From Politico.com

An alert from:

Politics, Political News - POLITICO.com.

The White House used former President William Jefferson Clinton as an intermediary (a go between) to Representation Joe Sestak regarding the possibility of Mr. Sestak taking an uncompensated (unpaid for brain dead and uninformed repuglicant's) position with the Obama Administration.

Politics, Political News - POLITICO.com.

Bill Bauer, White House Council confirms that Rom Emanuel (One of the best friends repugs have in the Obama White House) asked former President Clinton as a go between for the White House regarding the Pennsylvania Demoratic Senatorial Primary.

Vice-Admiral (3-Star) Sestak was open to challenging then DINO Arlen Spector in the Dem. Primary.

Spector lost. Sestak won.

The position offered Mr. Sestak was UN-PAID. NO MONEY.

Sorry Repugs. No money. No Harm....No Foul.
 
Well, I'm glad someone as obviously brilliant as yourself has investigated and conlcuded that all is Kosher.

And by the way genius... it's RAHM..... not Rom.
 
Can you name an unpaid position in the administration?

And can you honestly claim that such a position has no value just because it's unpaid?

Amazing that Bill is willing to fall on the sword like this. Wonder what he got in return.
 
I am sure the repubs will try to make a big deal out of this. But they wil have to ask the Tea Party for permission first!
 
The morandum:

MEMORANDUM FROM ROBERT F. BAUER, WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL

SUBJECT: Review of Discussions Relating to Congressman Sestak Recent press reports have reflected questions and speculation about discussions between White House staff and Congressman Joe Sestak in relation to his plans to run for the United States Senate. Our office has reviewed those discussions and claims made about them, focusing in particular on the suggestion that government positions may have been improperly offered to the Congressman to dissuade him from pursuing a Senate candidacy.

We have concluded that allegations of improper conduct rest on factual errors and lack a basis in the law.

Secretary of the Navy. It has been suggested that the Administration may have offered Congressman Sestak the position of Secretary of the Navy in the hope that he would accept the offer and abandon a Senate candidacy. This is false. The President announced his intent to nominate Ray Mabus to be Secretary of the Navy on March 26,2009, over a month before Senator Specter announced that he was becoming a member of the Democratic Party in late April. Mabus was confirmed in May. At no time was Congressman Sestak offered, nor did he seek, the position of Secretary of the Navy.

Uncompensated Advisory Board Options. We found that, as the Congressman has publicly and accurately stated, options for Executive Branch service were raised with him. Efforts were made in June and July of 2009 to determine whether Congressman Sestak would be interested in service on a Presidential or other Senior Executive Branch Advisory Board, which would avoid a divisive Senate primary, allow him to retain his seat in the House, and provide him with an opportunity for additional service to the public in a high-level advisory capacity for which he was highly qualified. The advisory positions discussed with Congressman Sestak, while important to the work of the Administration, would have been uncompensated.

White House staff did not discuss these options with Congressman Sestak. The White House Chief of Staff enlisted the support of former President Clinton who agreed to raise with Congressman Sestak options of service on a Presidential or other Senior Executive Branch Advisory Board. Congressman Sestak declined the suggested alternatives, remaining committed to his Senate candidacy.

Relationship to Senate Campaign. It has been suggested that discussions of alternatives to the Senate campaign were improperly raised with the Congressman. There was no such impropriety. The Democratic Party leadership had a legitimate interest in averting a divisive primary fight and a similarly legitimate concern about the Congressman vacating his seat in the House. By virtue of his career in public service, including distinguished military service, Congressman Sestak was viewed to be highly qualified to hold a range of advisory positions in which he could, while holding his House seat, have additional responsibilities of considerable potential interest to him and value to the Executive Branch.

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. Such discussions are fully consistent with the relevant law and ethical requirements.


Memorandum from White House Counsel Regarding the Review of Discussions Relating to Congressman Sestak | The White House


I'm filing this with the Al Gore "no controlling legal authority" defense.
 
anybody here still believe a word that comes out of this administration? go throw yourself under da bus. :lol::lol::lol:
 
I don't know about Politico.com, but in reading the actual pertinent law myself I discovered the following:

Hatch Act- August 2, 1939

SEC. 3. It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, to promise any employment, position, work, compensation, or other benefit, provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress, to give consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party in any election.

Since the position offered, which was an advisory position on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, was not in fact "made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress" (the IAB was created by presidential executive order during the Ford administration), no law has been broken.

In addition, section 9, which would be the other applicable section, contains an exception for the President himself and his cabinet. To wit:

SEC. 9. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person employed in the executive branch of the Federal Government, or any agency or department thereof, to use his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering ;with an election or affecting the result thereof. No officer or employee in the executive branch of the Federal Government, or any agency or department thereof, shall take any active part in political management or in political campaigns. All such persons shall retain the right to vote as they may choose and to express their opinions on all political subjects. For the purposes of this section the term "officer" or "employee" shall not be construe to include (1) the President and the Vice Presdent of the United States; (2) persons whose compensation is paid from the appropriation for the office of the President;

Looks like the right-wingers have been led on yet another wild goose chase.
 
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I hope it's one of those really long articulated busses - or else they've got to be running out of room by now.
 
I don't know about Politico.com, but in reading the actual pertinent law myself I discovered the following:

Hatch Act- August 2, 1939

SEC. 3. It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, to promise any employment, position, work, compensation, or other benefit, provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress, to give consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party in any election.

Since the position offered, which was an advisory position on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, was not in fact "made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress" (the IAB was created by presidential executive order during the Ford administration), no law has been broken.

In addition, section 9, which would be the other applicable section, contains an exception for the President himself and his cabinet. To wit:

SEC. 9. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person employed in the executive branch of the Federal Government, or any agency or department thereof, to use his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering ;with an election or affecting the result thereof. No officer or employee in the executive branch of the Federal Government, or any agency or department thereof, shall take any active part in political management or in political campaigns. All such persons shall retain the right to vote as they may choose and to express their opinions on all political subjects. For the purposes of this section the term "officer" or "employee" shall not be construe to include (1) the President and the Vice Presdent of the United States; (2) persons whose compensation is paid from the appropriation for the office of the President;

Looks like the right-wingers have been led on yet another wild goose chase.

That barely passes the smell test, much less the laugh test.
The position was authorized by Congress through the budget process (even unpaid positions arent free).
If Bush had done that there would be screams for impeachment and investigation. In that order.
 
That barely passes the smell test, much less the laugh test.
The position was authorized by Congress through the budget process (even unpaid positions arent free).
If Bush had done that there would be screams for impeachment and investigation. In that order.

And the Bush White House would have brushed it off and moved on, like they did with the hundreds of other accusations against them.

Just because lefties did the same type of bullshit doesn't make it right.
 
That barely passes the smell test, much less the laugh test.
The position was authorized by Congress through the budget process (even unpaid positions arent free).
If Bush had done that there would be screams for impeachment and investigation. In that order.

And the Bush White House would have brushed it off and moved on, like they did with the hundreds of other accusations against them.

Just because lefties did the same type of bullshit doesn't make it right.
I dont know what the Bush WH would have done. Neitehr do you.
But it is clearly improper conduct and probably exactly what the Founders had in mind when they included impeachment in the Constitution.
 
If this is what really happened, why didn't they just say this two months ago? Why did they wait until after Clinton had visited the White House, and they had spoken with Sestak's brother/campaign manager?
 
I dont know what the Bush WH would have done. Neitehr do you.
But it is clearly improper conduct and probably exactly what the Founders had in mind when they included impeachment in the Constitution.

LOL. Since the law in question wasn't enacted until 1939 I'd imagine that the founders weren't involved at all.

And no, this is nowhere near an "impeachable" offense. You can all keep hoping that it will somehow magically turn into one, but it's not even close.
 
If this is what really happened, why didn't they just say this two months ago? Why did they wait until after Clinton had visited the White House, and they had spoken with Sestak's brother/campaign manager?

Perhaps they wanted to make sure the primary election was over, to avoid undue influence on the results.
 
I dont know what the Bush WH would have done. Neitehr do you.
But it is clearly improper conduct and probably exactly what the Founders had in mind when they included impeachment in the Constitution.

LOL. Since the law in question wasn't enacted until 1939 I'd imagine that the founders weren't involved at all.

And no, this is nowhere near an "impeachable" offense. You can all keep hoping that it will somehow magically turn into one, but it's not even close.

The actual law is largely irrelevant. The Founders used the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" to cover a large swath of conduct that was unethical and corrosive to the Republic. This certainly counts as that.
 

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