Sestak or Gibbs? Someone is lying.
I know where I’d put my money.
[Update a few minutes later]
As usual, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover up. And why am I not shocked that there’s a Clinton involved?
[Update a few more minutes later]
I, like everyone else, expect a White House release on this late this afternoon. It’s merely a coincidence that it’s a Friday just before a three-day weekend.
[Update a while later]
Well, the WH PR staff blew it. You’re supposed to release these things late in the afternoon, after it’s impossible to get hold of anyone to ask questions, not in the morning.
[Update a few minutes later]
Republicans are skeptical. So am I. All this does is raise more questions (like why did Sestak say “someone in the White House,” which Bill Clinton hasn’t been for almost a decade).
[Update a while later]
Well, now that they’ve had time to coordinate their stories, Sestak confirms it. Even though it’s not what he said the first time.
Lying then, or lying now? I know where my money is.
[Update a few minutes later]
The Sestak smell test. And why did the White House contact Sestak’s (lawyer) brother yesterday?
Oh, what a tangled web we weave…
[Late morning update]
Jonah Goldberg isn’t buying it, either:
If it wasn’t a job offer but instead was some third-rate perk, he shouldn’t have pretended otherwise to seem like the one honest man in the whorehouse of politics. I hope he gets hounded by local press asking him to explain the disconnect. Something like: “You said you were offered a job to get out of the race. This wasn’t a job. Were you exaggerating then or are you lying now?”
Again, I know where I’d put my money.
How about they’re both lying? Whatever I might have thought about Sestak before, he’s proven to be nothing but a self-serving pol. Which is probably how he became an Admiral in the first place.
The office of Robert F. Bauer, the White House counsel, has concluded that Mr. Emanuel’s proposal did not violate laws prohibiting government employees from promising employment as a reward for political activity because the position being offered was unpaid.
So they are now telling us this wasn’t a mistake or just poor judgment, we now have intent.
Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
The fact that the position was unpaid is irreverent. So, does Rahm take the fall for the president?
Irrelevant, although I suppose it could be irreverent as well.
Uh-oh. “Skeptical” is a bad word now, remember?
Yes, “skeptical” is obviously a synonym for “racist.”
They’re both right.
Sestak was offered a job.
Gibbs doesn’t know anything, and he has nothing to add.
Which basically just proves that Gibbs wasn’t the one who offered him the job – it was someone else. And Gibbs is being deliberately kept in the dark so he can’t blab it by accident.
Frankly, I’m with Mickey Kaus in thinking the only scandal is that it’s illegal in the first place.
(It’s amusing to see how amateurishly it’s being handled, though.)
Also, if the memo is accurate about the position offered, as an Executive Advisory Board member, it’d be in compliance with the law anyway.
The law in question requires the position/etc. be made possibly “in whole or in part by any Act of Congress”.
Congress doesn’t create Executive Advisory Boards, does it? Everything I can find suggests that they are wholly creatures of the Executive, created and disbanded at the President’s whim by Executive Order.
Thus, it looks like there’s not really anything there, there.
So Sestak considered an unpaid board position to be a “job”, and the White House doesn’t. No one is lying, and no one broke any laws.
Also, if the memo is accurate about the position offered, as an Executive Advisory Board member, it’d be in compliance with the law anyway.
That’s a very big “if.” It sure sounds like Sestak is changing his tune.
So an unpaid seat on an obscure Executive Advisory Board is shiny enough to make a man forget about running for the Senate.
Would you believe, forget about running for the House?
Running for dogcatcher?
The water for a bath?
“So Sestak considered an unpaid board position to be a “job”, and the White House doesn’t. No one is lying, and no one broke any laws.”
Yeah right, no laws were broken. Huge ripples of stupid are propagating through space-time, but no laws were broken . . .
And O.J. is innocent.
“Were you exaggerating then or are you lying now?”
Yes.
Wow! Jim could be a reporter for a prestigious major newspaper or news organization.
It is interesting watching the dance to get all the ducks in row. So Bill Clinton happens to talk to the guy with a meaningless offer (nothing else offered of course) and everyone’s lawyers are having meetings about it.
So Sestak considered an unpaid board position to be a “job”, and the White House doesn’t. No one is lying, and no one broke any laws.
Even if it is true that the attempted bribe was legal, due to the unpaid nature of the job, it is another bit of bad judgment.
I would guess they had an opening offer and a reserve offer, and we’re being told only about the opening offer. Kind of like a husband who comes home at 1 AM may insist the boss asked him to work late — while neglecting to mention the fact that after the boss left at 10 PM he was doing his secretary on the boss’s desk.
A little lie of omission, that is.