The short version: it’s moving along.
“We’re not there yet,” one Democratic source on Capitol Hill said last week, when asked about the prospect for hearings on the Obama administration’s firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin. Congressional investigators are still conducting interviews in the case, so the question of whether to “pull the trigger” on a full-blown inquiry — with subpoenas for witnesses to testify under oath at committee hearings — has yet to be decided.
The fact that both Democrats and Republicans are involved in investigating the Walpin dismissal is, however, highly significant. With Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, bipartisanship is absolutely necessary to getting the truth about the AmeriCorps case, as with the other cases in the smoldering “IG Gate” scandal.
The Democratic party’s quandary here – as Stacy notes later in the article – is that while they don’t want to go up against the administration they also don’t want to have to explain to the voters why they participated in what the GOP will call a cover-up, and for good reason. In fact, pushing for an investigation would probably be beneficial for Democratic Congressmen looking to burnish their reputations for being ‘independent’ and ‘principled.’ That doesn’t mean that they’ll participate, but it’s not a trivial consideration, either. The President’s approval rating is currently somewhere between 53% and 59%, depending on who you ask: which is good, but not good enough to make going against his wishes the act of a fool.
So, we’ll see.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.