W.H.: Fired IG 'confused, disoriented'

[Pirate Smile]

Source: Politico

President Barack Obama removed a government agency’s internal watchdog last week and plans to fire him in part because he was “confused” and “disoriented” at a meeting last month, the White House said in a letter to Congress Tuesday night.

The letter came after several senators, including key Obama supporter Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), expressed concern that Obama skirted the requirements of federal law in the terse explanation he gave Congress about his reasons for removing the inspector general of the Corporation for Community and National Service, Gerald Walpin.

“Mr. Walpin was removed after a review was unanimously requested by the bi-partisan Board of the Corporation,” Obama ethics counsel Norm Eisen wrote in a letter to senators Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Me.), with a copy directed to McCaskill. “The Board’s action was precipitated by a May 20, 2009 Board meeting at which Mr. Walpin was confused, disoriented, unable to answer questions and exhibited other behavior that led the Board to question his capacity to serve.”

“We further learned that Mr. Walpin had been absent from the Corporation’s headquarters, insisting upon working from his home in New York over the objections of the Corporation’s Board; that he had exhibited a lack of candor in providing material information to decision makers; and that he had engaged in other troubling and inappropriate conduct,” Eisen wrote.

Eisen’s letter also noted that a complaint was pending against Walpin, brought by the acting U.S. Attorney in Sacramento, who accused Walpin of failing to disclose evidence in an investigation.


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