Via RS McCain – whose post in general on the potential legs of the IG story is well worth reading all on its own – comes the third Inspector General to suddenly stop working for the government in a week:

The inspector general of Amtrak unexpectedly resigned Thursday night, becoming the third such federal official to leave prematurely since the Obama administration took office and the latest in a string of potentially controversial moves involving government watchdogs.

Fred E. Weiderhold, a 35-year veteran of the agency who was responsible for rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, is the most high-profile change among the group of senior government officials who have responsibility to conduct independent investigations of federal agencies and institutions.

[snip]

But several officials who asked not to be identified raised questions about the development, which set off alarm bells among some close Amtrak watchers.

The Boston Globe goes on to mention the previous three questionable IG situations (and two firings), and in terms not sympathetic to the administration – which does suggest that Stacy McCain’s got a point when he notes that the President’s charisma is not transferable. Hard to say: I’m not a reporter, after all.  But I am a researcher, and I suggest that any journalist reading this and thinking about pursuing it further might want to start by examining this odd story from last year involving a supposedly fake letter coming from Amtrak Superintendent Joe Deely. Not to mention this OSHA release on a whistleblower, discussed further here (and associated with Deely here; but mind your language, because nobody else at that forum will). Not that Weiderhold is directly linked to either case, but these seem to be to be the most controversial cases recently involving internal problems requiring the attention of an Inspector General…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.