On June 19,2009 “The White House fired Gerald Walpin. The firing apparently stemmed from Walpin’s investigation of a non-profit group, St. HOPE Academy, run by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, California (and a big Obama supporter).
Walpin found that Johnson, a former all-star point guard for the Phoenix Suns, had used AmeriCorps grants to pay volunteers to engage in school-board political activities, run personal errands for Johnson and even wash his car,” the AP reports. In April, the U.S. attorney declined to file any criminal charges in the matter and criticized Walpin’s investigation. But at the same time Johnson and St. HOPE agreed to repay about half of the $850,000 it had received from AmeriCorps.
Bottom line: The AmeriCorps IG accused a prominent Obama supporter of misusing AmeriCorps grant money.The prominent Obama supporter had to pay back more than $400,000 of that grant money. Obama fired AmeriCorps IG, Walpin.
The Congress passed a law to protect Independent Prosecutors from just this kind of underhanded firing. The IIRC bill required that the President would have to notify Congress in writing 30 days prior to any action being taken. Given the reports that Teh One’s staff reportedly tried to force him to resign within the hour or be fired, it appears that they do not pay attention to their own legislation, or, conveniently ignore it.Either way Obama and his henchmen violated the law by firing Inspector General Walpin!
This unlawful act by the Obama administration was a violation of a law passed by the Congress, and as such it should be an affront to all members of Congress regardless of party affiliation. But as predicted it is ignored by the Democrats and some Republicans who support Obama.
As a result, 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 AmeriCorps money by Sacramento, Calif., mayor — and prominent Obama supporter — Kevin Johnson. And the administration seems determined to conceal its dealings with AmeriCorps and the organization that oversees it, the Corporation for National and Community Service.
Walpin was dismissed without warning on June 10, when he received a call from Norman Eisen, the special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform. Eisen told Walpin he had one hour either to resign or be fired — an apparent violation of a law giving special job protections to inspectors general. When Walpin refused to quit, he was terminated.
After lawmakers demanded an explanation, the White House said Walpin had been “confused, disoriented [and] unable to answer questions” at a May 20 meeting with the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service. The Johnson case was discussed at that meeting, with Walpin harshly criticizing board members for their support of a decision to let Johnson off easy.
There’s no question that members of the board, both Democrat and Republican, were unhappy with Walpin’s criticism of them. They agreed that Alan Solomont, the Democratic fundraiser appointed by President Barack Obama as chairman of the board, should tell the White House what had happened.
But now, at least three board members have told congressional investigators they did not specifically recommend that the administration fire Walpin. Instead, they simply wanted the chairman to express their concerns.
The White House claims it investigated the matter; Eisen told House and Senate aides that officials did an “extensive review” of complaints about Walpin’s performance before deciding to fire him. But there are serious doubts as to whether the White House did, in fact, conduct a serious investigation before getting rid of Walpin.
The three board members have told Congress that the White House did not contact them during the review. (One was told about Walpin’s firing at about the time it happened, and the other two were contacted days later.) No one from the White House contacted Walpin himself, or his top assistant, as part of the review.
Republican aides want to step up the pressure on the firing, because, as one senior committee aide put it: "What's at stake isn't just one man's job: it's how $6 billion in taxpayer money is going to be used by this Administration on an agency with no independent oversight." The six billion was given to the CNCS this year by Obama. This is tax payers money being used to promote Obama special interest plans!
The aide is referring to the Corporation for National and Community Service's primary entity, AmeriCorps, set up in the 1990s by the Clinton Administration to increase public service among young people -- mostly college grads and young professionals -- largely via grant-making to a network of state and local community nonprofit groups.
"Just how AmeriCorps is going to be used by the Obama Administration -- and what steps the administration has taken to ensure that it can do with AmeriCorps what it wants -- is at the heart of our concern," says the GOP House staffer. "We think that the removal of Walpin was part of that agenda." Source:American Spectator
The resources allocated to CNCS amount to more that $6 billion in funds, and those plans include turning AmeriCorps into a supersized, taxpayer-funded ACORN-like organization, focused on the Obama Administration's policy agenda, including health care reform, targeted stimulus spending, and possible work on the upcoming U.S. census in 2010.
Meanwhile, a White House source says the White House is trying to find out if dispersal of parts of the $6 billion budget for CNCS can be sped up under a Presidential request that the funds be considered part of the economic stimulus program. Stimulus?? Sounds more like war chest funds for Obama!!
In the past, AmeriCorps volunteers lobbied and organized groups against the "three strikes" rule in California, and had plans in place to identify groups to support a second attempt at health care reform after Hillarycare went down in flames. Some AmeriCorps resources have gone to assist ACORN projects around the country, including anti-Republican demonstrations in state capitals and in Washington, D.C.
And you can be sure this group will have an affect on the 2010 and 2012 elections to the detriment of fair and honest election results.
And if you doubt my words. I have enclosed a quote from the head of one of ACORNs affiliates that describes the pupose of ACORN and it's "sinister" organizations very well.
"SOCIAL POLICY asks what is to be done to secure basic structural changes in American society. Its pages will provide a meeting ground — and battleground — where ideas, tactics and strategies for radical reconstruction of American institutions can be expressed and exchanged, tested and debated, expanded and deepened.”
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