The whistle-blower who was doing his job, Gerald Walpin, has decided to sue the regime for an improper dismissal.
Byron York reports in today’s Washington Examiner:
Gerald Walpin, the AmeriCorps inspector general who was summarily fired in June amid controversy over his investigation of a politically-connected supporter of President Obama, has filed suit alleging that the firing was “unlawful,” “politically driven,” “procedurally defective” and “a transparent and clumsily-conducted effort to circumvent the protections” given to inspectors general under the Inspectors General Reform Act of 2008.
Walpin’s suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is against the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps. Also named are Nicola Goren, the acting CEO of the Corporation, Frank Trinity, its general counsel, and Raymond Limon, the Corporation’s “chief human capital officer.” The suit asks the court to declare Walpin’s firing unlawful and restore him to his position as the Corporation’s inspector general.
[...]
In the suit, Walpin alleges that all three actions were violations of the job protections given to inspectors general. “There have been at least three attempts to unlawfully remove Mr. Walpin from his post,” the suit says, “the first orally on June 10; the second by writing on June 11; and the third by writing on June 16.”
In addition, Walpin charges that the White House, in its eagerness to remove him for political purposes, never investigated the reasons it cited for the firing. “In the haste to remove Mr. Walpin from his post, not only were there…failures to comply with the statutorily-mandated procedures to preserve the integrity of the Inspector General post from politically motivated job actions,” the suit says, “no investigation was made into the facts alleged as the basis for Mr. Walpin’s termination. In particular, there was no attempt to interview Mr. Walpin or ay members of the staff of the Office of Inspector General who were personally involved in each of the [investigations], nor any of the board members.”
Ed Morrissey writes at Hot Air:
Walpin hasn’t asked for damages in this suit, at least not yet. He wants his attorney costs reimbursed, but mainly he wants the court to force the Obama administration to reinstate him as the IG. Such a determination would underscore the need for IGs to remain politically independent of the executive, especially once they discover fraud involving a presidential contributor.
How realistic would this be? A lawsuit may take years to resolve, and the Obama administration will certainly appeal any judgment against it, either verdicts or injunctions. Walpin is 77 years old now. Realistically speaking, Walpin has almost no chance of effectively winning back his job through the courts. His best hope would be a Republican takeover of Congress in 2010, followed by a real investigation into how Norman Eisen, Obama’s Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform, tried to intimidate Walpin into resigning, and then smeared him as senile when that blew up in Eisen’s face.
John Hinderaker at Power Line opines:
The administration can deal with the suit in some combination of four ways: move for dismissal, move to stay the case, move for a confidentiality order that will prevent facts learned in discovery from becoming public, or buy Walpin off with a settlement. Based on my limited knowledge, it’s hard to see grounds for either a dismissal or a stay, and it will be tough to run out the clock given that the Obama administration has 3 1/2 years left, at least. And Walpin may prove hard to buy off: he got into trouble with the administration (and with the AmeriCorps board) because he wanted to stand on principle rather than sweep a scandal under the rug for the sake of stimulus money, and his suit doesn’t request money damages–only reinstatement. It will be interesting to see whether Obama decides the better part of valor lies in giving Walpin his old job back.
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