Moe Lane

Via Instapundit, ‘Agencies stiff-arm GAO on info‘:

The investigative arm of Congress has been denied information repeatedly by various government agencies, indefinitely delaying lawmaker-requested probes, according to a letter obtained by The Hill.

The State Department, for example, initially balked at giving the Government Accountability Office (GAO) a list of sex offenders. Senate Finance Committee leaders asked GAO for a study on how many passport holders have not paid their federal taxes…

This really isn’t too surprising: I imagine that most members of this administration have passports.

…or are registered sex offenders.

I take the high road.  (more…)

Background information available here: the executive summary is that the Inspector General of Americorps was fired earlier this year, under circumstances that appear at best to be part of a whitewash of an administration crony.  Senator Grassley (R) of Iowa has taken an interest in the case, and is making it clear that he’s not going away:

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.

Solomont, a major Democratic donor, is chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which includes AmeriCorps. His term ends in October, and President Obama has nominated him to be U.S. ambassador to Spain. The nomination was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week and now moves to the Senate floor — except that Grassley has placed a hold on it, meaning it will go nowhere until the senator’s objections are resolved.

(more…)

Which, as I’ve mentioned before, is probably the nastiest thing in English that you can say about a person.  Senator Grassley offered this superficially nice observation the other day:

“I think that he is a good person, and good-intentioned,” Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a radio interview. “But I believe he didn’t serve in government long enough to understand really how things work.”

“Remember, he was in the Senate four years, but effectively only two years because he spent two years where he was hardly ever here at all — he was campaigning for president,” Grassley said. “He really does not have an understanding of how Congress operates.”

…and, judging from the intemperate reaction from the Hill’s comments section, I’d say that he hit the target pretty dead on. There’s something darkly humorous about watching a group of people whose House leaders are all between seventy and eighty exhibit rank ageism…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

[UPDATE] In honor of Troglopundit’s request for respect for the KISS principle, here goes:

If you don’t have time to read the report that apparently triggered the Weiderhold matter (said report is also available via Senator Grassley’s office, as part of his ongoing investigation) – or even Stacy McCain’s article – here’s a quick timeline.

• June 18, 2009: Fred Weiderhold, Inspector General for Amtrak, receives a report from a third-party legal firm indicating that Amtrak’s Law Department’s oversight of the Office of the Inspector General resulted in a situation where (as Grassley’s letter put it) “Amtrak’s policies and procedures have systematically violated the letter and spirit of the Inspector General Act.” The firm recommends that Congress be notified, either at the next semiannual report or immediately.
• June 18, 2009 (evening): Weiderhold resigns.

Well, sometimes the story isn’t complex.  Please read on – but one last summary detail: the General Counsel for Amtrak is Eleanor Acheson, who is well-connected with the Biden family. (more…)

Once is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence.
Three times is enemy action.
- Ian Fleming, Goldfinger

Being an inquisitive sort, Dan Riehl went looking for other instances where the White House may have been interfering with the Inspectors General, and lo! – he found some.  Two more, both of which are involved executive branch officials allegedly interfering with investigations and one of which involved a sudden Walpin-like abrupt termination.

The second example (Gerald Walpin being, of course, the first) was Neil Barofsky, TARP IG, and while it’s the less immediately worrisome of the two newly-publicized incidents it’s also the more sensitive.  There aren’t many details on this available yet, but the dispute seems to be over how much oversight Treasury should have over the IGs assigned to monitor specific functions of the department – and how quickly and easily IGs should be given the documents that they need for their investigations.  The answer should be ‘almost none’ and ‘as quickly and easily as can be arranged’… at least, that’s my opinion.  More importantly, it’s also Senator Grassley’s.  Barofsky apparently hasn’t lost his job over this, though.  Yet.  The third firing was of Judith Gwynn (often noted as Judith Gwynne, which should tell you how well regular journalism is covering this story), and it’s… very interesting, as well.  She was an acting IG for the International Trade Commission (expect that to be brought up, usually with the table being pounded) who abruptly had her contract terminated right after Sen. Grassley’’s letter inquiring about an alleged physical assault* on her by an ITC staffer (expect that to be ignored for as long as possible) went to the White House. (more…)