mr. Johnson was elected Sacramento's mayor in November. Mr. Johnson was a frequent stump speaker for Mr. Obama during...

Corruption is a strong word, but it appears warranted given the two stories of import this weekend. First, on the firing of inspectors general: WASHINGTON - -- He was appointed with fanfare as the public watchdog over the government's multi-billion dollar bailout of the nation's financial system. But now Neil Barofsky is embroiled in a dispute with the Obama administration that delayed one recent inquiry and sparked questions about his ability to freely investigate. Treasury, you see, is refusing to turn over documents - items that Barofsky believes he needs to do his job properly. Mr. Barofsky's job is, for...

The upside to Gerald Walpin’s firing as inspector general for the federal agency that oversees AmeriCorps is that he could appear in one of those “Organizing for America” ads that highlight Americans who have lost their jobs along with their health care. It’s just a thought. Walpin became the center of some media attention last week for suspending Barack Obama supporter Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star and now mayor of Sacramento, for irregularities in his use of federal money when he ran a charity. Walpin was asked by the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service to...

In the wake of trying to squelch three federal Inspector Generals, there’s this story about how those who try to expose Obama, Obama administration, and Obama ally activities are dealt with.

In firing AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin last week, President Obama probably thought he and his wife, Michelle, were the ones "sending the message." After all, dispensing petty political retribution on behalf of one's crooked friends is the "Chicago way," is it not? And the firing of Mr. Walpin would no doubt have lasting benefits for the Obamas, too, seeing as inspectors general throughout the federal government would get the message that "FOBAMs" - or "Friends of Barack and Michelle" - were not to be touched in the future. What Mr. and Mrs. "Hope and Change" failed to take into...

We, the undersigned, respectfully demand that the Judiciary Committees of the United States Senate and House of Representatives formally investigate the firing of Inspector General Gerald Walpin by President Obama. Sign the petition at: gopetition.com/online/28746.html

GERALD WALPIN All I know is that what was done was wrong, and it was done, I think, to send a chilling message to all inspectors general that they should not touch any hot topics. LOU DOBBS: Not to touch any hot topics, by which- WALPIN: I mean topics that may be close to somebody who is at the pinnacle of power.

As the Obama administration faces questions about the president's firing of the Corporation for National and Community Service Inspector General last week, and about the Treasury Department challenging the independence of the Special Inspector General dedicated to federal bailout dollars for the financial bailout money, a third inspector general controversy has emerged. This week Judith Gwynn, the Inspector General for the International Trade Commission, was told that her contract would not be renewed. The news was delivered to Gwynn within three hours of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sending the chair of the ITC a letter asking about a March 5...