Sestak job offer a bribe?

[applecorped]

Precisely.

 

[Meadmaker]

I know I couldn't find any case where anyone was ever prosecuted for anything like this. I wonder if anyone else will be able to find something.

 

[BeAChooser]

The offer is the issue, not the value.

Actually, the veracity of the claimed offer is the issue. Something just doesn't make sense here. First Sestak claims the offer was for a very important job and makes no mention of it being unpaid. When it's pointed out this would be a serious violation of the law, the Obama administration stonewalls for almost 6 months. Then as the pressure mounts, with demands for a special prosecutor, the Obama administration suddently meets with Sestak's brother, whose role in all this is still unclear. When Obama is asked at a press conference, rather than give us the simple answer they now have offered, defers and claims we'll get one "soon". Then the explanation that's offered is ridiculous. That Sestak would give up a likely senate seat for an unpaid position which it turns out that he could not legally hold anyway. And Sestak begins to change his story. And we suddenly get Bill Clinton (the liar extraordinaire) thrown into the mix with a claim he was the one who passed the offer on to Sestak. Of course he and his staff refuse to speak to the press. Never mind that the Bauer (the lawyer whose worked so hard to hide Obama's history) stated there were "effortS" to get Sestak to drop out over several months time, a description at odds with the one very very very brief phone conversation that Sestak claimed took place.

This smells to high heaven to anyone having the least bit of skepticism. But then I'm convinced that's really in short supply around JREF.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Seems to me that some neo-cons are really grasping to find Obama of doing something unethical.

 

[Puppycow]

Long-time political reporters and pundits (including George Will, who said "it's not a big deal" and "I don't see a thing wrong with it") have said that this kind of stuff is normal in politics.

Ken Rudin blogs:

My in-box is quickly filling up with reactions and thoughts about what to make of the Joe Sestak "drop-out-of-the-Senate-race-and-we'll-get-you-a-job" story.

The mail is split between one side saying this is a non-story because it happens all the time, and the other side reminding us that President Obama promised "transparency" and that this would not be a "politics as usual" administration.

My own view is that both points are correct. It does happen all the time — and I'll get to that in a moment. That's not the view of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who is saying this "could be President Barack Obama's Watergate scandal." Roll Call is reporting that Issa "posited that Obama, his aides and/or his emissaries could have committed multiple felonies and questioned whether 'corruption as usual is to be excused because it’s President Obama’s administration'”:

“Karl Rove would be — right now — in pretrial confinement if he had orchestrated this sort of a deal,” Issa added.

“This is punishable by prison,” Issa said. “It is a felony, and this is exactly what President Obama campaigned against, even the appearance of. In this case, there is a huge difference between rewarding a political supporter with an ambassadorship, which is done all the time and is legal, and a quid pro quo in which you make a promise for something — illegal — or the distorting of an election.”

I'm having a hard time thinking this is "punishable by prison." But to watch the administration hem and haw about what happened, with non-answers followed by non-answers, it was, if nothing else, disappointing. And the delay only helped create more conspiracy theories.
. . .
Meanwhile, Matt Ortega, on Twitter, has unearthed an Associated Press story from 1981. Here's the first paragraph:

Sen. S.I. Hayakawa on Wednesday spurned a Reagan administration suggestion that if he drops out of the crowded Republican Senate primary race in California, President Reagan would find him a job.

Hayakawa, who was seeking a second term at the time, was being urged by GOP officials to withdraw from the 1982 primary, a race that included, among others, Reps. Barry Goldwater Jr. & Bob Dornan, San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson, and First Daughter Maureen Reagan. The last thing the White House wanted was a split-conservative field that would end in the nomination of Rep. Pete McCloskey, a longtime anathema to the Right.

 

[BeAChooser]

http://townhall.com/columnists/Kevi...ite_house_crime_isnt_the_only_issue?page=full

The narrative on the White House's influence on the Democratic Senate Primary Race in Pennsylvania for 2010, has had a hard time getting squared. For a minimum of ten weeks Mr. Sestak ran his primary campaign on the notion that he was on the outs with the White House. He was independent. He was a man that Pennsylvanians could "trust" because he was "willing to stand up even to the President."

… snip ...

As the issue continued to be pondered in the media the questions flourished. As the White House attempted to brush under the rug, any need for an independent look into the matter, Americans began to perk up their ears on what the potential conflict might be. And as the White House promised an explanation, the same day they were lunching with President Clinton, who less than 24 hours later would be implicated in the controversy, something truly began to stink.

… snip …

Like so many careless things this President and his team have done politically, it seems the slop-job on cleaning up after the Sestak mess is getting messier than the oil spill in the gulf, and for good reasons. The story Joe Sestak told for ten weeks on the campaign trail, is very different from, the most recent report released by the White House on Friday. Pulling Bill Clinton in, one of the most well documented liars in elective political history, to be the fall guy is an easy way out. But not an explanation that seems all that credible.

As it has been examined in the past 48 hours or so even more questions begin to now emerge.

Why does the White House Memo refer to discussions--plural--if the story is that President Clinton had only one contact with Sestak?

Why doesn't the White House Memo clearly state that no job was in fact offered quid pro quo? Does not even the leaving of this large loophole in the middle of their own explanation allow them the legal room to maneuver even more if the public pressure becomes hotter rather than cooling off?

And most damning of all, if the explanation was as simple as a call from Bubba to Pennsylvania Joe, why couldn't Robert Gates have answered that question two months ago when he was asked daily for a period of weeks from the press as to the specifics of what had happened?

… snip …

The fact that Rahm Emmanuel and Bill Clinton are also attached to this story only belie the likelihood of monkey business, not the assurance of its absence. After all it was these two characters that took great delight fifteen years ago to put the legal system through tortured distortions of things like the word "is."

 

[leftysergeant]

The law specifies that the offer be something "of value." You lose again.

 

[JohnnyG]

The law specifies that the offer be something "of value." You lose again.

Are you claiming that white house advisors have no value? Well I think I finally agree with you for once.

 

[leftysergeant]

Are you claiming that white house advisors have no value? Well I think I finally agree with you for once.

For eight yearts they cost us money and got nothing worthwhile done.

 

[JohnnyG]

For eight yearts they cost us money and got nothing worthwhile done.

Eight years? I think it's more like 20.

 

[DJW]

Mitt Romney refused his salary as Governor. Power has value.

 

[Travis]

The law specifies that the offer be something "of value." You lose again.

It also says that an election has to be interfered with. I presume this means an interference that is itself illegal and against the wishes of the running candidates.

Asking someone to not run is not election interference. Even if you just straight up paid someone cash to not run that still would not be election interference.

 

[leftysergeant]

Eight years? I think it's more like 20.

Clinton appointed a few who got some worthwhile stuff done. The Shrub appointed corrupt overseers over them and it all reverted to the slime pit that Reagan created.