Mrs. O on the hook in IG-Gate?

The Washington Times raises interesting questions:

In the past 10 days, two major developments have occurred. First, Obama administration attorneys continued their efforts to deny Mr. Walpin his day in court. On Dec. 7, they filed reply briefs rearguing their demand that the case be dismissed without even a hearing. Second, Rep. Darrell Issa of California and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, both Republicans, have openly questioned the honesty of CNCS Chairman Alan D. Solomont. Most explosively of all, dirty deeds may have been employed to hide extensive involvement in the affair by the office of first lady Michelle Obama, whom the White House months earlier had announced would play "a central role in the national service agenda." . . .
Mr. Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wrote a scathing letter to Mr. Solomont on Dec. 11. Parts of it are worth quoting at length:
"After Mr. Walpin's removal, there was speculation in the press that former Chief of Staff to the First Lady Jackie Norris may have influenced the President's action because she left the White House to become a senior advisor at CNCS around the time of Mr. Walpin's removal. Accordingly, Committee investigators specifically asked if you discussed any Corporation business, including the issues relating to the Corporation's Office of Inspector General, with Ms. Norris. You indicated that you did not. ... The White House announced on June 4, 2009 that Ms. Norris had been appointed Senior Advisor to the Corporation. ... In light of all this, it seems highly implausible that you would meet with Ms. Norris on June 9, 2009 and not discuss the IG," who was fired the very next day. . . . .
Mr. Issa is right to smell a rat, especially since White House aides reportedly cut short congressional staff questioning of Mr. Solomont when the line of questioning began to lead to Mrs. Obama. . . .

Read the rest. The inference of a cover-up is obvious, the evidence of an actual crime is less so. However, remember that the FBI has also been asking questions in the Walpin case. If anybody questioned in this case lies to the FBI, that's a crime. If anybody destroys evidence relevant to a federal investigation, that's another crime. The question is whether Obama administrations will begin snitching on one another, rather than to risk prison sentences.

I've said all along that this story -- not just Walpin/AmeriCorp but the other inspector general stories, including AmTrak and SIGTARP -- is not going to go away. Whether it results in a takedown of any major administration figure, there's enough here to keep making news for months to come.

IG-Gate: The Sacramento Sex Scandal Obama and MSM Want You to Ignore

Yeah, this kind of stuff could get embarrassing:

About 11:00 p.m., Mr. Johnson arrived at St. Hope and instructed [her] to gather her things and come with him. Mr. Johnson drove to [her] apartment, which is managed by St. Hope Development and houses its AmeriCorps members, purportedly so that they could review the students' grades. While in [her] apartment, in which another AmeriCorps member had a separate bedroom, Mr. Johnson laid down on [her] bed. [The woman] sat on the edge of the bed to show him the grades, at which time Mr. Johnson "layed [sic] down behind me, cupping his body around mine like the letter C. After about 2-3 minutes or so, I felt his hand on my left side where my hip bone is."

That's from WorldNetDaily, digging up more gold from the motherlode Grassley-Issa report (PDF) on the firing of AmeriCorps IG Gerald Walpin. The Democratic mayor of Sacramento seemed to think he could use the federally-funded St. HOPE program the way Eliot Spitzer used the Emperor's Club VIP call-girl agency.

Kevin Johnson's fiancee -- who just happens to be the boss of D.C. public schools -- tried to sweet-talk Walpin out of blowing the whistle on her sweetie and, when Walpin wouldn't play ball for Obama's buddies, the White House fired Walpin and lied about it. And then there are those magic words: "Hush money."

All of which adds up to one heckuva sex scandal, but you're not seeing much about this in the MSM, are you? The New York Times buried the story inside Saturday's paper with the bland headline, "G.O.P. Report Connects Official to Fiancé’s Case."

If Kevin Johnson and Michelle Rhee weren't Democrats, the New York Times would be running 72-point headlines on Page One: REPUBLICANS ROCKED BY TEEN SEX 'HUSH MONEY' CHARGES!

But like Professor Glenn Reynolds says, "When the press can ignore a sex scandal, you know it's covering for politicians, not covering them."

More at Memeorandum and the IG-Gate blog.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! What offends me about this is that the newspaper business is in meltdown mode and, hey, sex sells, right? This story is a headline-writer's dream:

SACRAMENTO SEX SCANDAL!
Hizzoner's Hush-Money Teen Tango
Watchdog Whistle-Blower Claims
White House Arranged Cover-Up

Watever happened to selling newspapers, people? Dibs on the "Michelle Rhee sex video" Google-bomb, BTW. Now, somebody needs to hit my tip jar. My wife wants to go holiday shopping Friday.

That sound you just heard . . .

. . . was my head exploding:

On June 27, 2008, Michelle Rhee, head of the Washington, D.C., school system, paid a visit to Gerald Walpin, who was inspector general of the government volunteer organization AmeriCorps. . . .
Rhee, who later became engaged to marry Johnson, had been on St. Hope’s board of directors before taking over as chief of the District of Columbia system. Her apparent goal, as she visited Walpin, was to vouch for Johnson.
"The basic point of her meeting with me was to tell me what a great guy he was," Walpin recalls, "and what wonderful work he has done, and that maybe he had made mistakes administratively, but that she thought I should give as much consideration as possible to his good work in deciding what to do."

OK, my head exploded not merely because Byron York scooped me again -- he's a good reporter -- but because the sex-scandal angle in the IG-Gate story is being ignored by the MSM.

Here you've got Johnson, accused of sexual misconduct by three different St. HOPE students, and one of the St. HOPE board members -- who also happens to be Johnson's fiancee -- is trying to get the Inspector General to drop his investigation, in the middle of Johnson's 2008 campaign for mayor. The accused sexual predador is a close friend of the president, and Little Miss Predator-Enabler is the head of D.C. public schools?

On what planet is this not front-page news?

IG-Gate: White House Walpin Spin Game BUMPED: Grassley-Issa Report Added UPDATE: Sex Scandal + 'Hush Money' = Not News?

UPDATE 9:20 p.m.: My report at the American Spectator:

Sexual abuse accusations by St. HOPE Academy students against Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson were apparently covered up, possibly with "hush money," according to a 61-page report issued by congressional investigators. . . .
The Grassley-Issa report says that agents of the inspector's general office who investigated the St. HOPE sex-abuse charges "immediately recognized what appeared to be improper handling of this allegation . . . and unethical conduct by Mr. Johnson's attorney," Kevin Hiestand, who was also the mayor's business partner.

And at the Hot Air Green Room:

What makes this so amazing to me is how the MSM’s political bias apparently trumps their basic news judgment.
Teenage girls? Sex abuse? Powerful politicians? "Hush money"? Dude, if that story’s not front-page news, I don’t know is.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin notices that the MSM is missing in action on the IG-Gate story, and Hot Air's Ed Morrissey says:

Will the national media finally take some interest in the story now? The White House not only deliberately misled Congress on Walpin’s firing, they also withheld these new documents until after Grassley and Issa made their initial report on the investigation on Friday. As Byron York notes, that takes the traditional Friday-night document dump to a whole new level. It also completely refutes any claim on transparency and openness from this administration.

The joint report of House and Senate Republican investigative staff is here (PDF).

PREVIOUSLY (11:46 a.m.): Byron York has a report today on the way the Obama White House played "hide the facts" about the firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin. Good work, Byron.

Eric Holder is in deep doo-doo. This is classic "Culture of Corruption" stuff that Michelle Malkin has relentlessly exposed.

Grassley blocks Solomont nomination over firing of Americorps IG Walpin

You get busy, you miss something:

Republican Sen. Charles Grassley has blocked the ambassadorial nomination of Alan Solomont, currently chairman of the board of the government agency that oversees AmeriCorps, in retaliation for what Grassley says is the administration’s stonewalling of Congress over documents relating to the firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin. Specifically, Grassley has sought, and been denied, information relating to the White House’s role in the decision to fire Walpin.

Thanks to Moe Lane at Red State. Also reported by David Weigel at The Washington Independent.

For background, please see my article "The War On Watchdogs" in the American Spectator.

IG-Gate EXCLUSIVE in September 2009 print edition of The American Spectator

"The War On Watchdogs" is the most in-depth, comprehensive print article on the inspectors general scandal published to date, including this excerpt from near the end:

IN JUNE, THE HOUSE PASSED the Improved Financial and Commodity Markets Oversight and Accountability Act, which would give the president authority to dismiss and replace inspectors general at five financial regulatory agencies. . . . The bill was sponsored by Rep. John Larson (D-CT), who argued that making these IGs presidential appointees would make them more "independent" and "ensure better performance from government agencies." The IGs themselves strongly disagreed, testifying in opposition to the bill. . . . The Larson bill was also criticized by Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, which tracks government watchdogs. "I think you can be more independent reporting to a bipartisan board than being at the mercy of the president's good graces," Brian told the Washington Post.
If the Larson bill was opposed by the IGs themselves, and if presidential appointment might actually undermine, rather than enhance, the watchdogs' independence, what was the legislation intended to accomplish? That question was posed to me by a Republican congressional investigator who pointed out that Larson is a prominent "Friend of Chris"-- that is, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) who has come under intense criticism for his close, and perhaps corrupt, ties to the financial industry. Being a "Friend of Chris" may be entirely coincidental to Larson's IG bill, but it is certainly a curious coincidence at a time when the scandal-plagued Dodd is preparing for a tough 2010 reelection bid and will need more help than ever from the banking, investment, and insurance firms that have so generously contributed to his campaigns in the past. This is just one of several coincidences -- like the First Lady's relationship to AmeriCorps and the vice president's relationship to Amtrak -- that seemed to cluster around the IG story as it developed in the weeks following the White House ultimatum to Walpin. . . .

The entire article is nearly 3,000 words, so read the whole thing. The complete September issue is also now online, but you can get The American Spectator's exclusive coverage three weeks earlier by subscribing to the print edition now.

PREVIOUSLY at American Spectator Online:

• Sept. 11: What Has Amtrak's Interim IG Been Up To?
• Aug. 7: Senators Seek Answer From ITC About IG
• July 28: IG-Gate Update: 'No Doubt' Political Pressure Led to His Firing,Walpin Says
• July 26: SIGTARP Neil Barofsky vs. Geithner's 'Black Hole' Bailout
• July 24: IG-Gate: Why the Matsui Question Matters
• July 23: IG-Gate Update: Did Dem Congresswoman Intervene With Obama in Walpin Case?
• July 22: SIGTARP Barofsky Shows Why Watchdogs Are Important
• July 21: IG-Gate: Democratic Staffers 'Useless' in Investigations, SayRepublicans
• July 20: IG-Gate: Connecting the SIGTARP Dots
• July 20: Behind Closed Doors
• July 17: Amtrak IG: Important Background
• July 14: IG-Gate: Sincere Doubts
• July 14: The Little Scandal That Could
• July 9: Democrats Question AmeriCorps Official's Stonewall on IG Case
• July 1: Malkin on IG-Gate: Does the Endangered Species Act Include Watchdogs?
• June 26: Grassley: Amtrak 'Systematically Violated' IG Law
• June 25: Eleanor Acheson: Lobbyist
• June 25: Obama Plays Hardball With Watchdogs
• June 23: Amtrak IG Probe: Who Is Eleanor Acheson?
• June 19: IG-Gate: Domino Theory
• June 18: AmeriCorps Scandal Won't Go Away Soon

Dodd-Gate and IG-Gate: The Connection

OK, Byron York ate my lunch on IG-Gate Friday, so I was calling Hill sources trying to scare up a break. Called one source to ask him about the Justice Department angle York was looking at.

"Have you seen York's column?"
"Sorry, but it's been all Countrywide all day up here."
"Ah, our old friend Senator Dodd!"
"Yeah, it's been crazy."

Michelle Malkin devotes her latest column to Chris Dodd and the Countrywide VIP scandal, and she joins Instapundit in linking to an AP story about House Democrats refusing to investigate:

Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he has other work to do on the causes of and fixes for the financial crisis and will not interfere with other investigations of the VIP loans.

And here we see how the Dodd-bone is connected to the IG-bone, as it were. For weeks, Republican sources on the IG-Gate story have been suggesting that Democrats on the Hill are less interested in finding the truth than in playing P.R. games. The American Spectator July 14:

Investigations of the inspector general firings are "moving forward in a bipartisan fashion," I was told . . . in separate face-to-face meetings with both Democrat and Republican staffers on Capitol Hill. The Democrat said it with apparent sincerity, while the Republican's repeated the same words with transparent irony.
Exactly how "bipartisan" are these investigations? Republicans remain skeptical of Democratic sincerity. Some telephone interviews with key witnesses have been scheduled as bipartisan conference calls. Sometimes Democratic investigators are on the call; other times, they're no-shows.

The same theme was repeated in my July 21 report at the Hot Air Green Room:

Behind closed doors on Capitol Hill last week, I asked a Republican source about the investigative efforts of Democratic staffers for the House Oversight Committee.
"Honestly?" the source said. "They’re useless."
More than three weeks have passed since Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) joined the committee's ranking Republican, California Rep. Darrell Issa, to launch an investigation into the case of former Amtrak inspector general Fred Wiederhold Jr. . . .
Despite the "grave concerns" expressed by Towns and Issa three weeks ago, however, Republican sources on Capitol Hill have complained that Democratic staffers on the Oversight Committee have not shown much zeal for the investigation.

This is all very delicate business. Democratic chairmen control every committee in Congress now, and nothing is going to happen in terms of hearings and subpoenas until the Democrats say so. Therefore, the Republican minority, both staffers and members, don't want to alienate the majority by making direct, public accusations of mala fides.

A couple of weeks ago one GOP staffer breached that protocol in an interview with The Hill about the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch merger investigation:

"You would think that the majority would be just as vested as we are at exposing who knew what and when," said Kurt Bardella, spokesman for committee Republicans. "What exactly is the majority afraid we'll find?"

Obviously, the spokesman wouldn't have fired that kind of hard shot without authorization from Issa, which gives you an idea of how intensely frustrated Republicans on the Hill are about this clear pattern of non-cooperation. So now let's go back to Larry Margasak's AP story about Dodd and Countrywide:

The senior Republican on Towns' committee, California Rep. Darrell Issa, has been trying for months to get Towns to subpoena Bank of America for Countrywide's records. He said in an interview with The Associated Press that he asked Towns again this week to issue the subpoena. . . .
Daniel Frahm, a Bank of America spokesman, said the bank is ready to turn over the Countrywide VIP documents if it receives a subpoena. The bank's lawyer sent Issa the same message in a June letter.
"They have it packed and ready to go," Issa said in the interview.

Early into my reporting on IG-Gate, a source told me that it's important to ask the right questions. OK, so back to the Walpin investigation. As I reported last week, Republican investigators on the AmeriCorps firing are curious about what role pressure from Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) played in the events that led to the firing of IG Gerald Walpin.

California blogger Eric Hogue brought attention to a March interview in which Matsui vowed that the St. HOPE Academy scandal involving Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson wouldn't prevent Sacramento from getting its share of "stimulus" money. Gerald Walpin told me Tuesday that he's curious about the Matsui connection, too. (So far, I've been unable to get a response from Matsui's people.)

The questions now being asked on Capitol Hill have taken an interesting turn, as Byron York's column in the Examiner makes clear:

Within days of Matsui's [March] statement, a settlement was reached. Johnson was unsuspended, and in a particularly unusual move, acting U.S. Attorney [Lawrence] Brown issued a press release hailing the arrival of stimulus funds. “The lifting of the suspension against all parties, including Mayor Johnson, removes any cloud whether the City of Sacramento will be prevented form receiving much-needed federal stimulus funds,” Brown wrote.
Republicans on the Judiciary Committee want to know why a U.S. attorney was touting his own actions in bringing stimulus money to the city. That's not the normal role of prosecutors. "We need to hear whether the settlement in this case was tainted in any way by political influence or political factors," says the senior Republican aide.
So far, Brown has refused to answer any questions. In June, Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a list of 20 questions to Brown and received no response. A follow-up in July was similarly ignored. "Your unwillingness to be cooperative with our investigation raises further questions about your role in this matter," Issa wrote Brown.

Ah, so here we are back to Issa again, you see? Issa says Brown is not cooperating on the AmeriCorps probe. Issa also says that the committee chairman, Towns, is not cooperating on the Countrywide probe.

So there's a whole lot of non-cooperation going on -- not all of it involving Issa or these two particular investigations -- and the question that intrigues me is whether all this non-cooperation is merely a coincidence. We must resist the urge to slide into connect-the-dots DKos "question-the-timing" mode. But if there's no evidence that there is a cover-up or a conspiracy at work here, it's sure as heck starting to look like a pattern.

Lots of questions, as York says, and you should definitely read his entire column. As Dan Riehl said today, York is "is doing some terrific work for The Examiner. Best hire they've made since I've been looking in." And I agree completely. The healthy competition on this story -- Jake Tapper of ABC and Ed O'Keefe of The Washington Post have also done excellent reporting on IG-Gate -- is something that folks on the Hill very much want to encourage. The more media, the merrier, as far as they're concerned.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't give full credit to Michelle Malkin, whose June 17 column on the Walpin case got me paying attention to the IG-Gate "dominoes." And she is, after all, the author of the Best. Book. Evah!

When you're working a competitive story like this and another guy eats your lunch, you can't pretend you just accidentally misplaced your brown bag. So I hope you enjoyed that sandwich, Byron.

However, I don't aim to be missing too many meals in the future. I've recently finished a 3,000-word article about IG-Gate for the September print edition of The American Spectator (subscribe now), and I just outlined to Mrs. Other McCain my plan for The Mother Of All Shoe-Leather Trips to D.C., so I can work the Hill for several days in a row.

Readers, please hit the tip jar, and be sure to see all the updated links at Bob Belvedere's IG-GATE BLOG.

IG-Gate: York Scores a Scoop

Following up on my scoop about Matsui, the Examiner's man pushes the story forward:

Now, investigators are trying a new route, examining the role of the Justice Department. Sen. Jeff Sessions, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked the committee chairman, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, for a hearing on the AmeriCorps/Walpin affair, focusing specifically on the role of Brown and his bosses at Justice.
According to a senior Republican aide, Sessions’ interest was piqued by a statement made in a late March television interview by Rep. Doris Matsui, the Democratic congresswoman who represents Sacramento. Asked whether Johnson’s problems could prevent the city from receiving stimulus funds, Matsui said that, at Johnson’s request, she had “been in conversation with officials at the White House and OMB [Office of Management and Budget] and others to ensure that we don’t lose any money at all." . . .

Read the whole thing. "According to a senior Republican aide," eh? Got to make a call to D.C.

IG-Gate Update:Walpin wonders about Matsui's role

Guess who reads The American Spectator?

In a telephone interview today, Walpin said he noticed last week's report that Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) had contacted White House officials in March, publicly vowing that sanctions against Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson didn't prevent the city from getting its share of bailout cash.
Questions about what role Matsui may have played in Walpin's dismissal are being asked on Capitol Hill, and the ex-IG himself is curious about the Sacramento congresswoman's intervention, which drew attention after it was highlighted by California blogger Eric Hogue.
On the larger question -- whether political pressure over his investigation of Mayor Johnson's St. HOPE Academy was a factor in the June 10 quit-or-be-fired ultimatum from the White House -- Walpin is certain.
"I have no doubt about that," Walpin said. . . .

Read the whole thing, and expect updates.

UPDATE 5 p.m.: Eric Hogue's all over the involvement of Matsui in IG Gate, with audio and lots, lots more.

IG-Gate: All Your Indexing Are Appreciated By Us

by Smitty

Stacy is driven by a desire to earn a living as an old-school journalist, back when they were more into investigating the laundry than dirtying it:

Bob Belvedere's personal motives are unknown to me. Yet his personal fascination and indexing of all things pertaining to IG-Gate is appreciated.

He has now unveiled a separate blog just to handle the load:
IG-GATE: The Inspector General Scandals - Linkage Site

And just because I'm feeling SOCAL at the mo' here's sometime fellow-Eagle Felder with a parting jam set on a haunted B-17:

Could the evil green ball from Heavy Metal have something to do with IG-Gate?
In either case, I pick Felder over Henly as the theme song for the effort to protect Inspectors General from creeping Chicago-ism.

Wurzelbacher, Crowley, and an ENT surgeon walk into a bar

by Smitty

Joe Wurzelbacher, James Crowley, and an Ear, Nose, Throat surgeon walked into a bar.
"He thinks he knows more than me about tonsils," lamented the ENT surgeon.
"Even though I've taught on the subject of racial profiling, he criticizes the way I do my job and calls it stupid", said Crowley.
"Yeah, I really took it in the plumbing, too," began Joe, looking at the bartender, "Three brew-hahas, please. Hey, aren't you Gerald Walpin?"
"Not so loud!" replied Gerald "You wanna get me fired from this job, too?"

---

For a useful roundup on Crowley-quiddick, see Pat in Shreveport.
Also, the Blogprof has a thorough survey.

MATSUI-GATE? California Democrat'sIntervention in AmeriCorps CaseRaises Questions on Capitol Hill

HUGE hat-tip to California blogger Eric Hogue for spotting a March interview with a Sacramento radio station in which Rep. Doris Matsui -- the Democrat who represents California's capitol city in Congress -- vowed to get stimulus cash By Any Means Necessary:

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson has asked U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui to help keep the flow of federal funds coming into the city.Johnson is not allowed to receive federal funds because of allegations his St. Hope-Hood Corps Foundation misused federal money.
Matsui, D-District 5, who appeared on the KCRA 3 Morning News on Saturday morning, said she believes Sacramento will get money, but she can't guarantee it."
Under any scenario, we are going to get the money. We are going to get the money," she said. "I understand that process has to unfold. The mayor is dealing with that. We are dealing with the situation at the federal level. The city is taking the right steps. They have to disclose this, and we are moving forward."
Matsui added that she has been in contact with White House officials and other members of the federal government.

More IG-Gate news where that came from. Trust me when I say that Hogue's blog post made a big difference. Important people are paying attention and, to borrow the words of Ricky Ricardo -- that hero of investigative journalists everywhere -- I expect that Ms. Matsui has got some 'splainin' to do.

UPDATE 1:35 p.m.: Sigh. If a blogger breaks news and nobody links it, is it really news?

Tuesday night at Townhall.com, Eric Hogue asked, "Where is the media?" I've got a better question than that: "Where are Republicans?"

For months, I've complained about the cluelessness of Republican media operatives, and this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. For some reason (and I say it's because almost nobody in the GOP has ever worked in an actual newsroom) these people seem incapable of judging "news value."

There is an observable tendency among GOP media operatives toward a talking-points approach to news: "I'll push the stories that the RNC, etc., want me to push." And then there is the star-system approach to news: "If it's on Drudge or Limbaugh or Fox News, then it must be important -- and to hell with everything else." But why bother repeating what I've already said so often before? Nobody's paying attention.

So here is Eric Hogue, pointing to definite indications of political influence in the firing of Gerald Walpin, and . . . nothing. That IG-Gate Update has been online at the American Spectator since 10:34 a.m., and except for Bob Belvedere, nobody is in the conservative blogosphere has even noticed.

Next time I run into some overpaid "Web 2.0" guru who tries to lecture me about why the GOP sucks at New Media, I'll turn around and walk away. This is the only alternative to punching his fucking lights out.

Rule 3 on IG-Gate (Plus, Notes forNewbies on Aggregation Method)

There's a Memeorandum thread this morning linking the Hot Air IG-Gate Update, which got Instalanched. and is also linked by Frugal Cafe. Note that the Memeorandum thread also includes Joe Weber's Washington Times interview with fired AmeriCorps IG Gerald Walpin:

"For a second I was thinking, 'Why do I need all of this?' I'll just resign and go back to my good legal practice in New York," Gerald Walpin told The Washington Times' "America's Morning News" radio show Tuesday.
"But I would then be part of the apparatus that is totally torpedoing the inspectors general," Mr. Walpin said. "The watchdog would not really be a watchdog. He'd just be afraid of his shadow." . . .

That's new stuff, see? It was linked together with the IG-Gate Update in a post at Right Wing News. If several different blogs aggregate that stuff together, it creates sort of a center of gravity in the 'sphere that is picked up by the Memeorandum algorithm.

And the Right Wing News post also includes today's Washington Post story about Neil Barofsky -- SIGTARP, special inspector general for the TARP bailout -- who raised hell on Capitol Hill yesterday. As of 7 a.m., that story was not included in the Memeorandum thread, but given that Sen. Chuck Grassley has been defending Barofsky's office against Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, (see Grassley's June 17 letter to Geithner in PDF) it's very much part of the same story.

Building up a Memeorandum thread, with everybody commenting on the same news stories and cross-linking, is what Rule 3 is about. Newbies should always hat-tip Memeorandum when they do this. Even if the increase in your traffic is not immediately significant, every time somebody links your blog, it boosts your Technorati ranking -- you did remember to install Technorati, right? -- and, eventually, you'll be showing up on Memeorandum's radar.

Think of it this way: When one dog in the neighborhood starts barking, they all start barking. That's why Jimmie Bise dubbed us The Million Hit Squad.

If you need more background on the IG-Gate story, try the Mother of All Updates.

UPDATE: Yet more juicy SIGTARP goodness:

Barofsky testified that taxpayers aren't being told what most TARP recipients are doing with their money or what their investments are worth and may never be told exactly how their taxpayer dollars are being used.
At a Government Oversight and Reform Committee hearing, one lawmaker compared Treasury to convicted Ponzi scheme artist Bernie Madoff, accused Treasury of trying to undermine Barofsky's independence and threatened to haul Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner before the panel if he didn’t adopt the IG's recommendations.
“For us to get past this economic situation that we find ourselves in, the public has to believe that we’re doing the right thing,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). “If we can’t show them that we are doing the right thing with their money, we’re going to have problems." (Emphasis added.)

When Democrats start talking like that, you know it spells trouble for Geithner.

UPDATE II: Text of closing statement by Chairman Towns:

Earnings at the largest banks and the bank holding companies such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are up, yet lending remains down. It is unacceptable that profits go up, while lending goes down. The taxpayers have invested very large amounts of money in these banks, but what have we gotten in return? It remains unclear.
The taxpayers deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent.
The Treasury Department needs to publish full and detailed information on the use of TARP funds and publish the value of the TARP portfolio on a monthly basis. They have that information and they should make it public.
Moreover, Treasury also requires the largest banks to file monthly reports showing the dollar value of their new lending. That should be made public also.
If Treasury doesn’t put this information up on its website, this Committee will. And if Treasury doesn’t turn over this information voluntarily, Secretary Geithner will be brought before the Committee to explain.
What we have heard today convinces me that one of the best things Congress did when it created the TARP was to also create the Special Inspector General to oversee TARP spending. I can now understand why the Treasury Department would like to rein in the SIGTARP. But we are not going to let that happen.

Heh.

UPDATE III: Just got off the phone with a source on Capitol Hill who tells me yesterday's Hot Air IG-Gate Update is a big hit with Republicans. Speaking of Republicans, here's Rep. Darrell Issa:

The Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) Neil Barofsky testified today at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the Treasury Department has "repeatedly failed" to implement SIGTARP recommendations that would reveal how Treasury is using taxpayer dollars. At the conclusion of the hearing, Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) asked Chairman Towns to bring Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner before the Committee to address the questions raised by SIGTARP’s report. . . .
"We heard today that full transparency, which we called for, the President asked for and this Administration promised, is being blocked by the bureaucracy which often says ‘just trust and we will deliver,’” Issa said. "Until we have full transparency, we will never be able to know how much risk Treasury is assuming on behalf of the taxpayers. This Administration promised an 'unprecedented' level of accountability and transparency. They set their own standard. Now we're going to hold them to it."

Click here for Issa's statement.
Click here for Neil Barofsky's testimony.
Click here for a copy of the SIGTARP Report.

The Mother of All IG-Gate Updates

On the Internet, stuff gets scattered around so that you never see it all in one place. Today's IG-Gate Update at the Hot Air Green Room pushes the story forward:

Behind closed doors on Capitol Hill last week, I asked a Republican source about the investigative efforts of Democratic staffers for the House Oversight Committee.
"Honestly?" the source said. "They're useless."
More than three weeks have passed since Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) joined the committee's ranking Republican, California Rep. Darrell Issa, to launch an investigation into the case of former Amtrak inspector general Fred Wiederhold Jr. . . .
Despite the "grave concerns" expressed by Towns and Issa three weeks ago, however, Republican sources on Capitol Hill have complained that Democratic staffers on the Oversight Committee have not shown much zeal for the investigation. Sources say Democratic staffers have skipped meetings and conference calls to which they were invited by GOP investigators, who are attempting to work with Grassley's staff in order to prevent unnecessary duplication of efforts. Sharing documents and scheduling interviews with witnesses, allowing Republican and Democratic investigators from both chambers an opportunity to question these witnesses, is a demanding logistical task. And GOP staffers complain that this task seems to be lacking in terms of bipartisanship. . . .

Read the whole thing, because toward the end, I make this point:

This is a huge story, involving multiple investigations, and 1,200 words here don’t even begin to summarize the 1,400 words there [at The American Spectator on Monday], to say nothing of the 400 words I did last night about the SIGTARP report.

Like I said, read the whole thing, and follow the links, because this is one big sprawling mother of a story. The best I can do in any single chunk is to bring in new facts, new quotes, new angles, and link to as much other the other stuff as possible. (That Green Room article includes more than 25 links, including the link to the Spectator article, which has more than a dozen links.)

If you'll go to Bob Belvedere's WWU-AM and scroll down, he's got a huge IG-Gate link dump with my reporting, Byron York's reporting, columns by Michelle Malkin, reports from ABC News, the Washington Post, etc. There's a lot of stuff out there, in other words, and you need to see it all if you want to try to understand this thing.

"Try," I say, because I don't even claim to understand it all yet. My sources talk about things and sometimes I can tell they're trying to drop me a hint of something they want me to write about, e.g., "Who Is Eleanor Acheson?" It's important to ask the right questions, as one of my sources said.

On the one hand, there is the temptation to focus on one aspect of the story -- the Washington Times keeps calling this "WalpinGate," which is too narrow -- but on the other hand, you've got to be careful not to waste time playing "connect-the-dots" with things that might not really be connected. Yes, there's a pattern, but that doesn't mean there's a conspiracy.

Still, as I predicted on June 18 -- right after Michelle Malkin's first column on the Walpin case slapped me upside the head -- this story isn't going away anytime soon. June 18 was the same day IG Fred Wiederhold delivered his report to the Amtrak board and suddenly retired, and also the same day Chuck Grassley made public his letter about the International Trade Commission IG, Judith Gwynne.

So barely a week after Walpin got his June 10 quit-or-be-fired ultimatum from White House lawyer Norm Eisen, there were two other IG cases. Then we have the case of the watchdog who's still hanging tough, SIGTARP, Neil Barofsky. The bailout watchdog showed yesterday how much trouble he can cause, and it's therefore no mystery why Treasury's giving Barofsky a hard time. (My money's still on Barofsky as the IG most likely to get a Cabinet secretary sent to federal prison.)

IG-Gate is a big mother, you see. Because I'm on deadline for a print magazine article, there's no time for me to do a complete aggregation now, but here are the major IG-Gate articles I've done so far:

• July 21: IG-Gate UPDATE: Behind the Scenes of the Investigations
• July 20: Behind Closed Doors
• July 14: The Little Scandal That Could
• July 9: Democrats Question AmeriCorps Officials Stonewall on IG Case
• June 28: Media & IG-Gate: Question the Timing?
• June 28: NTC Special Report: Obama vs. the Watchdogs
• June 25: Grassley: Amtrak 'Systematically Violated' IG Law
• June 25: Obama Plays Hardball With Watchdogs
• July 19: The 'Domino Theory' in the IG Scandal

Each of those items is chock-full of links to other items. As you can see, just six weeks into this story, there's a lot of stuff out there -- and, no doubt, a lot more to come. Just keep hitting the tip jar.

One of these days, I plan to hit the American Spectator with the mother of all expense reimbursement requests -- "$800 for fireworks?" "Promotional activity. Perfectly legitimate, Al." -- but in the meantime, Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Just in case you're wondering why Professor Reynolds loves this story so much, I once again remind you to read the whole thing. The professor's drooling at the prospect of The Mother of All Chris Dodd Updates.

Meanwhile, be sure to check out the IG-Gate Rule 3 memo, which offers more tasty watchdog morsels.

IG-Gate: Chugging Along

My last full-blown article about IG-Gate for The American Spectator was published June 25. Since then, I've updated the story several times at AmSpecBlog, NTCNews, and the Hot Air Green Room. So last week, when I suggested another article -- "The Little Scandal That Could," published today -- I didn't really think about how much news had occurred in the past three weeks, as for instance in the case of Amtrak IG Fred Wiederhold:

On June 18, Amtrak IG Fred Wiederhold submitted a 94-page report, prepared at his request by an outside law firm, showing that the federally subsidized passenger rail service had, as Grassley said, "systematically violated the letter and spirit of the Inspector General Act." Immediately after the Amtrak board meeting where he presented that report, Wiederhold submitted notice that he would retire.
Those familiar with the congressional investigation say Wiederhold has denied being forced out at Amtrak -- personal considerations were also involved in his decision -- but the report he submitted June 18 details a pattern of obstruction by Amtrak's law department.
This department is the bailiwick of Amtrak vice president and general counsel Eleanor "Eldie" Acheson, who just happens to be a longtime friend (and Wellesley College roommate) of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Acheson's deputy general counsel, Jonathan Meyer, joined Amtrak after spending six years as a top Senate aide to Joe Biden, who has long proclaimed himself as Amtrak's No. 1 advocate in Washington and who personally announced the $1.3 billion in "stimulus" funds for Amtrak.
Led by the well-connected Acheson and Meyer, Amtrak's law department tried to require the IG's office to get prior approval before communicating with Congress and instituted a policy where documents subpoenaed by the IG's office were first reviewed and occasionally redacted by Amtrak management.
None of this squares with the law and Grassley, the congressional patron saint of inspectors general, wrote in a letter to Amtrak chairman Thomas Carper that, in the wake of Wiederhold's retirement, IG staffers were "fearful of retaliation" if they spoke to congressional investigators. The seriousness of these charges prompted Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, to join with the committee's ranking Republican, California Rep. Darrell Issa, in announcing an official investigation, parallel to the probe led by Grassley's team in the Senate. . . .

You can (and certainly should) read the whole thing, but just consider all that has been reported about the Amtrak case in the past three weeks. (USA Today is just now catching up to this scandal train.) Grassley's office published the 94-page report, detailing the pattern of obstruction by Acheson's department, disclosed the "retaliation" fears of IG staffers, the Towns-Issa inquiry was announced -- and that's just the stuff I can actually report about one of the IG cases.

There are various interesting off-the-record tips that I'm still trying to confirm, and there are more developments expected in coming days that I can't report yet. (Rule One: Never burn your sources.) Meanwhile, the Walpin case keeps simmering, with the stonewalling by AmeriCorps officials and other interesting developments.

There is lots of news here. If it weren't for Michelle Malkin, The Washington Examiner's Byron York, The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe -- dig this document dump! -- Youth Today's Nancy Lewis and the Sacramento Bee, I couldn't keep up myself.

The source I call "Deep Cleavage"* didn't return phone calls yesterday. and there are a couple of big tips I need to follow up on, so I'm headed to Capitol Hill again today. Since I'm not one of those $100K-a-year bloggers (I'm starting to think they're a myth, like unicorns and sober Kennedys) please hit the tip jar to help fund this latest shoe-leather trip.

*NOTE: "Deep Cleavage" is a mnemonic device, not a description. It's also the kind of lame pun ("Big tips" = "Deep Cleavage") that appeals to my inner eight-grader. Whether or not this involves a "D" . . . hey, never burn your sources. But these tips are real and they're spectacular.

UPDATE: OK, I'm running behind schedule this morning, but the Spectator story is already linked at Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, Red State, Sister Toldjah, Around the Sphere, Urbin Report, And So It Goes In Shreveport, and Memeorandum. Please pay attention to this very intelligent comment from Moe Lane:

So, we’ll see.

For less intelligent people, I recommend a certain tasty beverage known as STFU.

UPDATE 11:20 p.m.: Oh, boy. Chris Dodd? Just a hint from the Hill, but . . . oh, boy.

AmeriCorps stonewalls IG-Gate congressional investigation

Byron York:

A top official of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the government agency that oversees AmeriCorps, has refused to answer questions from congressional investigators about the White House's role in events surrounding the abrupt firing of inspector general Gerald Walpin.
Frank Trinity, general counsel for the Corporation, met with a bipartisan group of congressional investigators on Monday. When the investigators asked Trinity for details of the role the White House played in the firing, Trinity refused to answer, according to two aides with knowledge of the situation. "He said that's a prerogative of the White House, so he didn't feel at liberty to disclose anything regarding White House communications," says one aide.

Read the rest. There will be more news on this.

UPDATE: Kelley Beaucar Vlahos of Fox News:

"The mounting evidence that there might be political interference with the IGs is disturbing," said Pete Sepp, vice president for policy and communications at the National Taxpayers Union. "The IGs are being emasculated."
"When inspectors general across the administration have roadblocks placed in their way, American taxpayers should worry. A threat to one's independence is a threat to them all," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas. . . .
Jake Wiens, an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, a non-profit watchdog group in Washington, D.C., warned against seeing "patterns" in the dismissals. Taken individually, each IG's firing is a distinct case that could be "extremely problematic."
For example, Weins said, the Walpin case is mired in a number of "complicating issues," like documented complaints against Walpin from within the agency and a pending ethics complaint against him by the U.S. Attorney's Office in California.
Walpin is also the only IG in question to be fired by the White House. In the case of Weiderhold, the Amtrak IG answers to the Amtrak board of directors, currently chaired by Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del. . . .

Wiens makes a good point that IG-Gate involves three distinct cases of IG's who have quit or been terminated -- AmeriCorps, Amtrak and the International Trade Commission -- and also the case of "SIGTARP," Neil Barofsky, inspector general for the TARP bailout, who has complained that the Treasury Department has not been fully cooperative. Each of these cases involves different facts.

UPDATE 12:05 p.m.: Did some reporting of my own for the American Spectator:

Democratic congressional staffers investigating the firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin asked tough questions of an agency lawyer who refused to discuss White House involvement in the case, a source familiar with the investigation tells the Spectator. . . .
So far, the source said, interviews with "key board members" at CNCS contradict White House special counsel Norman Eisen's assertion that the June 10 firing followed an "extensive review" at the request of the CNCS board. Board members have told congressional investigators that "they weren't contacted [by the White House] until after the decision was made," the source said. . . .

Read the whole thing. Last week, Michelle Malkin called me an "investigative journalist," which is a term that I've always found troublesome. It's not really anything special. An investigative journalist is just a reporter with sources. And developing sources, like everything else in journalism, is a skill (something you learn) rather than a talent (something you're born with).

At last night's book-signing party, I was discussing this with someone and said that the difference between a pundit and a reporter can be summarized in four words: "Pick up the phone!"

Anyone can Google up the phone numbers of a congressman, make a call and ask to speak to his press secretary, and try to get a statement. What kills me is when I see someone like Ross Douthat -- with the resources and prestige of the New York Times at his disposal -- who refuses to use that awesome power to its full extent. "Pick up the phone!"

It's just inertia, really. Sitting in front of your computer and pontificating about the passing scene can too easily become a habit. If you never get up off your butt, make some phone calls and do some reporting, you stop thinking like a journalist. Before you know it, you're just another damned useless intellectual.

News cycle and IG-Gate

Trying to keep up with a multi-front investigation is difficult and, while chasing yesterday's IG story and then following up with Grassley's document release, I overlooked a few relevant items:

• Byron York had an important column about the AmeriCorps situation that explained a lot of the "why" behind the firing of Walpin. Basically, AmeriCorps wanted to make sure Sacramento got its share of "stimulus" money. Walpin was angry that the board went behind his back to reach a settlement with Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. When Walpin threatened to blow the whistle, they got the White House to ax him;
• Nancy Lewis of Youth Today had some important background on the Walpin firing;
• Hans Bader had a column connecting the Walpin firing to the "political correctness" factor in the stimulus plan;
• The Wall Street Journal had an editorial saying IGs "do nothing to curb federal spending" and mostly create "pseudo-scandals." This drew a response from Michael Smallberg of the Project On Government Oversight; and
• Alan Gray of Newsblaze had a column, "Will Joe Lieberman Wilt?" In other words, will Lieberman earn his "independent" stripes by holding hearings on IG-Gate, despite heavy pressure from Democrats to lay off.

I'm sure I've missed some important items, but this is a big story that's growing bigger, and it's getting very hard to compile a comprehensive daily round-up. Bob Belvedere may have the best compilation of IG-Gate information.

One of the breaks I've caught in the past week is that many top D.C. journalists are already on vacation and won't return until after July 4. Also, the Iran controversy, the White House press conference Tuesday, the cap-and-trade push, and the Mark Sanford confession Wednesday seem to have distracted lots of the Washington press corps. So I scored an exclusive Thursday night while everybody else missed it. Heh.

Hit the tip jar, please.

IG-Gate: Asking the right questions

The unexplained resignation of AmTrak inspector general Fred Wiederhold raises an important question:

WHO IS ELEANOR ACHESON?

Exactly why that's an important question . . . well, maybe Fred Wiederhold could explain that, but nobody's heard a word from Fred since he resigned Thursday.

What we do know is that Wiederhold was asked to provide "specific examples of agency interference with OIG audits and/or investigations." Maybe if somebody looked closely at those specific examples, they'd find Ms. Acheson's fingerprints, but that's strictly a hypothetical, because Wiederhold resigned before he could produce those specific examples.

What we do know is that Amtrak is Joe Biden's favorite government boondoggle, that Ms. Acheson donated to Biden's presidential campaign, and that Amtrak is budgeted for $1.3 billion in stimulus money -- money that Wiederhold would have been watchdogging for "waste, fraud and abuse," if he hadn't resigned last week.

Another question that needs to be asked: When are Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. Susan Collins going to convene a hearing on the firing of AmeriCorps IG Gerald Walpin?

As Rick Moran notes at American Thinker, we're now up to three ex-IGs in less than two weeks and there seems to be a pattern developing. This is to say nothing of the situation with Neil Barofsky, special IG for the TARP bailout money, who is at odds with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

You spend a little shoe-leather on Capitol Hill, and next thing you know, somebody's explaining that the two questions for Timothy Geithner are "what did he know and when did he know it?"

Watch out for that bus, Mr. Geithner.

Thanks to Carol at No Sheeples Here for the artwork, which is merely hypothetical. Thanks to Jimmie Bise for paying close attention, and to Pundette for her praise of the old-fashioned shoe-leather method.

UPDATE: Jehuda the Rhetorican sees the plot thickening and, as predicted, Michelle Malkin likes the Ellie Acheson question.

The point is, it's the right question. After I posted about Acheson, I made a phone call: "Am I right?"

"Even more right than you were a couple of hours ago."

We'll call that source Deep Cleavage. Throw 'em so far off the scent, they'll need a map . . .

UPDATE II: More linky-love for the Amtrak IG story from Frugal Cafe and Fire Andrea Mitchell.

UPDATE III: Acheson was brought in as general counsel after Amtrak fired five top officials in December 2006. Thanks to Moe Lane for the tip.

Obama's no Daley, but . . .

Michael Barone in the Examiner:

His first political ambition was to be mayor of Chicago, the boss of all he surveyed; he has had to settle for the broader but less complete hegemony of the presidency. . . .
Chicago-style, he has kept the Republicans out of serious policy negotiations . . . Basking in the adulation of nearly the entire press corps, he whines about his coverage on Fox News. Those who stand in the way, like the Chrysler secured creditors, are told that their reputations will be destroyed; those who expose wrongdoing by political allies, like the AmeriCorps inspector general, are fired.

Speaking of Chicago, John Kass of the Chicago Tribune laughs to scorn the shocked! shocked! reaction over Obama's move against inspectors general:

The use of political muscle may be prohibited in the mythic transcendental fairyland where much of the Obama spin originates . . . But our president is from Chicago. . . . David Axelrod and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel come right from Chicago Democratic machine boss Mayor Richard Daley. They don't believe in fairies . . .
It's the Chicago Way. Now, formally, it's also the Chicago on the Potomac Way. . . .

You can read the rest, which is also discussed in today's "300 Words Or Less" editorial at NTCNews.com, and linked at Memeorandum. At this point, IG-Gate raises two basic questions:

1. Does all this suspicious smoke indicate a genuinely scandalous fire? That is to say, is there genuine crime or ethical misconduct involved, or are the inspectors generals just victims of political hardball which, while rudely thuggish in typical Chicago fashion, is not actually criminal?
2. If there is a real scandal, will the Obama-worshipping press ignore it?

After I filed my Friday report at Pajamas Media, I noticed a lot of comments along the lines of, "Oh, Obama will get away with this because the MSM is in the tank." This is a presumption -- indeed, perhaps, two or three presumptions -- too far.

Conservatives can be excused for thinking that rampant Obamaphilia in the press corps will protect The One from any possible consequences for malfeasance or error, if only because this has hitherto been the case. But . . .

Honeymoon kisses ain't news. An FBI investigation of an alleged cover-up is news. The snobs and sycophants in the White House press corps might be predisposed to ignore or dismiss this story but -- believe it or not -- there are still a handful of real old-fashioned reporters in America who get excited at the prospect of scoring an exclusive, and who don't give a damn what the political consequences are.

Not every reporter in America is part of the Washington press elite. But if some reporter at Sacramento Bee aspires to join that elite, what better way than to dig in on this Walpin/St. HOPE/Kevin Johnson/AmeriCorps story and try to turn it into an award-winning investigative series?

It doesn't matter what the political angle is. The hotshot California reporter who scores scoop after scoop on a story of national consquence can build a stack of clippings demonstrating his investigative chops, get some of his stories linked by Drudge and cited by other news organizations and, next thing you know, somebody's paying his round-trip plane fare to Washington or New York to interview for a big new job.

Upward mobility in a declining industry? Kinda cool.

There's another angle to think about, however. Beyond the Walpin/AmeriCorps story, TARP special IG Neil Barofsky has got himself in a tangle with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and notice who's paying attention to that story. The Obama aura is powerful, but it offers very limited coverage to the ungainly Geithner.

The Geithner/Barofsky feud is going to be covered by lots of New York-based financial reporters who don't give a damn about the Beltway elite. The Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, Bloomberg News -- reporters for outfits like that usually have an indifference to the attitudes of the politics crowd. Indeed, you'll occasionally find a financial reporter who thinks capitalism is OK. Just to cite one example, investigative journalist Matthew Vadum first came to D.C. as a financial reporter.

And there's still the factor of good old-fashioned competition in the press. The editors of the Washington Post aren't going to sit still and twiddle their thumbs if the Examiner, the Politico and the Washington Times start scoring a string of scoops on this story. And the same is true of the TV networks. Check out this Thursday exchange between ABC's Jake Tapper and WH press secretary Robert Gibbs:

TAPPER: Earlier this year the special inspector general for TARP Neil Barofsky tried to get documents relating to AIG. The Treasury Department rebuffed that request, and although ultimately I think they did turn over the documents, the Treasury Department sought a ruling from the Justice Department on just how independent Neil Barofsky's office is supposed to be. Please explain from the administration's perspective what exactly is going on here and why it appears as though the Treasury Department is pushing back against an independent inspector general.
GIBBS: Well, obviously, Jake, the president believes that inspectors general fulfill a unique and important role in ensuring that programs operate with efficiency. No attorney-client privilege on any of this stuff has been invoked. No documents sought have been or are being withheld. The DOJ review is not related to any particular investigation. It is sorting out legal issues relating to the creation of the office.
TAPPER: Right. But could you explain -- could you actually answer my question? I understand the talking points you've been given, but . . .

Read the rest of that, and think of how some other reporters in the White House press corps must have been high-fiving Tapper afterwards. (Honestly, not all of them are completely in the tank with Chris Matthews' leg-thrilling affection for O.)

As with the charmless Geithner, the media's love for Obama won't suffice to protect every member of his administration. Norm Eisen has no unicorns-and-rainbows mystique of Hope, and just wait until the D.C. press corps starts sniffing around the unexpected resignation of the AmTrak inspector general. (Gee, what gaffe-prone politician considers AmTrak his personal pet program?)

The fundamental problem the IG investigation presents to the Obama administration is the contradiction to its oft-declared commitment to transparency, as Jimmie Bise Jr. observes at the American Issues Project:

It could very well be that this small scandal becomes the lead domino that begins a chain reaction that could spell unmitigated disaster for the Obama administration. Regardless, the Inspector General firings and the Treasury Department's unwillingness to cooperate with IG Barofsky are another sign that when they administration claimed to be in favor of greater accountability, it was only blowing smoke.

Despite all the headlines to date, IG-Gate has yet to break through to the status of a major scandal, mostly because the potentially revolutionary developments in Iran have captivated public attention. Yet when the chaos in Iran subsides, the investigations of the IG firings will keep going and, as Jimmie says at Sundries Shack, it looks like this scandal is growing legs. More dominoes may be falling soon . . .

(Thanks to the Blogosphere's Photoshop Queen, Carol at No Sheeples Here, for the artwork.)

UPDATE: Transparency? We don't need no stinkin' transparency!

As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding "secret energy meetings" with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies. One reason: the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged "presidential communications." The refusal, approved by White House counsel Greg Craig's office, is the latest in a series of cases in which Obama officials have opted against public disclosure. . . .
After Obama's much-publicized Jan. 21 "transparency" memo, administration lawyers crafted a key directive implementing the new policy that contained a major loophole, according to FOIA experts. The directive, signed by Attorney General Eric Holder, instructed federal agencies to adopt a "presumption" of disclosure for FOIA requests. . . . But in a little-noticed passage, the Holder memo also said the new standard applies "if practicable" for cases involving "pending litigation." . . .

Read the whole thing. Obviously, Michael Isikoff's legs aren't tingling. BTW, one of the reasons I'm compiling this round-up is for the benefit of another one of my sources, who has a background in federal law enforcement and knows a thing or two about investigations.

UPDATE II: Little Miss Attila:

I think this is very simple: 1) on a national stage, one cannot fire whistle-blowers willy-nilly. Even lefties don’t like that, because everyone understands what that does to the system: when burglars are encouraged to feed poisoned dog food to the Dobermans that guard the shop, Bad Things are likely to happen.

So far, however, it's like looking for investigative reporting in the Jonas Brothers fan-club newsletter.

UPDATE III: Red State's Moe Lane:

I suggest that any journalist reading this and thinking about pursuing it further might want to start by examining this odd story from last year involving a supposedly fake letter coming from Amtrak Superintendent Joe Deely. Not to mention this OSHA release on a whistleblower . . . Not that Weiderhold is directly linked to either case, but these seem to be to be the most controversial cases recently involving internal problems requiring the attention of an Inspector General.

Read the rest.

UPDATE IV: The Washington Times:

On the very same day that the president fired Mr. Walpin, St. Hope's executive director, Rick Maya, left his job at St. Hope. He did not go quietly. His resignation letter charged Mr. Johnson and several St. Hope board members with numerous ethical violations. Most explosively, he charged that a board member improperly deleted e-mails of Mr. Johnson's that already were under a federal subpoena. . . .
On Wednesday, the Sacramento Bee reported that Mr. Maya's allegations have been deemed serious enough that the FBI is investigating potential obstruction of justice at St. Hope. In that light, the firing of Mr. Walpin, who properly blew the whistle on mismanagement and possible corruption, looks ill-considered. . . .

Read the rest. Strange -- the phrase "second-rate burglary" just came to mind, like a 1972 acid flashback . . .

UPDATE V: Ed Driscoll sees Obama doing a reverse-Clausewitz -- politics as warfare -- while Glenn Reynolds inexplicably links the Hartford Courant, but quotes a commentary by Salena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, making excuses for the fan-club-newsletter press corps:

The press could help keep things honest but has fewer resources and readers . . .

Whine, whine, whine. Look, lady: How hard could it be for reporters from the Tribune to ask Arlen Specter or Bart Sestak to comment on the IG firings? Hey, I've got an idea, Ms. Zito: How about you pick up the freaking phone call them for a comment?

Why is it nowadays, whenever editors hire somebody to write op-ed columns, it's never anybody who knows how to pick up a telephone? And then the lazy can't-use-a-phone op-ed idiots wonder why they have fewer readers . . .

UPDATE VI: Pundit & Pundette links with some thoughts on Obama's Chicago Way. Meanwhile, at 1:30 a.m. Monday, I've just made an executive decision to go down to Capitol Hill again today and talk to more sources.

There is no substitute for old-fashioned shoe leather. Just show up unannounced and buttonhole your source. It's an infallible method. Make a nuisance of yourself until they figure out that they need to start calling you, or else you'll be back again bugging them tomorrow.

PREVIOUSLY:

• 6/19: IG investigation: 'Dominoes Fall'
• 6/18: Targeting AIG bailout?
• 6/18: How's the weather in Sacramento?
• 6/18: Sen. Grassley wants more answers