Posted by
Defend America on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 8:33:07 AM
Inspector General: Rhee visited me to intervene for Johnson
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
November 24, 2009
On
June 27, 2008, Michelle Rhee, head of the Washington, D.C., school
system, paid a visit to Gerald Walpin, who was inspector general of the
government volunteer organization AmeriCorps.
At the time, Walpin was investigating a California private school
known as St. Hope, which was founded by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA
star and friend of Rhee's who was running for mayor of Sacramento. St.
Hope had received about $850,000 in AmeriCorps money, and Walpin's
investigators were looking into charges that Johnson had misused those
funds by assigning paid volunteer tutors to run errands for him and
wash his car, as well as making them take part in political activities.
In the course of the investigation, some young female AmeriCorps
volunteers also charged that Johnson had made inappropriate sexual
advances toward them and offered one of them $1,000 a month to keep
quiet.
Rhee, who later became engaged to marry Johnson, had been on St.
Hope's board of directors before taking over as chief of the District
of Columbia system. Her apparent goal, as she visited Walpin, was to
vouch for Johnson.
"The basic point of her meeting with me was to tell me what a great
guy he was," Walpin recalls, "and what wonderful work he has done, and
that maybe he had made mistakes administratively, but that she thought
I should give as much consideration as possible to his good work in
deciding what to do."
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Inspector-general_-Rhee-intervened-for-Johnson-8577747-71924762.html