Saying one thing on the campaign trail and doing another after taking office is nothing new. President Obama has done it repeatedly. Some of these policy or legal reversals have been for the better; many decidedly have not. Whenever it happens, though, Obama should (though he rarely does) explain himself carefully and clearly — especially when the reversal looks like it was done for personal or partisan reasons. Moreover, any such reversal must be consistent with the law, especially laws that Obama had a hand in enacting as a senator.
Obama’s latest, and perhaps most problematic, change of position is his firing earlier this month of Gerald Walpin, inspector general of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), a federal agency that promotes and coordinates volunteerism. According to the agency’s website, the CNCS inspector general “conducts and supervises independent and objective audits and investigations of Corporation programs and operations . . . to promote economy and efficiency and prevent and detect fraud and abuse in the Corporation’s programs and operations.”
Frankly, the inspector-general system in the federal government is vastly overrated and has an undeserved reputation for nonpartisan, objective investigations. In fact, many current and former government employees have been abused by personal, partisan, or ideological witch hunts, conducted by glory-hunting IGs trying to make a name for themselves in the Washington political and media world.
But two years ago, then-Senator Obama co-sponsored the Inspector General Reform Act, which was eventually enacted last year as the Improving Government Accountability Act. Part of the purpose of that law, as outlined in the Senate report, was to make sure that IGs operate with “sufficient independence to do their jobs well,” without fear of political repercussions. Thus, the law requires the president to communicate “in writing the reasons for any” removal or transfer of an IG. The Senate report says this provision is intended to “ensure that Inspectors General are not removed for political reasons.” Good luck with that.
At first there was no explanation for Walpin’s firing; Obama simply said he “no longer” had “the fullest confidence” in Walpin. After the initial uproar, the White House started claiming the IG had been “disoriented” and “confused” at a May 20 meeting, something an eyewitness directly refutes. Moreover, even alleged “confusion” at a hostile meeting is an insufficient substantive ground for dismissal if the IG’s work is sound.
Neither President Obama’s claimed “lack of confidence” nor Walpin’s alleged momentary confusion at a single meeting of the many that he participated in, both before and after May 20, meets the requirements of the statute in giving actual, concrete reasons for his removal. So what was Walpin doing that caused him to get the boot?
We do know that Walpin recently investigated Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson, a big political supporter of Obama. Johnson is the founder of a non-profit organization called St. HOPE, whose objective is to “revitalize” inner-city neighborhoods. St. HOPE received a federal grant of $850,000 from AmeriCorps, a program of CNCS.
According to the Associated Press, Walpin concluded that St. HOPE “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 former executive director of St. HOPE charges that Johnson’s e-mails were deleted during the federal investigation and accuses board members of fiscal mismanagement.
Despite all this, the acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento, Lawrence Brown, criticized Walpin’s investigation and refused to file criminal charges. He did, however, agree to a civil settlement in which St. HOPE agreed to repay, over a ten-year period, half of the grant money it received, including almost $73,000 from Johnson’s own pocket. In return, St. HOPE and Johnson became eligible to receive federal grants once again. Brown seemed more interested in ending the mayor’s ineligibility than in enforcing federal law; the wisdom of letting an organization receive federal funds when it is taking ten years to repay prior federal grants that were wrongly used seems highly questionable.
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