Around Daily Kos, that's a surprising headline. For several years there have been highly critical diaries accusing the Obama adminstration of cracking down on whistleblowers rather than supporting them. I don't doubt that there has been some of that, but it appears that many of the attorneys who specialize in whistleblower lawsuits are giving big money to President Barack Obama's campaign:
As the Obama administration has cracked down on corporate fraud, lawyers representing whistle-blowers have reaped multimillion-dollar rewards. Now, as they seek to sustain these historic payouts, they are serving as generous donors to the president’s re-election campaign.
Lawyers in the tight circle who specialize in filing fraud claims with the federal government on behalf of clients with evidence of wrongdoing have raised more than $3 million so far for President Obama. The administration, meanwhile, has paid out $1.6 billion to whistle-blowers during his tenure, with law firms taking a cut in some cases of up to 40 percent of the proceeds.
The lawyers have contributed directly to Mr. Obama’s campaign, served as “bundlers” who solicit contributions from others, donated to the Democratic National Committee and written large checks to Priorities USA, the “super PAC” supporting Mr. Obama’s re-election efforts. They have also donated heavily to Congressional Democrats.
NY Times
Now some of the driver of this may be because Romney is so bad, not that the Obama adminstration has always been so great on these issues:
“The risks are enormous there will be real pullback because of pressure from the industry that has paid billions in penalties,” said John R. Phillips, one of the nation’s top whistle-blower lawyers, who has raised more than $200,000 for Mr. Obama’s re-election from colleagues, after first working in 2008 to help Mr. Obama get elected.
NY Times
So it's logically possible that the criticism of the Obama adminstration regarding treatment of whistleblowers is reconcilable with this strong support of the President by whistleblower attorneys. I'm certainly no expert on this issue and do not claim to be.
Mr. Phillips and other lawyers said their contributions are unrelated to their work and he said they have sparred with the Justice Department during Mr. Obama’s tenure because of its efforts to minimize payouts to whistle-blowers.
NY Times
It may just be another case of life is complex and the adminstration's policies are imperfect, but much better than Republicans.
I do like some of the recoveries made by the Obama adminstration and I doubt a McCain or Romney adminsitration would have come close to this amount:
Since January 2009, $13.2 billion has been collected by the federal government from companies through the False Claims Act, the primary whistle-blower tool, with about $9.4 billion of that involving alleged health care fraud. The federal government has recovered more overall in financial penalties against drugmakers since 2009 than in the previous 18 years combined, with whistle-blowers credited for helping initiate about three quarters of the cases, according to a recent study by Public Citizen, a nonprofit group.
NY Times
So notwithstanding any imperfections on whistleblower issues, counsel are voting with their wallets for Barack Obama. I like that. :-)
Update I: One explanation in the comments is that it depends on the type of whistleblower. This comment (by lgmcp and seconded by David Mizner) suggests that the Obama adminstration has treated government whistleblowers (especially those related broadly to national security) less well than corproate whistleblowers. Maybe so.