President Obama Fired Inspector General Gerald Walpin Illegally

  I am going to put aside the fact that President Obama fired Gerald Walpin for political reasons in this post. The fact that the firing was politically motivated has been pretty well established but there is another aspect to this story that needs to be discussed and brought to the attention of the American people. President Obama fired Gerald Walpin illegally.

  President Obama called Gerald Walpin and gave him one hour to either resign or be fired. This is in direct violation of the law, which requires a thirty day notice in cases involving the firing of inspector generals.

  The law in question is the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008 which states that inspector generals do not serve at the president’s leisure (as do the attorney generals that President Bush legally fired), and because of this a 30 day notice is required. The president has obviously broken the law.

  But it gets even better, the kicker in this whole fiasco is this little tidbit that as a senator Barack Obama was a co-sponsor of the bill. That’s right Barack Obama co-sponsored the bill to protect inspector generals as a senator. As president he decided that the law he co-sponsored did not apply to him. He can’t claim ignorance on this one, he is responsible for the law that he broke being a law in the first place.

  This is an issue that should not go away. Pressure needs to be applied to the president, he needs to testify before congress about the firing. On top of being a political move, it was an illegal move and the president needs to be held accountable.