Crimes Against Liberty (40 page)

As for his alleged confusion at the May meeting, Walpin said he had not been feeling well that day, and that board members repeatedly interrupted him as he was delivering his prepared presentation. At one point they asked him to leave the room so they could handle unrelated business. When he returned, he found the board had rifled through his papers and left them in disorder, but board members wouldn’t allow him time to reassemble his notes. He said the only confusion in the room was that of board members “as to their responsibilities.” Besides, as Byron York noted, Walpin’s confusion or lack of it would not have excused the president’s failure to comply with the statutory 30-day notice period.

Many Republican investigators denied Walpin was mentally impaired at all, finding him instead “collected and coherent.” One investigator said, “What the White House described is not the experience that we have had in dealing with him.” After talking to Walpin for two hours, Byron York corroborated the GOP investigators’ findings, further observing that Walpin had “performed well in recent high-profile media appearances.”
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Walpin also denied he was working from home at the displeasure of the board. He said the CEO and general counsel of the corporation had “expressly approved” the arrangement, and that he had also cleared it with the chairman and vice chairman of the board. Walpin called the charge that he lacked candor in providing material information to decision makers “a total lie.” As for the allegation that he had engaged in “other troubling and inappropriate conduct,” Walpin retorted, “From their viewpoint, my criticisms of the Corporation’s operations and the board of directors’ failure to perform its duties is troubling.”
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A CORROBORATING WITNESS

The
Washington Times
reported that it had located a witness who directly contradicted multiple aspects of the official White House explanation for the firing. “The witness,” reported the
Times
, “whose bona fides are unimpeachable, is on the agency’s payroll, and thus spoke on grounds of anonymity.” The
Times
contacted the witness on its own, without Walpin’s input or knowledge. The witness, who claimed to have first-hand knowledge, corroborated Walpin’s statement that the agency’s general counsel, Frank Trinity, and acting CEO Nicola Goren, had no objection to him working from home. As to the allegation that he was “confused” and “disoriented,” the witness said Walpin opened up the meeting by castigating the board for “particularly weak oversight of the grants” for both St. HOPE and CUNY, eliciting “considerable hostility and repeated interruptions” from board members. The witness also confirmed Walpin’s account of being denied time to reorder his papers after they had been rifled in his absence. The witness said he had never before or since seen Walpin the slightest bit confused, but he agreed Walpin and the board “weren’t connecting” at the meeting after the board badgered him and wouldn’t let him reorganize his notes.

The
Times
uncovered another damning tidbit against the White House’s claim that Walpin was confused. On June 9, 2009, one day before the White House asked him to step down and several weeks after the fateful May 20 board meeting, the agency asked him to deliver an important speech in San Francisco on June 23 to an expected audience of 2,000 staff members and grantees. Walpin said, “They begged me to come. Why would they do that if they thought I am incapacitated?”
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Once again, the MO of the Obama White House was on full display: exploit and abuse executive power to benefit or protect your cronies and political allies, and punish or slander anyone who gets in your way. Walpin was sniffing too close to the stench of corruption.

WHITE HOUSE STONEWALLING

Congressional investigators began to look into the reasons for Walpin’s firing. White House special counsel Norman Eisen stonewalled Senator Grassley’s investigators, revealing very little and refusing to answer many questions. Grassley followed up with a letter to White House counsel Gregory Craig complaining of Eisen’s lack of cooperation. He then restated the unanswered questions in the letter.
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Key congressional Republicans accused the White House of providing “incomplete and misleading” information to investigators. But the White House hinted that its documents on the case were privileged, which just added to Republican suspicion; for if the White House had conducted a thorough investigation of the facts before firing Walpin, as it claimed, then why the need for secrecy? It looked more like the White House had fired Walpin for political reasons and built its case after the fact.

Next, a bipartisan group of congressional investigators questioned the general counsel for the Corporation for National and Community Service, Frank Trinity, who also refused to provide any details about Walpin’s firing. A congressional aide said Trinity claimed he didn’t feel at liberty to discuss the firing because it was the White House’s prerogative. When investigators pressed Trinity to justify his refusal to cooperate, reminding him that executive privilege had to be asserted by the president, he declined to respond. The issues Trinity refused to address included details on the contacts between the White House and CNCS prior to or after the firing; which members from CNCS had communicated with which White House officials; and whether CNCS officials had discussed with the White House the specific reasons for the firing.
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At one point, the White House added new allegations to justify the firing: Walpin supposedly demonstrated racial and gender insensitivity based on a parody newsletter that originated from his office commemorating the retirement of an employee. But there was no indication Walpin had any involvement in the newsletter, which had been published a year earlier, in May 2008.
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Walpin fought back by filing a federal lawsuit against the CNCS and some of its corporate officials. Requesting to be reinstated, he alleged he had been unlawfully terminated for political and other reasons in circumvention of the Inspectors General Reform Act of 2008. Walpin argued he was denied his job protections in three instances when the White House attempted to terminate him, once orally on June 10 and twice in writing on June 11 and June 16. He also asserted the White House acted so fast that it didn’t even bother to substantiate its own stated reasons for firing him, for example, by interviewing Walpin or any of the board members.
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Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, requested that Vermont Democratic chairman Patrick Leahy institute a hearing on the AmeriCorps/Walpin case, and particularly the role of U.S. Attorney Brown and his Department of Justice superiors. What got Sessions’ attention was an offhand statement in a TV interview in March by Doris Matsui, the congresswoman representing Sacramento, concerning the likelihood that the investigation into Kevin Johnson could interfere with Sacramento’s receipt of stimulus money. Matsui said that upon Johnson’s request, she had “been in conversation with officials at the White House and OMB and others to ensure that we don’t lose any money at all.”
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Fishier still was the government’s settlement with Johnson whereby his temporary suspension from participating in federal contracts or grants was lifted, but he and St. HOPE were required to repay part of the AmeriCorps grant. Mayor Johnson had to pay $72,836.50 of the $423,836.50 that St. HOPE was required to refund.
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Acting U.S. Attorney Brown had issued a press release celebrating the fact that the settlement would remove any cloud over Sacramento that might prevent it from receiving stimulus funds.

It was uncharacteristic and inappropriate of a U.S. attorney to issue that kind of political statement, which had nothing to do with the merits of the case he was investigating. Reacting to Brown’s statement, Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans demanded, “We need to hear whether the settlement in this case was tainted in any way by political influence or political factors.” House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform ranking Republican Darell Issa, on two occasions, submitted questions to Brown, which were ignored.
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Apparently frustrated at the administration’s stonewalling, Senator Grassley decided to block the White House’s nomination of CNCS chairman Alan Solomont as U.S. ambassador to Spain. He cited the CNCS’s lack of transparency and cooperation in the Walpin investigation, including its failure to provide a list of the documents it was refusing to deliver and the reasons for the refusal.
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Solomont was a major Democratic donor and Obama supporter and, when chairman of CNCS, personally went to the White House to report the board’s meeting with Walpin and recommend he be fired.

“AN AFTER-THE-FACT SMEAR CAMPAIGN”

On October 19, 2009, the Integrity Committee of the Council of the Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency cleared Walpin of the complaint filed against him by acting U.S. attorney Lawrence Brown. Committee Chairman Kevin L. Perkins wrote, “After carefully considering the allegations described in the complaint together with your response, the IC determined that the response sufficiently and satisfactorily addressed the matter and that further inquiry or an investigation regarding the matter was not warranted.” In an interview following the dismissal Walpin said, “It takes away any basis belatedly set forth by the White House as a reason for my termination. So I am certainly looking forward to a final determination by the court and to be reinstated.”
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The White House had filed a motion to dismiss Walpin’s lawsuit, and on November 6, Walpin’s attorneys filed a legal brief that the
Washington Times’
editors asserted “convincingly refutes the arguments” contained in the White House’s motion to dismiss. Walpin pointed out that one of the bases upon which the White House fired him was that acting U.S. attorney Brown had filed his complaint against Walpin. Now that that complaint had been resolved in Walpin’s favor, the White House’s justification for terminating him was significantly weakened. About a week later, White House officials met with Senator Grassley to discuss the congressional investigation, but after the meeting the parties were still at odds over the release of documents. The White House had delivered several hundred pages of material but withheld as many, claiming they were protected by various legal privileges.

The
Times
editors opined that beyond the investigation terminating in Walpin’s favor, “the rest of Mr. Walpin’s brief makes mince-meat of the White House motion to dismiss the lawsuit.” The White House’s specious defense for circumventing the statutory 30-day notice period for termination was that Walpin was put on paid administrative leave, which did not constitute “removal.” As the
Times
editors pointed out, this was quite odd since the entire purpose of the notice was to prevent IGs from being blocked from investigating an administration—exactly what happened here. In addition, Walpin alleged in his brief that even before the White House notified Congress about its dissatisfaction with Walpin, it “terminated his access to his own e-mail account and office, and denied him access to his staff. Mr. Walpin was prevented from performing even the most rudimentary steps in order to ensure that his termination did not prevent the Office of the Inspector General from performing his duties.” Moreover, the White House sent a letter six days later actually saying, “Mr. Walpin was removed.” But “removed,” according to the administration, does not constitute “removal.”
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The scandal broadened with the release of a congressional report of the Walpin matter prepared by Senator Grassley and Congressman Issa. The report revealed allegations of sexual misconduct against Kevin Johnson (alleged inappropriate advances toward three young women involved in the St. HOPE program), and that St. HOPE board member and now Johnson’s fiancé, D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, handled “damage control.” (It later came out that Rhee had reportedly visited Walpin to vouch for Johnson and to fish for information on the investigation, though she already knew of the many allegations of Johnson’s misconduct and was actively engaged in attempting to put a lid on them.
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Among the allegations reported to Walpin’s investigators was that Johnson had offered at least one of the three women money to keep quiet. An attorney—mentioned as Johnson’s personal attorney—allegedly visited the girl and offered her $1,000 a month for as long as she remained at St. HOPE, which led investigators to “reasonable suspicions about potential hush money payments and witness tampering at a federally funded entity.” Walpin included these allegations in his criminal referral to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento, which went nowhere. Not only did these cover-ups assist Kevin Johnson in his successful mayoral bid in November 2008, but in Sacramento receiving stimulus funds in 2009 despite major abuses of St. HOPE funds.
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The congressional report vindicated Walpin, strongly suggesting he was fired not because of any disorientation or confusion, but because of his whistle blowing on St. HOPE and Obama crony Kevin Johnson. It suggested the White House had indeed “orchestrated an after-the-fact smear campaign to justify” Walpin’s firing, adding, “The content of the referral tends to undermine any notion that the [inspector general’s] investigation was driven by inappropriate motives on the part of Walpin. Rather it appears to have been driven by non-political, career investigators simply following the facts.”
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