Gerald Walpin has quickly become the most famous of the three
inspector generals who’ve left their jobs in recent weeks,
exposing what appears to be a pattern of pressure from the Obama
administration.
In radio and television interviews, the silver-haired 77-year-old
former AmeriCorps IG has certainly contradicted insinuations of
senility that administration officials made in defending the
quit-or-be-fired ultimatum that Walpin said he received on June
11. On Tuesday, Walpin released a letter signed by more than 140
allies — including a former White House counsel to President
Clinton — attesting that
they have never seen him “confused” or “disoriented,” as the
administration claims he appeared to be at a May 20 meeting.
Yet the investigations into President Obama’s evident crackdown
on IGs — designated watchdogs who guard against waste, fraud and
abuse in federal agencies — are not about Walpin.
Those familiar with the investigations (and yes, that noun is
plural) caution against personalizing or politicizing the
situation. These sources are especially concerned that inquiries
by Republican members of Congress should not be portrayed as a
partisan “gotcha” game against the popular new president.
Similar words of caution are expressed by some members of the IG
community, who note that Walpin had only been watchdogging the
Corporation for National and Community Service for two years. An
able attorney and certainly not the doddering incompetent that
Obama officials portrayed him to be, Walpin hasn’t been an IG
long enough to have acquired “veteran” status, and some say he
had a reputation as “arrogant” or “holier-than-thou.”
Whatever Walpin’s reputation, however, sources familiar with his
dismissal believe it was no accident that he was shown the door
immediately after getting into a dispute with Eric Holder’s
Justice Department over a program affiliated with Sacramento
Mayor Kevin Johnson, an enthusiastic political ally of Obama. And
perhaps the most important fact of the case so far is that the
FBI is now investigating an accusation that e-mails relevant to
Walpin’s work were deleted by Johnson or others. Destroying
evidence in a federal investigation is a serious crime, no matter
what the other circumstances of the case may be.
While Walpin’s case has pushed the IG story into the headlines,
the cases of two other ex-IGs are now the subject of
congressional inquiries:
• Judith Gwynn, inspector general for the International Trade
Commission, was notified last week that her contract would not be
renewed. She received that notice shortly after
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley sent a letter to ITC Chairwoman Shara
Aranof inquiring about an incident in which Gwynn said
procurement documents “were removed forcibly from [her]
possession” by a commission staffer.
• Fred Wiederhold Jr., inspector general for Amtrak, retired
without notice or explanation June 18. Grassley says the
unexpected resignation came after Wiederhold was asked to provide
“specific
examples of agency interference with OIG audits and/or
investigations.”
An interesting angle to emerge in the Wiederhold case, according
to sources, is that many of the IG’s problems involved Amtrak
vice president and general counsel Eleanor Acheson. A former
Clinton administration Justice Department official under Attorney
General Janet Reno, Acheson is not only the grandaughter of
former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, but also happens to have
been Hillary Rodham Clinton’s roommate at Wellesley College.
That famous connection may be merely coincidental, but shortly
after The American Spectator’s blog
first
mentioned Acheson’s name in regard to the IG probe Tuesday,
Michelle Malkin noted another connection that is almost
certainly less of a coincidence. After joining Amtrak in January
2006, Acheson
brought in as her deputy Jonathan Meyer, who spent six years
as a top Senate aide to Joe Biden, who for years has proudly
proclaimed himself Amtrak’s No. 1 advocate in Washington.
It was Biden who in March announced that the money-losing
passenger rail service would get
$1.3 billion from the massive $787
billion “stimulus” bill Obama signed in February. As Malkin
also noted, the vice president’s son,
Hunter Biden, serves on the Amtrak board of directors.
Clearly, the Amtrak IG situation will get close scrutiny on
Capitol Hill — as of Tuesday, Wiederhold had made no public
comment about his sudden retirement — but perhaps the most
interesting part of the developing inspectors general story
involves an IG who is still on the job.
Neil Barofsky is “SIGTARP,” the special investigator general
whose job is to keep an eye on disbursement from the Troubled
Assets Relief Program, the $3 trillion financial bailout that was
rushed through Congress in October. Last week,
Grassley sent a stern letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy
Geithner, asking about “a dispute over certain Treasury
documents that were being withheld from SIGTARP auditors on a
specious claim of attorney-client privilege.”
At stake in the TARP case — as in the cases of the IGs at
Amtrak, AmeriCorps and the ITC — is whether the inspectors
generals will remain vigilant watchdogs on behalf of taxpayers or
become compliant lapdogs, allowing Obama’s political appointees
to do as they wish without fear of independent scrutiny.
Given the controversial nature of the TARP — including the
public outcry over bonuses paid to top employees of insurance
giant AIG, a bailout beneficiary — Grassley is by no means the
only member of Congress interested in preserving Barofsky’s
independence. In April,
Geithner was grilled by Texas Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling
and other members of Congress at a hearing after Barofsky
reported a “staggering” amount of fraud in the bailout program.
Hensarling is one of the staunchest critics of TARP and, as
ABC News reported last week, the Texan sent a letter to
Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the congressional panel charged
with overseeing the bailout, warning that Treasury’s actions were
a “threat to [Barofksy’s] independence.”
Several observers see the administration’s push against the IGs
as emblematic
of the notorious Chicago style of political hardball that
Obama learned to play early in his career. As investigators move
forward in their effort to safeguard the independence of the
inspectors general, it will be an important test of whether “the
Chicago way” will prevail on the shores of the Potomac.
