Did Obama commit a felony? Or is Joe Sestak lying? Let’s look at motive.
We have film:
By de Andréa
This is not the first time:
Is there someone in the Obama administration who has committed a crime – and did the president know about it and when did he know it? Analysts say it could be grounds for impeachment.
On Par with Nixon’s Watergate or the Valerie Plame scandal
"This scandal could be enormous," said Dick Morris, a former White House adviser to President Bill Clinton, on the Fox News (Video:)Sean Hannity show last night. "It's Valerie Plame only 10 times bigger, because it's illegal. Joe Sestak is either lying or the White House committed a crime.
So what motive would Joe Sestak have for lying about the President committing a felony? Come on! He is a Democrat running for Senator. On the other hand what would be the motive for Obama offering a bribe to Sestak to bow out of the race? How about to guarantee the nomination of his friend Arlen Specter???
"Obviously, the offer of a significant job in the White House could not be made unless it was by Rahm Emanuel or cleared with Rahm Emanuel," he said. If the job offer was high enough that it also had Obama's approval, "that is a high crime and misdemeanor."
"In other words, an impeachable offense” Hannity said.
"Absolutely," said Morris. The controversy revolves around an oft-repeated statement by (Video:)Rep. Sestak, D-Pa., that he had been offered a job by the Obama administration in exchange for dropping out of the senatorial primary against Obama supporter Sen. Arlen Specter.
Sestak said he refused the offer. He continued in the Senate primary and defeated Specter for the Democratic nomination. But Karl Rove, longtime White House adviser to President George W. Bush, said the charge is explosive because of federal law.
(Video:) Axelrod interviewed by John King on CNN
This is an extraordinary charge:
'They tried to bribe me out of the race by offering me a job,'" he said on Greta Van Susteran's "On the Record" program on the Fox News Channel. "Look, that's a violation of the federal code: 18 USC 600 says that a federal official cannot promise employment, a job in the federal government, in return for a political act.
“If Sestak is telling the truth, somebody violated the law," Rove said. "Section 18 USC 211 says you cannot accept anything of value in return for hiring somebody. Well, arguably, providing a clear path to the nomination for a fellow Democrat is something of value. He continued, citing a third law passage: "18 USC 595, which prohibits a federal official from interfering with the nomination or election for office. ... 'If you'll get out, we'll appoint you to a federal office,' – that's a violation of the law."
"I've said all I'm going to say on the matter. … Others need to explain whatever their role might be," Sestak said on CNN this week. "I have a personal accountability; I should have for my role in the matter, which I talked about. Beyond that, I'll let others talk about their role."
That's not fulfilling his responsibilities, Rove said. He said Sestak needs to be forthcoming with the full story so "the American people can figure out whether or not he's participating in a criminal cover-up along with federal officials."
The Obama White House has tried to minimize the issue.
"Lawyers in the White House and others have looked into conversations that were had with Congressman Sestak, and nothing inappropriate happened," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has stated. Gibbs told the White House press corps, "Whatever conversations have been had are not problematic." And on CBS' "Face the Nation" he said, "I'm not going to get further into what the conversations were. People who looked into them assure me they weren't inappropriate in any way."
But the administration also is taking no chances on what might be discovered.
According to Politico, the Justice Department has rejected a request from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., for a special counsel to investigate and reveal the truth of the controversy.
The report said Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich confirmed no special counsel would be needed. But the report said Weich also gave no indication that the Justice Department actually was looking into the claims by Sestak. "We assure you that the Department of Justice takes very seriously allegations of criminal conduct by public officials. All such matters are reviewed carefully by career prosecutors and law enforcement agents, and appropriate action, if warranted, is taken," Weich wrote in the letter.
Issa had suggested that the alleged job offer may run afoul of federal bribery statutes.
He said in a statement to Politico, "The attorney general's refusal to take action in the face of such felonious allegations undermines any claim to transparency and integrity that this administration asserts."
This is not the first bribe to come out of the White House:
Offering jobs to political friends seems to be "business as usual," but didn’t Obama promise that "business as usual" wouldn't continue in his White House?
The Denver Post reported on a similar case concerning a Democrat Senate candidate in Colorado, Andrew Romanoff. The Denver Post said Jim Messina, Obama's deputy chief of staff and "a storied fixer in the White House political shop, suggested a place for Romanoff might be found in the administration and offered specific suggestions." Romanoff at the time was challenging another major Obama supporter, Sen. Michael Bennet, for the Democratic primary for the Senate seat from Colorado. He has since won top-line position over Bennet in a coming primary. The report said Romanoff turned down the overture, but it is "the kind of hardball tactics that have come to mark the White House's willingness to shape key races across the country, in this case trying to remove a threat to a vulnerable senator by presenting his opponent a choice of silver or lead."
The newspaper affirmed "several top Colorado Democrats" described the situation, even though White House spokesman Adam Abrams said, "Mr. Romanoff was never offered a position within the administration."
Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation, who has been monitoring the Obama administration, said the offer of reward for some government official's actions raises questions of legal liability.
"There's a federal statute and federal law seems to make clear if you offer a government official some sort of remuneration, directly or indirectly, it's an impeachable crime," he said.
Section 600 of the federal statute states:
“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 not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both”.
THE BOTTOM LINE: All fingers are being pointed back to the White House. This Chicago-style Mafia politicking is an assault on our democracy and is downright criminal. President Obama faces a critical choice. He can either live up to his rhetoric of transparency and accountability by disclosing who inside his White House tried to manipulate an election by bribing a U.S. Congressman, or he can allow his administration to continue this stonewalling and relinquish the mantle of change and transparency he is so fond of reminding us all.
Could this be the reason why Congressman Joe Sestak refuses to name names, because the very people who tried to bribe him are now his benefactors? For months, Sestak has repeatedly said without equivocation that the White House illegally offered him a federal job in exchange for dropping out of the race. Was Joe Sestak embellishing what really happened, or does he have first-hand knowledge of the White House breaking the law? If what he said is the truth, Joe Sestak has a moral imperative to come forward and expose who within the Obama Administration tried to bribe him and what exactly the bribe was. On the other hand, the level of the offer may not be an issue. It may not matter, if it was a job as a janitor or a job in the Dept of the Navy. Offering him anything of value to get him to leave a political race is a felony, punishable by five years in jail.
This is tantamount to what Senitor Baker asked during the Watergate investigation in the Nixon administration…What did he know and when did he know it?
Obama! For once in your life, ‘come clean’…
de Andréa
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