Shortly after taking office, President Barack Obama fired Inspector General Gerald Walpin after Walpin had found evidence that Obama ally and former pro basketball player Kevin Johnson had misappropriated more than $800,000 in federal funds for Americorps.

Today the D.C. court of appeals ruled that Walpin’s firing was legal, a ruling that effectively guts the position of inspector general created by Congress. As Ed Morrissey notes:

Any IG could find himself on the unemployment line if a probe turned up fraud or corruption at high levels of an administration simply for no longer having its “fullest confidence.”  And what IG who discovered that kind of fraud and abuse would have the “fullest confidence” of the suspects in such a probe?  It’s an absurdly low standard that might not even survive a challenge to a termination of at-will employment in the private sector.

Walpin can challenge this to the Supreme Court.  If the law really does allow for that size of a loophole in IG protections, however, the new Congress should insist on writing a much tougher law protecting IGs from political payback, such as in the Walpin case.  Otherwise, the IGs still in place will know how to keep their jobs, which will be to kowtow to the existing administration.

Normally this would be a juicy story that would get a lot of press coverage – it almost certainly would if the political parties were reversed – but as of the time of this blog post, there are a total of 7 stories regarding the ruling showing up on Google. And only one of those, The Washington Post, would be considered a traditional, mainstream media outlet.

The watchdog becomes a lapdog when their preferred politician is in office.