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.

Kevin Johnson: Future neocon?

The Obama-emulating, AmeriCorps-defrauding Mayor of Sacramento got mugged by reality in Frisco -- and Red State blog-fu sensei Moe Lane has the video.

SIGTARP bites again!

Bailout Watchdog Says Treasury and Fed Knew Bailed-Out Banks Were Not Healthy

Michelle Malkin blogs it. Via Memeorandum. Background: "The War on Watchdogs," September print issue, The American Spectator.

No time for more. Hit tip jar. Kids demanding slushies now. Will update . . .

TARP watchdog Neil Barofsky warns of 'far more dangerous' economic problems

As soon as I learned that Timothy Geithner's Treasury Department was obstructing the investigations of Neil Barofsky -- the special inspector general for the TARP financial bailout -- I predicted that "SIGTARP" was a watchdog who could take a bite out of the Obama administration. Now there's this:

(Via Rick Moran at American Thinker.)

• MORE ABOUT NEIL BAROFSKY
• AMERICAN SPECTATOR: 'THE WAR ON WATCHDOGS'

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

Scooped by Michelle Malkin!

I was drifting off to sleep about 6 a.m. this morning when Michelle Malkin came on "Fox & Friends" to discuss her latest column about how security is being undermined at Amtrak -- a story that relates directly to the IG-Gate story I've been following

"Doggone it! She scooped me!" I said, perhaps a bit more emphatically.

There was an Amtrak IG angle that I'd been meaning to follow up on, fill in a few more details. But now, scooped by Malkin, I figured I needed to go with what I already had:

Remember Fred Wiederhold, the Amtrak inspector general who retired abruptly in June? He was replaced by "interim" IG Lorraine Green, the head of human resources who has spent 12 years in management of the taxpayer-subsidized rail service -- and will return to management when her IG stint concludes.
"What kind of independence is that?" one Capitol Hill source said of Green's anomalous position as temporary head of the IG office.
In her "interim" role, Green has reportedly hired three consultants to prepare a report about the Amtrak IG's office. According to someone familiar with the contract, each of the consultants is paid $140 per hour, and limited to a maximum of $75,000 each for three months of work, due to conclude at the end of this month . . .

There's more, so read the whole thing. This is how competitive reporting works, see? Malkin gets a scoop and, if I don't come back with something quick, I look like a shmuck. So now the onus is on Byron York, Ed O'Keefe and Jake Tapper to play catch-up. They'll get their scoops, and then I'll have to go wear out the shoe-leather on Capitol Hill again.

SEC IG Kotz issues Madoff report

Inspector General David Kotz explains the agency's failures:

The Securities and Exchange Commission repeatedly missed chances, because of inexperience and incompetence, to head off the huge investment fraud carried out for years by the disgraced money manager, Bernard L. Madoff, the agency’s watchdog office said on Wednesday.
In a damning report on the S.E.C.’s performance, the agency’s inspector general, H. David Kotz, said numerous “red flags” had been missed by the agency, including some warnings sounded by journalists, well before Mr. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme imploded in 2008.

Remember what I warned about in July:

Why, for instance, did Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) rush through the House a bill that would give President Obama power to dismiss five inspectors general -- including the IG for the Securities and Exchange Commission -- who under existing law report to the agency heads?
The IGs themselves have protested against the Larson bill, which has yet to be debated in the Senate, and it has not escaped notice on Capitol Hill that Larson is a prominent "Friend of Chris." That would be Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Dodd is under intense scrutiny for a number of shady-looking activities -- "Chris Dodd Update" has become a regular feature at Professor Glenn Reynolds' popular Instapundit blog -- and Dodd is also facing a tough re-election bid next year.
No one on the Hill has yet directly suggested that the Larson bill -- which could effectively muzzle watchdogs at five federal financial agencies -- was specifically intended as assistance to the embattled chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. But as liberal bloggers used to say about the Bush administration's activities, some Republicans have begun to "question the timing."

By the way, the September issue of The American Spectator is now on newsstands, featuring my 3,000-word in-depth article about the IG-Gate investigations. Subscribe to The American Spectator now.

Things they never write about dead liberals

If tomorrow Eleanor Clift were run down by a bus while crossing K Street -- perish the thought! -- her obituary would not include this sentence:

Though known as a liberal, Clift developed relationships with folks on both sides of the aisle and had sources everywhere.

And yet Lynn Sweet, who proudly counts the departed Robert Novak as a colleague, feels compelled to write this about him:

Though known as a conservative, Novak developed relationships with folks on both sides of the aisle and had sources everywhere.

Why? Are conservative journalists so notoriously partisan in their friendships as to eschew all social interaction with liberals? Was this the habit of, inter alia, William F. Buckley Jr.? Indeed, no, as one of Buckley's best friends was the notoriously wrongheaded liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

So then, as we might more readily believe, is Sweet's telltale sentence yet another case of liberals projecting their own faults on the demonized Other? That is to say -- and I'll drop the just-asking-questions mode to say it directly -- liberal journalists notoriously ostracize any member of their profession who fails to embrace the appropriate ideology. In fact, this habit is not limited to liberal journalists merely, but rather is common among liberals everywhere, who treat conservatism as a sort of moral failing that makes the right-winger socially unacceptable.

For example, you should have seen the fear in the eyes of a certain young Democratic congressional staffer when, a couple of Fridays ago, I spotted her at the Union Pub and approached her cordially as if she were my dearest friend in the world.

Oh, I understand, sweetheart. You don't want your friends to start wondering if you've been accidentally disclosing facts to a conservative reporter. But a good reporter never burns his sources, so far be it from me to suggest that you had anything to do with this little nugget, or that you told me anything useful to my 3,000-word IG-Gate story in the September issue of The American Spectator.

So my dear Democratic friend who is not -- repeat, is not -- leaking sensitive inside information to me, please don't panic when, later this week, I drop by your office to hand you a newly-printed copy of the September issue and thank you for your non-cooperation.

Explain it however you want, darling, but if I get hit by a bus, don't tell anybody that I had "relationships with folks on both sides of the aisle."

"Plausible deniability." IYKWIMAITYD.

Lieberman, Collins, Grassley express 'serious concern' about ITC's IG

Scored a minor scoop today from Capitol Hill:

Three senators, including Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, have sent a letter to Shara L. Aranoff, chairwoman of the International Trade Commission, expressing "serious concerns" about the contractual terms under which the ITC's inspector general is hired.
The letter, signed by Lieberman, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine -- the committee's ranking Republican -- and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), complained of the ITC's unusual practice of hiring the agency's IG under a six-month contract, which the senators suggest may undermine the watchdog's independence.

Read the whole thing. What is significant is that this is the first evidence that Lieberman's committee is willing to cooperate with Grassley, who has been bulldogging IG-Gate for nearly two months.

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.

Geithner and the Scapegoat Sweepstakes

Thanks to Smitty for watchdogging the latest headlines about SIGTARP Neil Barofsky while I was on the road to Richmond yesterday. It's important to see the big picture in this battle between Barofsky and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner:

The Wall Street bailout has been unpopular from its inception. . . . Now, we see unemployment soaring (more than 15% in Michigan, near 12% in California) and consumer confidence falling, while the stock market surges upward. You can't blame people for suspecting that massive taxpayer-funded assistance to financial giants like AIG, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America might have something to do with this widening chasm between prosperity on Wall Street and misery on Main Street. . . .
Polls indicate a growing perception that the Obama administration is mismanaging the economy, with special favors for politically connected Wall Street fat cats at the expense of ordinary American taxpayers. . . .
With another approaching crisis in banking and forecasts that unemployment will continue rising for months to come, Obama will eventually start looking for a scapegoat. Though once hailed as an economic savior, the nominee who was "too big to fail," Geithner is now odds-on favorite to win the Scapegoat Sweepstakes. SIGTARP Barofsky's watchdogging of the bailout "black hole" may be enough to push Geithner across the finish line.

Read the whole thing, which includes a "document dump" with Barofsky's quarterly IG report and other important documents on this important aspect of IG-Gate.

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: Behind Closed Doors

From my latest report at The American Spectator:

Those familiar with the investigations caution against "playing connect-the-dots" with these three distinct cases. However, some informed Republican sources are beginning to call attention to other evidence of a concerted effort to blindfold, muzzle or neuter watchdogs -- especially those who dare to growl at Democrats.
Why, for instance, did Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) rush through the House a bill that would give President Obama power to hire or dismiss five inspectors general -- including the IG for the Securities and Exchange Commission -- who under existing law report to the agency heads?
The IGs themselves have protested against the Larson bill, which has yet to be debated in the Senate, and it has not escaped notice on Capitol Hill that Larson is a prominent "Friend of Chris." That would be Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Dodd is under intense scrutiny for a number of shady-looking activities -- "Chris Dodd Update" has become a regular feature at Professor Glenn Reynolds' popular Instapundit blog -- and Dodd is also facing a tough re-election bid next year.
No one on the Hill has yet directly suggested that the Larson bill -- which could effectively muzzle watchdogs at five federal financial agencies -- was specifically intended as assistance to the embattled chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. But as liberal bloggers used to say about the Bush administration's activities, some Republicans have begun to "question the timing." . . .

There's lots more juicy goodness where that came from -- today's article is more than 1,400 words -- so please read the whole thing.

I'm very grateful to those loyal readers who have helped fund my trips to Capitol Hill by hitting the tip jar. There are some things that can be accomplished only by the skilled application of shoe leather, such as accidently walking into the wrong office -- but there are no accidents.

By the way, something I omitted from the "citizen-journalist" account of my Friday trip. After I missed my lunch appointment because of the Tourist Drivers Damned to the Fiery Pit of Hell, I found myself with time to kill because the next person I was supposed to meet was (of course) caught in tourist-infested traffic. Noticing the grody condition of my shoes, and observing the nearby location of a shoeshine stand, I decided to indulge myself: $7 for a shoeshine while I read the newspaper and tried to relax.

The cheerful gentleman did such a thoroughly professional job that when he was done, I handed him $10 and said, "Keep the change." A foolish indulgence. Little did I suspect, however, that a few minutes earlier, a homeschooling mom had hit my tip jar with . . . $10.

Coincidence? Right. Somebody ask The Anchoress who she was linking Sept. 24, and why.

PREVIOUSLY AT THE SPECTATOR:

• 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 IncludeWatchdogs?
• 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

SIGTARP Strikes: IG Barofsky Report SaysTreasury Not Tracking Bailout Cash

The watchdog bites Tim Geithner:

The top watchdog over the financial bailout package said the Treasury Department is rejecting "common sense" by not requiring banks receiving billions of dollars in government money to say how they are using the money.
In a report to be released on Monday, Neil Barofsky said banks that have received money from the $700 billion bailout package passed last year are able to indicate how they are using taxpayer money and that Treasury should require banks to be more transparent. . . .
Barofsky is the Special Inspector General over the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) that was passed by Congress in October. . . .

Read the whole thing. This SIGTARP report is a perfect example of why the Obama adminstration hates IGs. The Democrats just want to shovel money out the door and don't care who gets it, except to be sure their well-connected friends get their share.

According to the liberal neo-Keynesian economic gospel, as long as the federal government does X-billion dollars of deficit spending, that will produce X-plus-Y amount of stimulus value (where Y = Magic Government Spending Multiplier Effect) without regard to whether the money ends up feeding orphans or supplying the mistresses of Goldman Sachs executives with bustiers and garter belts

Unfortunately for liberals, the stupid taxpayers can never seem to comprehend the nuances of neo-Keynesian theory the way Nobel Prize-winning genius Paul Krugman does.

No matter how many times they're lectured about this "stimulus"/bailout brilliance, the idiots who pay the taxes get a little miffed to discover that their great-grandchildren's future has been hocked to pay for new wallpaper and wainscoting in the executive lavatory of a giant banking conglomerate which -- as every expert in Washington explained last fall -- was so frantically in need of cash that the branch managers were sending tellers to sell plasma to the blood bank, merely to prevent a complete catastrophic meltdown in the global finance system.

Those stupid taxpayers are like that. They have a habit of remembering irrelevant minor details like those 90-point headlines on the front pages of all the newspapers:

CRISIS LOOMS: WORLD ECONOMY TEETERS ON BRINK OF FINAL APOCALYPSE; CONGRESS DESPERATELY FIGHTS TO AVERT ECONOMIC DOOMSDAY; PLAGUES OF LOCUSTS, FROGS FEARED

Damned idiot taxpayers. What do they know about economics and budgets and stuff that only people with Ivy League Ph.Ds can ever hope to understand?

(H/T: Memeorandum.)