Reporting from Washington — When Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, was under investigation last year for alleged financial misdeeds and inappropriate behavior with female students, he had an important ally behind the scenes.
Michelle Rhee, the nationally known education reformer who is now head of the Washington, D.C., public schools, had several conversations with a federal inspector general in which she made the case for Johnson and the school he ran in Sacramento, according to the inspector general. Rhee, who had served on the board of the school and is now engaged to marry Johnson, said he was "a good guy."
Rhee's position had little effect on the inspector general, Gerald Walpin, who filed a criminal referral to the U.S. attorney on Johnson, a self-described friend and supporter of President Obama. But both the Sacramento police and federal attorneys declined to pursue charges. Walpin, who protested the prosecutors' handling of the case, was ultimately fired by the Obama White House in June.
Rhee's previously undisclosed role and the Walpin firing are now part of an unfolding drama in which outspoken Republicans contend that the Obama administration has not faithfully adhered to a law designed to protect executive-branch investigators from political interference.
The White House said Walpin was fired simply because he had lost the confidence of the president and the board of the Corp. for National and Community Service (which includes AmeriCorps), the agency he oversaw.
Republicans are skeptical.
"The claim that Gerald Walpin was removed for legitimate, nonpolitical reasons is unsupported and unpersuasive," says a 62-page joint staff report on the firing, to be released today by Republicans Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista, Calif., and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa.
Some Democrats are complaining as well. "I think the Obama administration made a mistake here," said Bernard Nussbaum, a White House counsel under President Clinton and a longtime acquaintance of Walpin.
The report, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, includes previously undisclosed documents and details, including the 30-page criminal referral Walpin prepared for the U.S. attorney in Sacramento in August 2008, and sworn statements from witnesses.
Walpin, who is receiving free help from a conservative public relations firm associated with the Swift boat ads that opposed Democrat John F. Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, is convinced his firing was directly related to his investigation of Johnson.
