"Whoever solicits or receives …
any….thing of value, in consideration of the promise of support or use of
influence in obtaining for any person any appointive office or place under the
United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than
one year, or both." -- 18 USC Sec. 211 -- Bribery, Graft and Conflicts of Interest:
Acceptance or solicitation to obtain appointive public office
"In the face of a White
House denial, U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak stuck to his story yesterday that the Obama
administration offered him a "high-ranking" government post if he
would not run against U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania's Democratic
primary."
--
February 19, 2010
"D.C. job alleged as attempt to
deter Romanoff"
--
September 27, 2009
A bombshell has just exploded in the 2010
elections.
For the second time in five months, the
Obama White House is being accused -- by Democrats -- of offering high ranking
government jobs in return for political favors. What no one is reporting is
that this is a violation of federal law that can lead to prison time, a fine or
both, according to Title 18, Chapter 11, Section 211
of the United States Code.
The jobs in question? Secretary of the Navy and a
position within the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The favor requested in return? Withdrawal
from Senate challenges to two sitting United States Senators, both Democrats
supported by President Obama. The Senators are Arlen Specter in
On Friday, Pennsylvania Congressman Joe
Sestak, the Democrat challenging Specter for re-nomination, launched the
controversy by accusing the Obama White House of offering him a federal job in
exchange for his agreeing to abandon his race against Specter.
In August of 2009, the Denver Post reported last September,
Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina "offered specific
suggestions" for a job in the Obama Administration to Colorado Democrat
Andrew Romanoff, a former state House Speaker, if Romanoff would agree to
abandon a nomination challenge to U.S. Senator Michael Bennet. Bennet was
appointed to the seat upon the resignation of then-Senator Ken Salazar after
Salazar was appointed by Obama to serve as Secretary of the Interior. According
to the Post, the specific job
mentioned was in the U.S. Agency for International Development. The Post cited "several sources who
described the communication to The Denver Post."
The paper also describes
Sestak is standing by his story. Romanoff
refused to discuss it with the
In an interview with Philadelphia television anchor Larry Kane,
who broke the story on Larry Kane: Voice
of Reason, a Comcast Network show, Sestak says someone -- unnamed
-- in the Obama White House offered him a federal job if he would quit the
Senate race against Specter, the latter having the support of President Obama,
Vice President Biden and, in the state itself, outgoing Democratic Governor Ed
Rendell. Both Biden and Rendell are longtime friends of Specter, with Biden
taking personal credit for convincing Specter to leave the Republican Party and
switch to the Democrats. Rendell served as a deputy to Specter when the future
senator's career began as
Asked Kane of Sestak in the Comcast
interview:
"Is it true that you were offered a
high ranking job in the administration in a bid to get you to drop out of the
primary against Arlen Specter?"
"Yes" replied Sestak.
Kane: "Was it Secretary of the
Navy?"
To which the Congressman replied:
"No comment."
Sestak is a retired Navy admiral.
In the
The Post
also noted that the day after Romanoff announced his Senate candidacy,
President Obama quickly announced his endorsement of Senator Bennet.
The discovery that the White House has now
been reported on two separate occasions in two different states to be
deliberately committing a potential violation of federal law -- in order to
preserve the Democrats' Senate majority -- could prove explosive in this highly
political year. The 60-seat majority slipped to 59 seats with the death of
Senator Edward Kennedy, a Democrat, and the election of Republican Senator
Scott Brown. Many political analysts are suggesting Democrats could lose enough
seats to lose their majority altogether.
This is the stuff of congressional
investigations and cable news alerts, as an array of questions will inevitably
start being asked of the Obama White House.
Here are but a few lines of inquiry, some
inevitably straight out of Watergate.
* Who in the White House had this
conversation with Congressman Sestak?
* Did Deputy Chief of Staff Messina have
the same conversation with Sestak he is alleged to have had with Romanoff --
and has he or anyone else on the White House staff had similar conversations
with other candidates that promise federal jobs for political favors?
* They keep logs of these calls. How
quickly will they be produced?
* How quickly would e-mails between the
White House, Sestak, Specter, Romanoff and Bennet be produced?
* Secretary of the Navy is an important
job. Did this job offer or the reported offer of the US AID position to
Romanoff have the approval of President Obama or Vice President Biden?
* What did the President know and when did
he know it?
Page 3 of 4)
* What did the Vice President know and
when did he know it? (Note: Vice President Biden, in this tale, is Specter's
longtime friend who takes credit for luring Specter to switch parties. Can it
really be that an offer of Secretary of the Navy to get Sestak out of Specter's
race would not be known and or approved by the Vice President? Does
* What did White House Chief of Staff Rahm
Emanuel know, and when did he know it?
* What did Congressman Sestak know and
when did he know it? Was he aware that the offer of a federal job in return for
a political favor -- his withdrawal from the Senate race -- could open the
White House to a criminal investigation?
* What did Senator Specter know about any
of this and when did he know it? .
* What did Governor Rendell, who, as the
titular leader of Pennsylvania Democrats, is throwing his political weight and
machine to his old friend Specter, know about this? And when did he know it?
* Will the Department of Justice be
looking into these two separate news stories, one supplied by a sitting United
States Congressman, that paint a clear picture of jobs for political favors?
* Will Attorney General Holder recuse himself from such an investigation?
While in recent years there have been
bribery scandals that centered on the exchange of favors for a business deal
(Democrat William Jefferson, a Louisiana Congressman) or cash for earmarks
(Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham), the idea of
violating federal law by offering a federal job in return for a political favor
(leaving two hotly contested Senate races in this instance) is not new.
Let's go back in history for a moment.
It's the spring of 1960, in the middle of
a bitter fight for the Democratic presidential nomination between then Senators
John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, Stuart Symington and the 1952
and 1956 nominee, ex-Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson.
Covering the campaign for what would
become the grandfather of all political campaign books was journalist and JFK
friend Theodore H. White. In his book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the President 1960,
published in 1961, White tells the story of a plane flight with JFK on the
candidate's private plane The Caroline.
The nomination fight is going on at a furious pace, and White and Kennedy are
having another of their innumerable private chats for White's book while the
plane brings JFK back from a campaign swing where he spoke to delegates in
The subject? Let's let White tell the story.
The conversation began in a burst of
anger. A story had appeared in a
Let's focus on that JFK line again:
"It is a federal offense, he
said, to offer any man a federal job in return for a favor."
With a fine and jail time attached if
convicted.
What Larry Kane discovered with the
response of Congressman Sestak -- and Sestak is sticking to his story --
combined with what the Denver Post
has previously reported in the Romanoff case -- appears to be a series of
connecting dots.
A connecting of dots -- by Democrats --
that leads from
And possibly the jail
house.
"It is a federal offense," said
John F. Kennedy, "to offer any man a federal job in return for a
favor."
And so it is.