Inspector General Gerald Walpin firing controversy

A controversy arose in June 2009, when United States President Barack Obama fired Inspector General Gerald Walpin, after Walpin accused Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson and St. HOPE Academy, a non-profit organization, of misuse of AmeriCorps funding to pay for school-board political activities. According to Associated Press, Johnson is a supporter of Obama's.
Johnson and St. HOPE agreed to repay half of the $847,000 in grant money they had received from AmeriCorps between 2004 and 2007.
In a June 11, 2009 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden, Obama said that the reason for the firing was because "It is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general. That is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general." According to Associated Press, no other explanation or details were included in the letter.
U.S. Representative Darrell Issa (R-California) who is the senior Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, also asked the White House for specifics about the firing. Issa stated, "Despite the requirement to notify Congress in advance of firing ... the White House moved swiftly to sack an investigator who uncovered wrongdoing and abuse by a political ally of the president."
On June 23, 2009, a bipartisan group of 145 current and former public officials, attorneys, and legal scholars signed a letter that was sent to the White House, which defended Walpin, said the criticisms of him were not true, and said that his firing was politically motivated. Signers of the letter included Michael Mukasey (former Attorney General), Bernard Nussbaum (President Clinton’s former counsel), former U.S. Attorneys Otto Obermaier, John Martin, Zachary Carter, and Andrew Maloney, and six former and current presidents of the Federal Bar Council. The letter can be read here.
Fox News host Glenn Beck gave Walpin an on-air state certified senility test, which Walpin passed with a perfect score, meaning that he was not senile.
The firing was considered controversial. For example, a Wall St. Journal editorial on the matter stated, "President Obama swept to office on the promise of a new kind of politics, but then how do you explain last week's dismissal of federal Inspector General Gerald Walpin for the crime of trying to protect taxpayer dollars? This is a case that smells of political favoritism and Chicago rules... last year Congress passed the Inspectors General Reform Act, which requires the President to give Congress 30 days notice, plus a reason, before firing an inspector general. A co-sponsor of that bill was none other than Senator Obama."
On July 17, 2009, Walpin filed a civil lawsuit in federal court seeking his reinstatement as CNCS Inspector General, arguing that his removal violated the 2008 Inspector General Act.
On July 20, 2009, Walpin issued a statement saying the primary reason for his lawsuit was to protect future Inspectors General.
On November 23, 2009, the Washington Examiner reported that documents released revealed 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." The White House had withheld the documents until after the Senate report was released. The documents revealed that Alan Solomont, a significant Obama donor, had been the only board member having input and expressing disapproval of Walpin's performance.
On June 17, 2010, U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Roberts dismissed Walpin's wrongful-termination lawsuit. Judge Roberts also told Walpin that he could appeal the decision.
Judge Roberts' dismissal of the lawsuit was considered troublesome. For example, in an editorial published in the San Francisco Examiner, Byron York wrote, "... if the decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts stands, in the future the White House will be able fire other inspectors general as it fired Walpin without fear of legal consequences. The law requires the president to give Congress 30 days’ notice, plus an explanation, before firing an inspector general, but Walpin was summarily dismissed by the White House without notice to Congress or explanation on June 10, 2009..."
In September 2010, the Washington Times reported that Judge Roberts had had a conflict of interest in the case. On April 2010, when Roberts had introduced U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to an audience at Vassar College, Holder had stated, "I've got your back." In addition, Holder told the Vassar audience that Roberts' personal relationship with him had existed for "more years than most of you have probably been alive." At the time, Judge Roberts was ignoring several legal deadlines to the benefit of Holder's administration on numerous motions and countermotions in the lawsuit. Furthermore, when Holder had been U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., he had made Roberts his principal deputy. In addition, when Holder had been deputy attorney general in the Clinton Justice Department, Roberts had served him as head of the Civil Rights Division's criminal section. Also, Holder had had some authority in vetting Roberts' 1998 judicial nomination. Judge Roberts first stalled the Walpin case for nearly a full year, and then tried to kill it outright. Walpin's appeal, citing the judge's missed deadlines, requested that the case be reinstated, and that it be reassigned to a different judge.

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