Controversy continues to simmer around the firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin, with the latest development coming Thursday from House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
Issa issued a statement asking Acting U.S. Attorney Lawrence G. Brown, who is based in Sacramento, to detail the legal basis for a complaint he filed against Walpin to the oversight council for Inspectors General on April 29.
"The allegations that form the basis for your complaint seem very ordinary, which makes the fact that you pursued sanctions against Mr. Walpin seem extraordinary by contrast," Issa wrote to Brown. "This begs certain questions about the reasons the complaint was filed."
Walpin's office conducted the original federal investigation of Mayor Kevin Johnson's St. HOPE Academy and its use of AmeriCorps funds. Those findings were forwarded to Brown's office, where a financial settlement was negotiated in April.
Brown confirmed Tuesday that the FBI's Sacramento division is investigating obstruction of justice claims against St. HOPE that surfaced last month.
Walpin and Brown have been at odds over the way each office handled the investigation.
Walpin asked Congress to review the settlement. Brown asked an FBI division that polices the integrity of all federal inspectors general to review Walpin's performance.
President Barack Obama fired Walpin last week, saying in a letter to Congress that he lost confidence in him.
After pressure from Issa, Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, the White House this week released a more detailed account of Walpin's firing. The Congress members asserted that the firing did not follow a law requiring the president to give Congress 30 days' advance notice of an inspector general's dismissal and to clearly state the cause for the termination.
On Tuesday evening, Norman L. Eisen, special counsel to the president, provided more details of Walpin's firing in a letter. Among Eisen's claims is that Walpin had become "confused, disoriented, unable to answer questions" during a meeting on May 20. Eisen also cited Brown's complaint.
That letter did not satisfy Issa.
"Gerald Walpin led an aggressive investigation of a political ally of President Obama that successfully recovered taxpayer dollars," Issa's statement read. "IGs aren't supposed to have warm fuzzy relationships with the people they're charged with overseeing. Gerald Walpin has struck our investigators as fully competent and able to answer all questions posed to him. We see nothing that supports the Administration's 'crazy old man' theory."
The theory Walpin's backers are using is that Obama pulled strings for Johnson.
"If the White House does not offer a fuller and more complete explanation and supporting evidence of the reasons and process for firing Mr. Walpin, it will have a chilling effect on Inspectors General who consider launching investigations that target waste, fraud and abuse by friends of the President," Issa wrote.
Call The Bee's Melody Gutierrez@sacbee.com
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