Sestak: White House Offered Me Job To Get Me Out Of Senate Race

This isn't really news. If you want to hear about these kinds of deals directly from the mouth of a President, go and listen to the LBJ tapes when it broadcasts on C-SPAN radio, as it does every week.

If true, I don't think there is anything *remotely* wrong with this.

Why on Earth would the White House want to discourage a primary challenge of Specter? We can't trust Specter. We should be trying to replace him with a better option.

... or maybe they just offered him a job because he's a highly-qualified, capable, and dedicated public servant with a long record of ethical service. The connecting-of-dots or attribution of motives (oh, they just wanted him out of the race against Specter) seems a little fishy.

Does this even fit the definition of quid pro quo?

Not sure how much I really care. The WH long ago agreed to back Specter when he decided to switch parties. Now if Sestak was hoping the WH would change it's mind and back him this little revelation kills all hope of this ever happening.

Here's why they made the deal - Specter would have lost the primary to Toomey and Toomey could potentially beat any Democrat. No Dem could beat Specter, so no top Dems would get in the race just in case he won the GOP primary.

The Hope is Specter can keep enough of his moderate/centrist support while the odiousness of Toomey will rally enough Democrats to vote against Toomey if not for Specter.

However Sestak is the wrench in this because he's forced Specter to go hard left, which makes it easier for Toomey to attack Specter as a pure opportunist. If Sestak wasn't primarying Specter, he's trend left would have been much more gradual as to not make his moderate Republican supporters really notice a difference.

This turned into a vanity run for Sestak. He knows his political career is over, and likely his public career as there will be no administration jobs for him anymore. He's got to go all in now.

A few questions, which may be obvious to you, but to non-lawyers are maybe gray to a few folks out there.

Didn't Don Siegleman get put in jail for something similar? I know Blagoiovich was literally selling the seat, but isn't the principle something like: you aren't allowed to use your official office duties to extract personal favors?

i.e. giving jobs away to people who give you money, or selling jobs?

I guess my question is how do you draw the line on what is an illegal "return" for giving away jobs/contracts? It seems that it should be illegal for the WH to explicitly say "If you drop out of this primary we will give you a job."

Surely, a job offer would have this sort of implicit meaning, but doesn't it make a "quid pro quo" when you start attaching conditions to jobs? That doesn't really seem on the up-and-up. I think the line you have to skate is that you can't explicitly make the sort of "favor for a favor" deals that Sestak is accusing the WH of.

Is the act of not running in a primary not capable of forming part of a "quid pro quo"? As another sort of example, could Obama offer a WH job to his neighbor so that his neighbor would not paint his house in Chicago a color that displeased the President? Where exactly is the line drawn on what is an illegal "return" on the giveaway of jobs?

This is where my understanding of our supposed system of gov't breaks down. Once I learned about how lobbyists can spend all their time giving favors and raising funds for politicians and asking for favorable actions - and how that is LEGAL and not considered bribery, I've been confused. Our whole system really comes down to a ton of bribery, but it isn't called that in polite circles.

Here again, we have example of how it is possible to use the power given to you by your office to extract personal favors, and you all cheer it on as good and needed. I think that the WH should have a strategy for elections, but I don't like them making explicit offers of favors to meddle in local elections. It may be that Sestak is making this up, but I think it is most likely true.

Politicians are disliked because they get into power to do these types of deals. They're called "power moves" and "playing politics," but for the most part people distrust politicians because they see them as power hungry self-servers, who abuse their authority to benefit themselves.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has launched a probe into Representative Sestak's ties to United Farm and Commercial Workers' (UFCW) Union Local 1776 President Wendell Young IV. The FBI strongly suspects that Sestak accepted bribes from Young IV in 2006. The FBI is also delving onto other alleged violaions of federal law committed by Sestak and Young IV. The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) has also underatken an inquiry into Representative Sestak's conduct (including his illegal use of the seal of the U.S. House of Representatives on campaign literature - see Talking Points Memo May 27, 2009).

Sestak is aware of these ongoing investigations, and is determined to obstruct them if possible. Sestak hopes a deal can be struck: he will bring his Senate bid to a halt (and stop making imprudent remarks) if the White House and influential Democrats intercede on his behalf with the Justice Department. It is desperate ploy by a desperate man. In the meantime, any funds raised in his Senate bid can be deposited by Sestak in a Legal Defense Fund at a later date.

Many high-level Sestak staffers have resigned in recent weeks - including his Political Director and Communicaions Director. These staffers feared that an FBI raid or arrest was imminent, and acted accordingly. This fear of impending FBI action could be what has prompted Sestak's sudden criticism of Obama. If an arrest, raid, etc., were to occur, Sestak has now laid the groundwork for a public defense. "The charges are baseless, it is simply revenge on the part of the Obama White House."

At any rate, the political career of Joe Sestak is destined to end as his military career did: in utter disgrace.