Joe Sestak, Andrew Romanoff & Related: See The Right Side of Life

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The Sestak Scandal: Obama Blames Bill, Coordinates with Sestak’s Brother, Claims Position 'Unpaid'

by Phil, of The Right Side of Life

Cue Michelle Malkin quote (emphasis original):

And I ask again: What did Bob “The Silencer” Bauer know, when did he know it, and how long does the Most Transparent Administration Ever plan to play dodgeball with the public?

OK, so: apparently, Bubba is the fall guy…

At the behest of the White House, former President Bill Clinton urged Rep. Joe Sestak to drop out of a Senate primary, according to a White House report. (AP)

FoxNews (excerpted):

The White House asked former President Bill Clinton to talk to Rep. Joe Sestak about the possibility of obtaining a senior position in the Obama administration if he would drop out of the Democratic primary race against establishment-backed Sen. Arlen Specter, the Obama administration will say in a report to be released Friday morning, Fox News has confirmed.

The report, by the White House Counsel’s office, will describe the Clinton conversations as informal and unhinged from any precise job offer since, as a former president, Clinton could not guarantee Sestak anything.

The conversations with Sestak were initiated by Clinton at the behest of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel was Clinton’s political director when he was president. Clinton had promoted Sestak to vice admiral and made him his director of defense policy. Sestak was a loyal and tireless supporter of Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidency in 2008.

WaPo (excerpted):

Senior White House advisers asked former President Bill Clinton to talk to Joe Sestak about whether he was serious about running for Senate, and to feel out whether he’d be open to other alternatives, according to sources familiar with the situation.

But the White House maintains that the Clinton-Sestak discussions were informal, according to the sources. The White House, under pressure to divulge the specifics of its interactions with Sestak, will release a formal statement later today outlining their version of events, including Clinton’s involvement.

According to the sources, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel asked Clinton and his longtime adviser, lawyer Doug Band, to talk to Sestak about the race. It’s unclear right now whether the White House will say that Clinton was asked to suggest specific administration positions for Sestak, whether Clinton floated positions on his own, whether Clinton discussed other options not related to the adminstration, or whether employment even came up at all in the talks.

…and Sestak’s brother — his campaign manager — gets contacted to “coordinate” the news:

Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), left, has said the White House offered him an administration job in exchange for not running for the Senate. (Harry Hamburg/associated Press)

Again, WaPo (excerpted):

Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) said Thursday his brother has spoken with White House officials about the congressman’s allegation that he was offered an Obama administration job if he would stay out of a Democratic Senate primary. …

He told reporters Thursday that he would not expand upon his prior statements until the White House releases its report on the matter. President Obama said in his news conference such a report would come “shortly.”

Richard Sestak, who has served as his brother’s top political adviser and campaign lawyer, spoke with administration officials Wednesday, Joe Sestak said.

“They got ahold of my brother on his cellphone, and he spoke to the White House . . . about what’s going to occur,” said Sestak, who said he expects the White House will release its information Friday. He declined to elaborate on his discussions with his brother.

RollCall provides further details (excerpted; see additional verbiage via the Malkin link, above):

…Sestak said his brother and an unnamed White House official or officials spoke about “what was going to occur.” Sestak declined to identify who made the call for the administration, adding that he has had no direct contact with the White House.

Sestak called Obama a “pretty legitimate person.” He added, “But we’ll find out shortly what they have to say.”

Sestak was tight-lipped about the situation, declining to comment on whether he would agree with the White House’s take on the situation. He pledged to say more — and even to return to Washington for a Capitol Hill news conference over the weekend or early next week — once the White House had made its announcement.

“When the president speaks — or whoever speaks from the White House — we obviously will have something to say,” he said.

HotAir reports (via NYTimes) that the issue is a matter of whether or not Sestak was offered a paid position (emphasis original):

Mr. Obama promised on Thursday to release an account of the matter, which White House lawyers have been drafting in recent days in consultation with Mr. Sestak’s brother, Richard, who runs his campaign. The White House plans to release its statement later on Friday. Until now, the White House has said publicly only that whatever conversations took place with Mr. Sestak were not inappropriate.

The office of Robert F. Bauer, the White House counsel, has concluded that Mr. Emanuel’s proposal did not violate laws prohibiting government employees from promising employment as a reward for political activitybecause the position being offered was unpaid. The office also found other examples of presidents offering positions to political allies to achieve political aims.

The same blog (via TheAtlantic) presents the memo:

Sestak Memorandum

HotAir asks plenty of worthy questions (all emphases original):

Obama yesterday claimed that the repor[t] would exonerate him; if so, why hold it until Friday afternoon? That would limit the media coverage of the exoneration. The answer appears to be that the report mayexonerate Obama and his staff from violations of the law — but that it clearly shows Obama attempting to manipulate an election in Pennsylvania for his own political purposes. That may be legal, but it’s certainly not indicative of the “most transparent/ethical administration ever,” as Obama promised to provide. …

What kind of unpaid position would be attractive enough to get Sestak out of the Senate primary? …

Shouldn’t [the memo] have been released at 5 pm or so? And the memo itself seems to be evidence of potential wrongdoing, rather than an exoneration…

…[I]sn’t that at the least an admission of attempting to tamper with the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania? If this didn’t violate the law, why did Rahm Emanuel ask Bill Clinton to make the pitch rather than do it himself?

Then, Sustek [shall we say] confirms the above (MSNBC emphases original):

Last summer, I received a phone call from President Clinton. During the course of the conversation, he expressed concern over my prospects if I were to enter the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and the value of having me stay in the House of Representatives because of my military background. He said that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had spoken with him about my being on a Presidential Board while remaining in the House of Representatives. I said no. I told President Clinton that my only consideration in getting into the Senate race or not was whether it was the right thing to do for Pennsylvania working families and not any offer. The former President said he knew I’d say that, and the conversation moved on to other subjects.

There are many important challenges facing Pennsylvania and the rest of the country. I intend to remain focused on those issues and continue my fight on behalf of working families.

HotAir’s response (emphasis original):

Excuse me, but a position on a Presidential Board is not a “job” in any sense of the word. Sestak has repeatedly insisted that the White House offered him a job to get him to withdraw from the race. Now we’re at the who’s-lying stage, and it may well be everyone.

Remember:

In other words, my take on what just went down:

From somewhere within the deep, dark recesses of the White House (or maybe a pre-paid cell phone in a parking garage somewhere):

“Hey, Richard. We really need to get things straight on your brother. Joe’s gotta stay in the race, because we cannot afford any more scheduled losses in the Senate than we already think are going to happen. Also, Barry needs this story out of the way to push his agenda and it absolutely cannot point back to him, otherwise heads are really going to roll. So, here’s what we’re going to do…”

No, what I would have liked to have been the proverbial fly on the wall for was the conversation(s) that went on before Obama’s presser yesterday.

Let’s sum up, shall we?

1. Sestak says he was promised a job to get out of the Democratic primary in PA and never changes his story for months;
2. The White House admits conversations occurred, but that no wrongdoing came out of it (while simultaneously outright denying any conversations with Colorado’s Romanoff);
3. The White House calls up Sestak’s brother to confirm [what will likely be the first version of the first] story;
4. The White House leaks that it’s all Bubba’s fault
5. The White House releases the memo just before noontime, likely to get it just enough media coverage for interest, but [hopefully] not too much to make a bigger deal out of it, claiming that whatever was offered was unpaid (and so must make it all right);
6. Sestak picks up on this and suggests that the offer was essentially a non-job job.

Oh, this is so not going to end well…

See the Impeachment category for general background on this story.

-Phil (email: phil [at] therightsideoflife [dot] com)

Sestak's Lose-Lose Dilemma -- Nan Matthis

See also today's articles:

"The Silence of the Sestak: The Big Me involved?; Update: WH memo released," by Ed Morrissey, HotAir

"White House Asked Bill Clinton to Urge Sestak to Drop Out of Senate Race," by Fox News.

by Nancy Matthis at American Daughter

The hint of a White House bribe helped U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak in the Democratic primary for the Pennsylvania US Senate seat. But it will be a liability in the general election.

In an environment of massive anti-incumbent sentiment, it was advantageous to Sestak to differentiate himself from the self-serving Arlen Specter, who had switched parties to gain Obama’s sponsorship in hopes of saving his place in the Senate. One does not reach a high level in the military without being socially and politically prudent, and Sestak rose to the rank of three-star Admiral. He was also street-savvy enough to win two terms in Congress after that. Yet one can understand how he was tempted to let the story of the White House job offer, purportedly made last July, slip during the taping of a mid-February public affairs television show.

U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak … stands behind his contention that the Obama administration offered him a federal job if he would back away from a Democratic primary race against Sen. Arlen Specter.

“Yes, I was offered a job,” Sestak said….

Sestak said top party officials urged him to abandon his Senate bid when Specter joined the Democratic Party….

“Look, I am comfortable that I answered honestly,” Sestak said. “I said I would never agree with the type of deal that was done with Specter, so I would never go for a deal for myself.”

As early as last June, establishment Democrats were lining up against his then unannounced candidacy.

The public mulling of a Senate bid by Sestak – a retired admiral who’s just begun his second term in the House – is giving heartburn to many influential Democrats in Washington and in the Keystone State. Democratic leaders painstakingly worked to recruit Specter, potentially the Democrats’ filibuster-breaking 60th vote in the Senate, under the assumption that the former Republican would be able to coast through his adopted party’s primary on his way to another term.

Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell personified the great disconnect between Democratic incumbants and public sentiment, and proved himself a dismal prognosticator, when he assumed a loss for Sestak last June:

Gov. Ed Rendell (D) offered especially blunt words against a Sestak candidacy, telling MSNBC that “Joe should not run for the Senate in the Democratic primary. He would get killed. … [If] Joe Sestak runs against Arlen Specter, he is out of the Congress after just two short terms. We will lose a terrific Congressman and when he loses to Arlen, he fades into political obscurity.”

Now Sestak has handily won the primary, and the spectre of Specter has instead faded into political obscurity. Within Democratic circles, Sestak is diametrically opposed to the incumbent administration. He was a Hillary Clinton supporter. And there is a more painful fact, one that most political pundits overlook — Obama’s minion Admiral Michael Mullen, currently Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was responsible for ending Sestak’s 31-year naval career.

Sestak’s Navy career ended in a less-than-ideal fashion. In July 2005 – within a week of Adm. Michael Mullen’s swearing-in as chief of naval operations – Sestak was dismissed as deputy chief of naval operations due to a “poor command climate,” according to the Navy Times…. The ouster represented a stunning (albeit temporary) reversal of fortune for Sestak.

In fact, Mullen fired Sestak his first day on the job, so it most likely was a political move, and not based on performance.

So much for the machinations of the Democratic primary. The story of the job offer, potentially a bribe intended to interfere in the electoral process, has taken on a life of its own. The White House denies it, but Sestak is sticking by his story.

Democratic Senate Nominee Sestak Repeats Claim: White House Offered Him Job to Drop Out of Race Against Specter
Friday, May 21, 2010

Rep. Joe Sestak, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat, said again this week that the White House offered him a job to keep him from challenging Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary.

Darrell Issa, a Republican Congressman from California, wants to find out whether Obama committed an impeachable offense.

Rep. Joe Sestak’s allegation that the White House offered him a job to drop out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary race against Arlen Specter is a crime that could lead to the impeachment of President Obama, Rep. Darrell Issa said….

Issa, R-Calif., is one of many inside and outside Washington who want the Democratic Senate primary candidate to explain in detail what offer the White House made.

“It’s very clear that allegation is one that everyone from Arlen Spector to Dick Morris has said is in fact a crime, and could be impeachable,” said Issa, who is threatening to file an ethics compliant if Sestak doesn’t provide more details about the alleged job offer.

….Sestak, a former vice admiral in the Navy, first alleged in February that the White House offered him a high-ranking position in the administration last summer if he would sit out the primary against Specter, who won the backing of the White House and state Democratic leaders for switching parties.

If this event happened as described, here is the legal basis for impeachment:

U.S. Constitution Article II, Section 4 – Disqualification – The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

And here is the definition for impeachment:

Impeachment – Impeachment, in the U.S. and Great Britain, proceeding by a legislature for the removal from office of a public official charged with misconduct in office. Impeachment comprises both the act of formulating the accusation and the resulting trial of the charges; it is frequently but erroneously taken to mean only the removal from office of an accused public official. An impeachment trial may result in either an acquittal or in a verdict of guilty. In the latter case the impeached official is removed from office; if the charges warrant such action, the official is also remanded to the proper authorities for trial before a court.

An article in the Washington Examiner details the dilemma facing Sestak in the general election:

During his bid for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania Sestak claimed that he was offered a job in the Administration if he would agree to drop his bid to challenge the incumbent, Arlen Specter.

This is a felony according to the law.

The U.S. Code specifically forbids anyone from seeking to tamper with an election by offering a bribe or anything else of value or substance to a candidate. This is known as ‘quid-pro-quo.’ And it is a serious offense for which a person who is convicted of the crime could spend up to 5 years in prison….

How could the White House claim that nothing inappropriate took place when the very fact that Sestak was engaged in conversations with Administration officials during a hotly contested campaign is a highly suspicious act in and of itself?

Why would the White House even wish to talk to Sestak at all when it had clearly thrown its support to Specter?

Someone in this sordid mess is lying. And there are only 2 choices–Sestak or Robert Gibbs at the White House, who as press secretary must state to the public whatever he is instructed to say by the President and his advisers.

If Sestak is lying and the entire story is bogus, then his chances of beating the Republican in the Fall will drop like a lead balloon. But if he is telling the truth and continues to refuse to name the parties at the White House who offered him this deal, then he is protecting a felon. Either way Sestak loses.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton issued the following statement:

This latest bribery allegation reflects a disturbing pattern by the Obama White House. We still don’t have all the details about involvement of Obama administration officials in the sale of Obama’s former Illinois U.S. Senate seat by Rod Blagojevich. And we still don’t have answers about the charge that Obama Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina offered a federal job to Colorado Democratic Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff to keep him out of the Senate race. There is also the report that President Obama tried to push disgruntled White House Counsel Greg Craig out of the White House by offering a federal judgeship on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. And now we have Joe Sestak.

The Chicago Machine has truly come to Washington.

Other than impeachment, other parts of the law might be relevant, according to Judicial Watch:

According to Judicial Watch, the following laws (among others) may have been violated in the Sestak matter: 18 USC 210: Offer to procure appointive public office; 18 USC 211: Acceptance of solicitation to obtain appointive public office; 18 USC 595: Interference by administrative employees by Federal, State or Territorial Governments; and 18 USC 600: Promise of employment or other benefit for political activity.

That legal opinion is reinforced by Jay Sekulow of The American Center for Law & Justice, who said in an interview:

Well, article 2, section 4 of the Constitution is there for a reason. And … this is spinning out of control, as far as the White House is concerned right now. This is getting big coverage and it’s getting big coverage because something’s wrong here. It’s undercutting democracy if, in fact, offers were made to have someone not run.

And it’s not just one or two sections of federal law that’s been violated here. We’ve done an analysis of this. There could be four or even five sections of the federal criminal code that was violated….

These are serious allegations here. …. I understand why Mr. Sestak is trying to not say anything right now because he’s now obtained the nomination and he may want the White House support. But the reality is, somebody’s going to have to speak. And if, in fact, it is established that an offer of employment was made so that he would not run, that is interference with a political campaign, it’s interference with elected office, it’s the promise and solicitation of a job opportunity in order to forego something. That violates … not only the Constitution, it violates federal law….

The opinion by most legal observers seems to be that Obama must have known if a job offer was made, but that someone else in the administration will take the fall for it. We, as ordinary citizens, watch this play out and have to decide who is not telling the truth — a high ranking military officer or a community organizer from Chicago. Hard choice that!

Related:

Michelle Malkin — "Obama responds to Sestak scandal: Just trust me"

Dick Morris.com — "Penn AG Tom Corbett Should Empanel Grand Jury in Sestak Affair"

Hyscience — "Just ‘trust him’"

Obama Promises a Sestak Explanation “Shortly;” Outright Denies Offer to Romanoff -- Phil, TRSoL

See also today's articles:

"The Silence of the Sestak: The Big Me involved?; Update: WH memo released," by Ed Morrissey, HotAir

"White House Asked Bill Clinton to Urge Sestak to Drop Out of Senate Race," by Fox News.

by Phil, The Right Side of Life

As one Democrat Senator thinks that Obama will “pay a political price” for the Gulf oil spill, Mr. Obama began circling the proverbial wagons on a leg-growing story in the press: he finally broke silence on the Sestak scandal.

The actual quote:

“There will be an official response shortly on the Sestak matter,” Obama said, when asked about the issue by Fox News at the president’s press conference. “I mean shortly — I don’t mean weeks or months. … I can assure the public that nothing improper took place.”

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, claims in an email reported by TheHill that this could be Obama’s Watergate (excerpted):

The campaign e-mail says the allegations would amount to three felony charges of bribery and corruption.”Congressman Sestak has continued to repeat his story whenever asked without varying from the original version. The White House however has arrogantly and wrongly assumed that they can sweep this matter under the rug,” Issa, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, says in the e-mail.

“This may be the way business is done in Chicago, but it’s not the way things are done in our nation’s capitol [sic] and I am intent on getting to the bottom of this.”

We’ve already heard what former Clinton advisor Dick Morris had to say, and Bush advisor Karl Rove went further:

One of two things is true, you can’t have two things true. One or the other is true. Either Joe Sestak is lying and he was not offered a position in the administration in return for getting out of the primary.

Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and President Barack Obama (LATimes.com)

You know he’s a liar, in which case not worthy of public service.

Or, he’s telling the truth, in which case somebody inside the White House committed a felony. 18usc211 says that, a government official cannot promise a job in return for anything of value and it has a long list of values.

Saying to a member of Congress if you drop out of the primary and give a free ride to the general election for our Democratic nominee in return for which we will give you a government job, is clearly receiving something of value. The value is a clear path to the nomination of your favorite candidate…..

What he in essence is saying is that there’s a felon inside the White House and I am going to stonewall and protect that individual. He has an obligation to tell. Either you’re a liar, Joe Sestak, or you’re protecting a felon.

Here’s 18 U.S.C. Sec. 900:

Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment, position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit, provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party in connection with any general or special election to any political office, or in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any political office, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

Recall also that Article 2, Section 4 of the US Constitution specifically mentions “bribery” as a specifically impeachable offense:

Section. 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

RedState went on to recount how Admiral Sestak was offered (by someone) a “high-ranking” job (“Navy secretary?” received a “no comment”) and that Obama advisor David Axelrod essentially said that the White House had looked into the allegations and that the White House found nothing improper.

Or something like that.

Yikes.

Sestak doesn’t want to go into any more detail or he’ll risk his candidacy for the Senate, but he’s not backing down from what he says he knows. And apparently the White House won’t go into any more detail because someone has to take the fall for this thing, and everyone knows it. Taking time to come up with a formal response will subsequently move this political issue in the legal arena, thereby making the chess moves necessary — in theory — for both the Administration and Sestak to maneuver through, at least until after the mid-term elections.

Yet, in a similar case out in Colorado, the White House flatly denies any wrongdoing at all. According to NewsMax:

Allegations that the White House offered Joe Sestak a job in exchange for dropping out of the Pennsylvania Senate race echo an earlier report of a job offer to candidate Andrew Romanoff in Colorado.

On Sept. 27, 2009, the Denver Post reported that the Obama administration offered Senate candidate Romanoff a position if he canceled plans to run for the Democratic nomination against incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet.

The paper said the job offer, which specified particular jobs, reportedly was delivered by Jim Messina, Obama’s deputy chief of staff. One position the Post cited was a job at USAID, the foreign aid agency. …

The White House denied that Romanoff had been offered a job.

“Mr. Romanoff was never offered a position within the administration,” said White House spokesman Adam Abrams.

Nevertheless, the Denver Post disclosures may have worked against Bennet.

“People in Colorado have an adverse reaction to the external forces coming down and telling them how to think,” said Colorado state Rep. Kathleen Curry, a Romanoff supporter.

The casual observer can clearly see that the Obama Administration is flatly denying the latter, but hedging on the former. If nothing is amiss, you come straight out and admit it, else you’ll forever have to maneuver around it until something or someone — such as a potentially majority-changing election — stops you.

This won’t end well.

-Phil (Email: phil [at] therightsideoflife [dot] com)