You know the old saying that it’s not the crime that really gets you, but the cover-up? I’ve a feeling that someone should have hipped the Obama administration to that a couple of months ago.
Just hours after Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa released a report Friday on their investigation into the abrupt firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin, the Obama White House gave the lawmakers a trove of new, previously-withheld documents on the affair. It was a twist on the now-familiar White House late-Friday release of bad news; this time, the new evidence was put out not only at the start of a weekend but also hours too late for inclusion in the report.
The new documents support the Republican investigators’ conclusion 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
As York explains later, the Board made no such decision. In fact, only one member of the board, Alan Solomont (who raised millions of dollars for the President’s campaign) really wanted Walpin fired. The rest of the board got talking points sent out by the board’s press office and those talking points were the ones the MSM reported so earnestly. The only other board member to be directly contacted said that the administration had already made up its mind to fire Walpin and was just looking for corroboration.
Gosh, that doesn’t sound like what the administration or the MSM was telling us, now does it?
Remember the story about the meeting in which board members and the White House said that Walpin was “confused, disoriented [and] unable to answer questions”? That apparently did not happen at all. The White House appears to have made up the whole “Gerald Walpin’s a senile old crank” smear from nothingness.
There is a lot more to this part of the story and you should hit the link to get all of it. As well, Stacy McCain, who has been the only person besides Byron York on this story from the very beginning, connects the dots very well, from Walpin’s illegal firing through the Kevin Johnson sexual harassment cover-up to the current allegations about the President’s involvement.
If you’re not smelling the distinct whiff of Nixonian trouble on the wind, you should be. This is exactly the same set of circumstances that spiraled out of control back then as well. Watergate began with a small, essentially meaningless act of power-fueled arrogance. Instead of defusing it right away, Nixon kept trying to hide it with increasingly arrogant displays of political might until the whole thing blew up in his face. President Obama is in very real danger here but he doesn’t realize it.
Thanks for the link, Jimmie.