It’s been less than a week since the story of Gerald Walpin first broke.

President Obama says he has lost confidence in the inspector general who investigates AmeriCorps and other national service programs and has told Congress he is removing him from the position.

Obama’s move follows an investigation by IG Gerald Walpin of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, who is an Obama supporter and former NBA basketball star, into the misuse of federal grants by a nonprofit education group that Johnson headed.

Walpin was criticized by the acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento for the way he handled an investigation of Johnson and St. HOPE Academy, a nonprofit group that received hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grants from the Corporation for National Community Service. The corporation runs the AmeriCorps program.

It’s a rotten fish of a story that stunk from day one and has been sitting out in the sun ever since. It was quickly noted that the firing may have been illegal under the Inspectors General Reform Act passed last year and co-sponsored by then Senator Barack Obama. The act requires the President to give Congress 30 days notice prior to removing an IG outlining the cause of the dismissal.

Byron York noted one of the first questionable actions in the scandal.

On Wednesday night, after the White House counsel’s office called AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin on his cell phone to tell him he had one hour to resign or be fired, Walpin sent an extensive e-mail account of the call to the man who had phoned him, Norman Eisen, the Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform.

Here is that email:

My email responds to your telephone call to me while I was in a car driving on a highway, at about 5:20 p.m. I have now reached a destination and therefore can write you this email.

In your telephone call, you informed me that the President wishes me to resign my post as IG of CNCS [Corporation for National and Community Service, which includes AmeriCorps]. You told me that I could take no more than an hour to make a decision.

As you know, Congress intended the Inspector General of CNCS to have the utmost independence of judgment in his deliberations respecting the propriety of the agency’s conduct and the actions of its officers. That is why the relevant statute provides that the President may remove the IG only if he supplies the Congress with a statement of his reasons–which is quite a different matter than executive branch officials who serve at his pleasure and can therefore be removed for any reason and without notification to Congress.

I take this statutorily-mandated independence of my office very seriously, and, under the present circumstances, I simply cannot make a decision to respect or decline what you have said were the President’s wishes within an hour or indeed any such short time. As you are aware, I have just issued two reports highly critical of the actions of CNCS, which is presently under the direction of the President’s appointee and, I am advised, someone with a meaningful relationship with the President.

Chairman Solomont and I have had significant disagreements about the findings and conclusions contained in these reports. It would do a disservice to the independent scheme that Congress has mandated–and could potentially raise questions about my own integrity–if I were to render what would seem to many a very hasty response to your request.

I heard your statement that this request that you communicated on behalf of the President and the timing of our reports and disagreement with the CNCS Board and management are “coincidence,” as you put it on the phone, but I would suggest there is a high likelihood that others may see it otherwise.

I suspect that, when presented with the circumstances I have just discussed, the President will see the propriety of providing me additional time to reflect on his request. If however he believes that my departure is a matter of urgency, then he will have to take the appropriate steps toward ordering my removal, without my agreement.

Gerald Walpin

The scandal was just beginning. Confronted with the questionable nature of the actions put in motion to remove Walpin even some Democrats began to ask for a better explanation. The White House issued a new, if delayed and lame, reasoning.

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 National and Community 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.”

I’d like to call Bull Shit on that. Mr. Walpin was removed because he was messing with a big Obama supporter. Like with his Illinois Senate run, the solution was to get rid of the opposition.

On Monday Mr. Walpin appeared on The Glenn Beck Program.

Mr. Walpin believes, and I agree, that explanations offered so far are baseless.

Gerald Walpin, who until last week was the inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service, told FOXNews.com that part of Obama’s explanation was a “total lie” and that he feels he’s got a target on his back for political reasons.

“I am now the target of the most powerful man in this country, with an army of aides whose major responsibility today seems to be to attack me and get rid of me,” Walpin said.

I particularly like his response to the president.

“It appears to suggest that I was removed because I was disabled — based on one occasion out of hundreds,” he said, adding that the administration is grasping at “non-existent straws” to explain its actions.

“I would never say President Obama doesn’t have the capacity to continue to serve because of his (statement) that there are 56 states,” Walpin said, adding that the same holds for Vice President Biden and his “many express confusions that have been highlighted by the media.” Obama mistakenly said once on the campaign trail that he had traveled to 57 states.

More? Yes, there’s more. Byron York has remained on the story.

Norman Eisen, the White House Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, met with investigators on the staff of Republican Sen. Charles Grassley at Grassley’s offices this morning. The investigators wanted to learn more about the circumstances surrounding the abrupt firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin. According to Grassley, Eisen revealed very, very little, refusing to answer many questions of fact put to him. And now Grassley has written a letter to the White House counsel asking for answers.

More on Senator Grassley’s letter:

At today’s meeting, Sen. Grassley’s staffers wanted to know more about the White House review. “Unfortunately,” Grassley writes in a letter just sent to White House counsel Gregory Craig, “Mr. Eisen refused to answer several direct questions posed to him about the representations made in his letter.” Grassley says that since Eisen refused to answer the questions in person, Grassley would submit a dozen of them in writing. Here they are:

1) Did the [Corporation for National and Community Service] Board communicate its concerns about Mr. Walpin to the White House in writing?

2) Specifically, which CNCS Board members came forward with concerns about Mr. Walpin’s ability to serve as the Inspector General?

3) Was the communication about the Board’s concerns on or about May 20, 2009 the first instance of any communications with White House personnel regarding the possibility of removing Mr. Walpin?

4) Which witnesses were interviewed in the course of Mr. Eisen’s review?

5) How many witnesses were interviewed?

6) Were any employees of the Office of Inspector General, who may have had more frequent contact with Mr. Walpin than the Board members, interviewed?

7) Was Mr. Walpin asked directly during Mr. Eisen’s review about the events of May 20, 2009?

Was Mr. Walpin asked for his response to the allegations submitted to the Integrity Committee by Acting U.S. Attorney Lawrence Brown?

9) What efforts were made during Mr. Eisen’s review to obtain both sides of the story or to afford the Office of Inspector General an opportunity to be heard?

10) In addition to the claim that Mr. Walpin was “confused” and “disoriented,” the letter also says he exhibited “other behavior” that led to questions about his capacity. What other behavior was Mr. Eisen referencing?

11) If the initial and primary concern had to do with Mr. Walpin’s capacity to serve for potential health reasons, why was he only given one hour to decide whether to resign or be fired?

12) If Mr. Walpin’s telecommuting arrangements since the beginning of this year were a major concern, then why was Mr. Walpin not simply asked to stop telecommuting?

Good questions. They deserve some answers. Don’t expect the legacy media to ask for them. I don’t think you’ll hear about this when the All Barack Obama reports from the White House, and you won’t hear about it from the other alphabet news channels. In fact, outside of Fox News, conservative talk radio, and the blogosphere, you probably won’t here much about it at all.

That can’t be allowed to happen. While this is primarily about Mr. Walpin, it also is an indicator of just what type of politician President Obama has turned out to be. Not a surprise to many of us, but a big shock to the rest of the country.

ADDED: Michelle Malkin (no surprise) has been all over this story.