The Sestak case

Interesting news coming out of this one -- from FOX News:

Something Stinks At the White House
When it comes to the continuing Sestak scandal, the White House is up to their eyeballs in a cover-up. Major Garrett, Fox News' chief White House correspondent flat-out asked the president to come clean at his press conference yesterday. He asked what did the White House know, when did they know it and who participated in conversations with regard to Congressman Sestak being offered a job in exchange for him agreeing not to challenge Senator Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania's primary.

The president refused to answer Major�s question and instead promised that the White House would have a response soon.

The president knew full well that the strategy was to release the shocking revelation that former President Clinton spoke with Congressman Sestak on the Friday of the long Memorial Day weekend and at a time he knew that the media would be focused almost exclusively on his trip to the Gulf for the BP oil spill disaster. The president himself is now participating in a cover up. It has long been the practice of presidential administrations to release damaging news on a weekend or better yet a holiday weekend when the public's attention is elsewhere, hoping that the bad news would pass without major exposure.

The Sestak story -- like most scandals -- gets worse everyday with the dribs and drabs of information. The bombshell that a former president, who himself was steeped in scandal and was impeached for lying, would be called upon to strong arm a Democratic Congressman into not running in a primary is outrageous. President Clinton is also a lawyer and should have known better.

In a few weeks, the timeline will be well known. White House telephone and visitor logs are a matter of public record. The nut of the issue is that it violates Title 18, Chapter 11, Section 211 of the United States Code to whit:

Acceptance or solicitation to obtain appointive public office
Whoever solicits or receives, either as a political contribution, or for personal emolument, any money or 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.

Whoever solicits or receives any thing of value in consideration of aiding a person to obtain employment under the United States either by referring his name to an executive department or agency of the United States or by requiring the payment of a fee because such person has secured such employment shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both. This section shall not apply to such services rendered by an employment agency pursuant to the written request of an executive department or agency of the United States.

Pretty straightforward and well said. Sestak said that someone from the White House offered him a job if he would drop out of the Pennsylvania Senate race running against Spector. The spin that is flying out of the White House is a delight to watch -- if they had just come clean and admitted that they goofed up, this would have blown over and everything would be back to normal. Now that they are trying to alter the facts, this little boil is going to fester and rot and provide hours of public entertainment when it finally bursts. Could not have happened to a nicer regieme...