Obama Calls in Lawyer for Sestak Questions

In a memo written by White House Counsel Robert Bauer, the Obama administration broke its silence today on whether someone offered a job to U.S. Senate candidate Joe Sestak to keep him from running against incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.).

Bauer writes in the two-page memo that former President Bill Clinton, acting at the request of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, discussed the possibility of an unpaid advisory job with Sestak. Under the proposal described by Bauer, Sestak, a Democratic congressman, would have run for reelection and not challenged Specter, but Sestak declined.

Before joining the White House in December, Bauer was the longtime head of the election law practice at Perkins Coie, and his memo argues that a president and his staff have legitimate interests as the leaders of his political party.

“There have been numerous, reported instances in the past when prior Administrations — both Democratic and Republican, and motivated by the same goals — discussed alternative paths to service for qualified individuals also considering campaigns for public office,” Bauer writes. “Such discussions are fully consistent with the relevant law and ethical requirements.”

Before today, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Senior Adviser David Axelrod had been speaking for the White House on questions about the job offer, though they had been declining to give details. Click here (PDF) for a copy of Bauer’s two-page memo.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who has called for a Justice Department special prosecutor to investigate the matter, said in a statement that Clinton and Sestak still have questions to answer.

“The White House has admitted today to coordinating an arrangement that would represent an illegal quid pro quo, as federal law prohibits directly or indirectly offering any position or appointment, paid or unpaid, in exchange for favors connected with an election,” Issa said.

Comments

[jordan 3]

The sands in your way beg for your song and your movement, dancing water. will you carry the burden of their lameness? Do you understand?

[Redmanjohn]

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. What fun Will Rogers, Mark Twain, Lysander Spooner and the sage from Baltimore would have had with this. Glen Beck ain't up to it and reviles the proponent of the best way to address it, Saul Alinsky, namely ridicule.

[G. Huxoll]

Obama called in a lawyer, all right ... to support the administration's story. This memo has absolutely no legal analysis, nor does it provide any information about the supposed investigation into the facts. Where's the discussion of the statute that seemingly was violated here (18 U.S.C. 600)? Although the official White House stance appears to be that the statute wasn't violated because the position that Clinton reportedly discussed with Sestak was unpaid, and perhaps also that the conversations were with Clinton rather than directly with an administration official, those facts still would seem to fall within the ambit of the statutory language. To me, there's nothing in Mr. Bauer's memo that supports his conclusion that “[s]uch discussions are fully consistent with the relevant law and ethical requirements.” Interestingly, this conclusion follows a statement to the effect that Obama is not the first president to engage in such conduct. Surely, that's not the basis for Mr. Bauer's conclusion?