Tuesday, November 24, 2009
And Democrat "mega-donor" Alan Solomont is in up to his neck. Looks like those tapas dinners in Spain are even farther away than even we first imagined. This story is starting to smell worse by the minute. Walpin was fired, contrary to law, it is widely believed, because of his "aggressive investigation of misuse of AmeriCorps funds by Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, California who is a prominent political ally of President Obama." Byron York has an important update on the story: New documents: White House scrambled to justify AmeriCorps firing after the fact. Some snips, but read it all.
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.
The new documents support the Republican investigators' conclusion that the White House's explanation for Walpin's dismissal -- that it came after the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, unanimously decided that Walpin must go -- was in fact a public story cobbled together after Walpin was fired, not before...
...Pressed for the reason Walpin was fired, Eisen told House and Senate aides that the White House conducted an "extensive review" of complaints about Walpin's performance before deciding to dismiss him. According to the new report, Eisen told Congress that "his investigation into the merits of removing Gerald Walpin involved contacting members of the Corporation for National and Community Service [CNCS] board to confirm the existence of a 'consensus' in favor of removal." But Republican investigators later discovered that during that "extensive review," the White House did not even seek the views of the corporation's board -- the very people whose "consensus" purportedly led to Walpin's firing.
Other than board chairman Alan Solomont, the Democratic mega-donor and Obama supporter who originally told the White House of his dissatisfaction with Walpin, "no member of the CNCS board had any substantive input about whether the removal of Gerald Walpin was appropriate," according to the report...
...The new documents show the White House scrambling, in the days after the controversy erupted, to put together a public explanation for the firing. On June 11, less than 24 hours after Walpin received the call from Eisen, the board held a conference call...
Update: Great take at JStreetJive (Solomont is also a big J Street backer): The (Poor) Judgment of Solomont
The American Bar Association normally takes a lound and aggressve stance against any politicization of the judicial system. Why have they not spoken about Walpin's firing and the resulting cover-up?