Calls renewed for investigation following statement that issue was unpaid advisory post

Posted: May 29, 2010
1:00 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

White House lawyer Robert Bauer's statement today on the "job offer" to Rep. Joe Sestak carefully explained it was really only an unpaid advisory position that would allow Sestak to stay in his U.S. House seat representing Pennsylvania.

But the words did nothing to remove critics' doubts, and one commenter on the blog of conservative columnist Michelle Malkin may have touched a nerve when he wrote, "When you are telling the truth you do not have to prepare a response. The truth does not have to be manipulated. It does not have to be reviewed by attorneys. It does not have to be prepared. Calls don't have to be made to get the story straight."

WND reported earlier in the day when the White House issued a statement from Bauer explaining suspicion that improper conduct led to multiple and repeated statements from Sestak that he had been offered a job to quit his primary campaign against White House favorite Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., was based on "factual errors."

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Republicans have asked the Justice Department for an independent investigation since the case as Sestak has portrayed it – a job offer in exchange for a political decision to drop out of the race – could be interpreted as a crime.

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Just yesterday, the president was asked about the controversy at his news conference and declined to elaborate.

However, in a statement provided to the press by e-mail today, Bauer said the White House wanted to suggest that Sestak serve on an "uncompensated" board, and it dispatched former President Bill Clinton to discuss the offer.

"Recent press reports have reflected questions and speculation about discussions between White House staff and Congressman Joe Sestak in relation to his plans to run for the United States Senate," Bauer wrote. "Our office has reviewed those discussions and claims made about them."

Bauer said Sestak "accurately stated" that "options for executive branch service were raised with him."

He said the White House wondered whether Sestak wanted to serve on a presidential or "other senior executive branch advisory board, which would avoid a divisive Senate primary, allow him to retain his seat in the House, and provide him with an opportunity for additional service to the public in a high-level advisory capacity."

Those positions were uncompensated, Bauer maintained.

"Really?" was the general response from critics.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who has been the point person on the issue since Sestak made the first comment about the job offer in February, wasn't satisfied.

"After more than 10 weeks of outstanding questions, the White House has offered a version of events that has important differences from what Congressman Sestak has been saying for months – that he was offered a 'job' by 'someone the White House' in exchange for leaving the Pennsylvania Senate race," Issa said in a statement.

"I'm very concerned that in the rush to put together this report, the White House has done everything but explain its own actions and has instead worked to craft a story behind closed doors and coordinate with those involved. The White House has admitted today coordinating an arrangement that would represent an illegal quid-pro-quo as federal law prohibits directly or indirectly offering any position or appointment, paid or unpaid, in exchange for favors connected with an election," he said.

"President Clinton and Congressman Sestak now need to answer questions about what the White House released today – that at the behest of the White House chief of staff, they dispatched a former president to get Joe Sestak out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary. Regardless of what President Clinton or Congressman Sestak now say, it is abundantly clear that this kind of conduct is contrary to President Obama's pledge to change 'business as usual' and that his administration has engaged in the kind of political shenanigans he once campaigned to end," the statement said.

According to a Roll Call report, the White House had contacted Sestak's brother, who serves as his campaign manager, to let him know about the statement that the White House would release.

At an impromptu news conference today in Washington, Sestak said he was very "conscious" that Democratic leaders did not want him challenging Specter. His own statement paralleled the White House explanation and he dismissed questions over why he called it a "job" when the White House explanation called it an unpaid advisory post.

"I didn't try to parse the word there," he said.

Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told Malkin, "If the White House is coordinating its response with the Sestak campaign, as Congressman Sestak has reported, it certainly explains why the president, when given the opportunity at a nationally broadcast press conference, abdicated the opportunity to address the issue candidly and definitively."

He continued, "Instead, it appears as if the White House is taking time to circle the wagons and coordinating their message. This revelation that the White House initiated a dialogue with Sestak at the same time they are preparing their public response certainly leaves the impression that there is a coordinated effort going on. Of course, if everyone just did the right thing and told the truth, the need to speculate about motive and impartiality wouldn't be necessary."

Sestak's own prepared statement said he got a phone call from Clinton last year.

"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 president board while remaining in the House. … I said no."

On Malkin's comment forum, "NJ-Aviator" said, "What Obama is doing is trying to make sure that what they plan to say will not send Sestak to the media exposing Obama as a criminal. The Obama-Thugs are looking for some sort of sweet spot that is close enough to the truth to satisfy Sestak, yet not so close to the truth as to provide evidence for an indictment."

Larry Kane, the host of a Comcast program in Philadelphia, originally asked Sestak in February about the "federal job" offer.

"Were you ever offered a federal job to get out of this race?" he asked. "Yes," said Sestak.

Today, Kane threw another wrench in the works, telling National Review Online the White House originally denied there was any offer.

He recalled asking for confirmation of Sestak's statement.

"When the White House finally called back, they denied it," he told NRO. "Strategically, the White House press person I spoke with said Sestak's statement 'was not true.' So I pressed: Was anything, at all, dangled? She repeated that all she could say was that Sestak's words 'were not true.'"

GOP Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Jon Kyl or Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma had asked the Justice Department for a review.

"Such an offer (as described by Sestak) would appear to violate various federal criminal laws," the senators told Attorney General Eric Holder. "You have the clear statutory authority … to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate this matter, which would avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest and square with the precedent of Attorney General Ashcroft's recusal from a White House-related investigation in 2003."

Their letter to Holder this week noted the initial admission by Sestak in February that "a White House official offered him a federal job in an effort to end his campaign in his state's Senate primary," the letter said. "This issue arose again this past weekend when Mr. Sestak confirmed on both 'Meet the Press' and 'Face the Nation' that he was offered a job, but declined to provide any specifics."

The letter suggested the White House statements from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs that "nothing improper happened" and from senior presidential adviser David Axelrod that everything was "perfectly appropriate" weren't sufficient.

"We do not believe the Department of Justice can properly defer to White House lawyers to investigate a matter that could involve 'a serious breach of the law.' The White House cannot possibly manage an internal investigation of potential criminal misconduct while simultaneously crafting a public narrative to rebut the claim that misconduct occurred," the letter said.

"It's time for everyone involved in this scandal to come clean," said Tom Fitton, chief of the government corruption investigating Judicial Watch.

He said the situation raises concerns about a "disturbing pattern" in 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," he said. "The Chicago Machine has truly come to Washington."

The controversy is over Sestak's multiple statements that he was offered a job in the Obama administration if he would drop his primary challenge to Specter. He refused and since then has won the primary.

A spokesman in Issa's office earlier pointed out that while the Justice Department has refused to investigate, the Office of Congressional Ethics accepts allegations and details of misbehavior from the public in a section allowing for "public input" about members of Congress. It also provides an e-mail option for information that comes from the public.

WND has documented the opinions of analysts who say the alleged offer appears to be an "impeachable offense" on the part of the White House.

Dick Morris, a former White House adviser to President Bill Clinton, told Sean Hannity on his Fox News show the case is "Valerie Plame only 10 times bigger, because it's illegal and Joe Sestak is either lying or the White House committed a crime."

0bama For Sestak Matter, a ‘Trust Us’ Response From White House

By PETER BAKER
Published: May 24, 2010


WASHINGTON — For three months, the White House has refused to say whether it offered a job to Representative Joe Sestak to get him to drop his challenge to Senator Arlen Specter in a Pennsylvania Democratic primary, as Mr. Sestak has asserted.
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But the White House wants everyone who suspects that something untoward, or even illegal, might have happened to rest easy: though it still will not reveal what happened, the White House is reassuring skeptics that it has examined its own actions and decided it did nothing wrong. Whatever it was that it did.

“Lawyers in the White House and others have looked into conversations that were had with Congressman Sestak,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said Sunday on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “And nothing inappropriate happened.”

“Improper or not, did you offer him a job in the administration?” asked the host, Bob Schieffer.

“I’m not going to get further into what the conversations were,” Mr. Gibbs replied. “People that have looked into them assure me that they weren’t inappropriate in any way.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the “trust us” response from the White House has not exactly put the matter to rest. With Mr. Sestak’s victory over Mr. Specter in last week’s primary, the questions have returned with intensity, only to remain unanswered. Mr. Gibbs deflected questions 13 times at a White House briefing last week just two days after the primary. Mr. Sestak, a retired admiral, has reaffirmed his assertion without providing any details, like who exactly offered what job.

Republicans have pressed Mr. Sestak to explain. “Congressman Sestak should tell the public everything he knows about the job he was offered, and who offered it,” former Representative Pat Toomey, his Republican opponent, said Monday.

Amber Marchand, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said, “Joe Sestak owes Pennsylvanians a full explanation for this potentially illegal activity.”

Whether the conversations might have been illegal is unclear without knowing what precisely was said. There are certainly statutes that bar government employees from using their authority to influence a Senate nomination or to promise employment as a reward for political activity. Yet presidents have given appointments to many people to reward allies or take would-be obstacles out of the way for other allies, explicitly or not.

Even if the conversations were perfectly legal, as the White House claims, the situation challenges President Obama’s efforts to present himself as a reformer who will fix a town of dirty politics. And the refusal to even discuss what was discussed does not advance the White House’s well-worn claim to being “the most transparent” in history.

When Mr. Gibbs was pressed on the matter Thursday, he resolutely referred to his original statement exonerating the White House and refused to elaborate.

“But you never really explained what the conversation was,” said Jake Tapper of ABC News.

“And I don’t have anything to add today,” Mr. Gibbs said.

“But,” Mr. Tapper continued, “if the White House offers a congressman a position in the administration in order to convince that congressman not to run for office ...”

“I don’t have anything to add to that,” Mr. Gibbs said.

Mr. Tapper persisted: “But do you really think the American people don’t have a right to know about what exactly the conversation was?”

“I don’t have anything to add to what I said in March,” Mr. Gibbs said.

The White House had nothing more to say Monday. David Axelrod, the president’s senior adviser, said on CNN, “I don’t think any questions will be left unanswered on this,” but he did not actually answer the questions. Other Democrats have come to the White House’s defense by arguing that even if Mr. Sestak’s assertion about a job were true, it would hardly be shocking in a city of political tradeoffs.

“I don’t see the scandal,” Steve Elmendorf, who was chief of staff to former Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri when he was the House Democratic leader, said in an e-mail message. “Sestak is totally qualified for the job, and Dem and Rep presidents routinely offer members of Congress jobs for all sorts of reasons.”

Indeed, Douglas B. Sosnik, the White House political director under President Bill Clinton, said using jobs to reward political friends was simply “business as usual.” But, he added, that was the problem: Mr. Obama promised not to perpetuate business as usual. “It cuts against the Obama brand,” he said. “The public tolerance for these deals is less than in the past.”

Ron Kaufman, who had the same job under the first President George Bush, said it would not be surprising for a White House to use political appointments to accomplish a political goal. “Tell me a White House that didn’t do this, back to George Washington,” Mr. Kaufman said. “But here’s the difference — the times have changed and the ethics have changed and the scrutiny has changed. This is the kind of thing people across America are mad about.”

Moreover, he said, Mr. Obama’s own rhetoric raised the bar: “When you get out there and say, ‘We’re going to do things totally different, we’re above all this and we’re going to be totally transparent,’ they cause their own problem because they’re not being transparent.”