In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder today, all seven Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee "urge the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Congressman Joe Sestak's claim that a White House official offered him a job to induce him to exit the Pennsylvania Senate primary race against Senator Arlen Specter."
The seven – Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Jon Kyl or Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma – allege that the offer would appear to violate federal criminal laws, including 18 U.S.C. 600, which prohibits promising a government position “as consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity” or “in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any political office.”
Rep. Sestak, D-Penn., who defeated Specter in the primary last week, told Comcast’s Larry Kane in February that the White House had offered him a position in exchange for not challenging Specter. White House senior adviser David Axelrod said on Monday that White House lawyers had looked into it and judged everything “perfectly appropriate.”
CNN’s John King suggested to Axelrod that such a job offer “marches up into the gray area, perhaps into the red area of a felony. It is a felony to induce somebody by offering them a job.”
Indeed it is a felony. And since offering Sestak a job would likely have needed Rahm Emmanuel's approval and possibly Obama's it might just end up being an impeachable offense...depending on the all important answers to the question 'what did the President know and when did he know it' and whether the GOP ends up controlling the House and the Senate after the midterms.
What prompted this letter was a brush off reply from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Welch to Rep. Darrell Issa, (R-CA) who wrote a letter asking the justice department to appoint one.
The senators wrote to Holder that they “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.”
Even some Democrats like Dick Durbin and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell are insisting on getting to the bottom of this one, and I'm not sure how long the White House can continue to stonewall. Either Sestak is an out and out liar or someone in the Obama White House, possibly even reaching as far as the president made a serious error.
Like Watergate, the nasty stuff may hit the fan after the election.
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