Richard Burr and Claire McCaskill are signaling that they will flip-flop on Audit the Fed in order to protect Wall Street’s secret bailouts from scrutiny.

Burr and McCaskill are among 67 Senators who either voted for or cosponsored Audit the Fed in the past year. Wall Street was asleep when Alan Grayson and Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed made its way through the House, focused instead on saving their bonuses from the chopping block.

But now that Bernie Sanders has offered Audit the Fed an amendment in the Senate, Wall Street is very much engaged, and the Obama administration is actively whipping against it on their behalf. Burr and McCaskill are just two that they will need to flip in order to sink it, though — they’ll have to find 8 or 18 rotating villains depending on whether Reid forces a 50- or 60-vote hurdle.

So, let the incoherent rationalizations begin:

“I’m looking at it,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) told reporters Tuesday. “But I think it may have more potential to politicize the Fed than it does opportunity to really change anything that average Americans are looking for.”

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.),while not condemning Sanders’s Fed provision outright, said some of the proposed amendments to the financial regulatory bill had turned into a process of “who can out-populist the next person.”

Added Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), “I think it goes too far. It expands the auditing beyond what I think we need.”

Was McCaskill asleep when she cast her vote in favor of the Audit the Fed amendment in April of last year? And what about Burr — not only did he vote for the amendment, he’s also a cosponsor of S.604, which is the Senate version of H.R. 1207.

Reid killed drug reimportation by keeping it off the floor for 7 days while Durbin and the drug companies peeled off the votes and defeated it. Watch for Reid to manipulate procedure and make it as difficult as possible to pass even as he issues passionate speeches in support from the floor of the Senate, giving just enough pro-Wall Street Senators the opportunity to follow McCaskill and Burr’s lead.

Remember, JP Morgan head Jamie Dimon sits on the board of the NY Fed. He knows where these trillions of dollars are going. It’s Congress who doesn’t.

[please see full whip count after the jump]