Whoopsie - White House Offered CO Senate Candidate A Job To Quit Primary!

This is getting ridiculous. First Joe Sestak and now this:

The White House acknowledged Thursday that it made overtures to Colorado U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff about a possible administration job as it was trying to steer him away from a primary challenge against Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet.

The statement by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs came the day after Romanoff revealed that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina offered to consider Romanoff for three posts as an alternative to his Senate campaign.

They're trying to spin it by claiming Romanoff had applied for a position with USAid during the presidential transition, but that has absolutely no bearing on the White House offering him a position later - after he was already in the Senate primary.

This is, quite simply a federal crime, an offer of something of value contingent on someone's political activity:

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 under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

Not only did Romanoff name names, but he actually released an e-mail he got from Messina last year describing the positions they had in mind for him.

Now, here's the intriguing part.

Obviously, Rahm Emmanuel was involved, since no deputy Chief of Staff would do this on his own. And if Rahm Emmanuel was involved, it's likely he received his orders directly from Obama, just like with Sestak.

Given that there's a distinct possibility of a clear line to the president here, one has to wonder why they didn't get to Romanoff before hand and offer him an inducement to keep his mouth shut.

And I also wonder how far up the chain of command this is going to end up reaching before someone facing prison time and a fine decides not to fall on his sword and starts talking.

Unlike Gordon Liddy, these people are not particulary noted for loyalty or courage.

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