“Your silly laws do not apply to undocumented illegals.”
Posted on 05/28/2010 4:43:51 PM PDT by onyx
May 28th 2010 — Posted to News Flash
So how did it happen? How did a straightforward question and blunt answer bring anxiety to the White House? I’ll tell you the story.For over three months now, friends and others have asked me to recount the events of February 18th of this year, when a single question from me to Congressman Joe Sestak unleashed a controversy that remains to this day. Is it a political issue? Is it illegal? I can’t answer those questions, but I can tell you how casually it all happened, and what basis I had for asking the question,
“Were you ever offered a job to get out of this race? (The contest against Arlen Specter).
Sestak didn’t flinch .
“Yes,” he answered.
“Was it Navy Secretary?”, I asked
“No comment.”
He proceeded to talk about staying in the race but added that “he was called many times” to pull out.
Later, I asked, “So you were offered a job by someone in the White House?”
He said, “Yes.”
When the taping stopped, Joe Sestak looked surprised .
“You are the first person who ever asked me that question.”
And that was true. But why was I the first. There was buzz about this story since last summer. A few days before the February 18th taping of Voice Of Reason for The Comcast Network, I was advised by two reliable sources that someone in or close to the White House had dangled a high level job offer to Sestak, to give a clear path to Senator Specter for the nomination. I thought it would be a good thing to pose the question to Sestak in the upcoming interview.
The Sestak interview was the second in this contest. I interviewed Specter a week before.
I prepared for the program with an outline of questions. But on that Thursday I was having a very hectic day. I was a little overwhelmed with work. I forgot to put the question in my outline. Suddenly, with 90 seconds left, I remembered!
The news business can have moments that are so unpredictable. I knew the questionwas a good one, based on some really good sources, but I was flabbergasted when Sestak said “Yes.” There was no hesitation. No delay. He just said, “Yes.”
As the Congressman left the building, there was an obvious dilemma. The show wouldn’t are till Sunday the 21st. The story could be big. I called Comcast executes. With their blessing, I broke the story with an audio interview on KYW Newsradio. But first there was work to do. I needed a White House response.
I called the White House Press Office. I played the interview for the individual who answered the phone. She said someone would call me back. A few minutes later, another individual called. She said the White House would call back with a reaction “shortly.” That was 3:45 in the afternoon.
The report aired all night without a White House response.
At 6:45 the next morning, 15 hours later, a Deputy Press Secretary called. She said, “You can say the White House says it’s not true.”
A similar call was placed to the Inquirer’s Tom Fitzgerald. Tom was in the studio during the show taping. He was following Sestak around, working on a feature story. He took the story to page one of the Friday Inquirer.
A few days ago, both of us were still wondering why it took the White House 15 hours to issue a simple denial.
The rest is history, peculiar history. The “job offer” story never became an issue in the campaign although some would suggest the story played well to Sestak’s argument that he was a real Democratic independent.
But on May 19th, a day after his upset victory over Specter, the February interview became an internet hit. Republcans, arguing that it may have been a crime to offer a job in return for a withdrawal from a political contest. Democrats, only recently, called for the truth on this story. The President, saying nothing was improper, promised a White House statement “shortly.”
The entire episode, now broadcast and printed around the nation, is also a popular item on the web.
There are several things I want you to know. I’m surprised that Washington reporters never asked the question in the first place, I’m surprised that Sestak answered so quickly when I posed the question.
But most of all, I’m stunned that a rather simple question, turned into a political firestorm. You never really know where the pursuit of news will take you.
The story may not be over. Republicans will want more than just a White House counsel’s report.
But the beginning to this saga may be more interesting than the end.
One thing I do know is that, as the question was being asked, Joe Sestak never hesitated. In a split second, he just said, “yes.”
“Your silly laws do not apply to undocumented illegals.”
The February 18, 2010 beginning when the question was first asked.
The list, ping
PENN AG TOM CORBETT SHOULD EMPANEL GRAND JURY IN SESTAK AFFAIR
By DICK MORRIS AND JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO
Published on DickMorris.com on May 27, 2010
With a Democratic Attorney General in Washington, a Democratic president, and both houses of Congress solidly in Democratic control, it is obviously futile to hope that the possible bribery of Joe Sestak to induce him to withdraw from the Senate race against Arlen Specter will be fully investigated. But, as the facts of this scandal grudgingly emerge from the White House and from Congressman Sestak, there is an alternative way to pursue justice.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General, Tom Corbett — who is the Republican nominee for Governor this year — has ample jurisdiction to convene a grand jury to get to the bottom of the scandal and answer the key questions:
1. Who offered a job to Sestak?
2. What job was proffered?
3. And did the president know of the offer?
Corbett’s jurisdiction stems from the concept of universal jurisdiction, now accepted virtually everywhere. The concept is simple. If someone on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River fires a pistol across the Hudson and the bullet from the pistol hits someone on the NY side, where did the crime take place? For about 600 years, the answer would have been in NY, where the harm was caused. Under the Reagan administration, and in response to urgings from the Meese Justice Department, the courts began to accept the doctrine of universal jurisdiction. This principle gives jurisdiction to law enforcement in the place wherever any act occurred that may have resulted in a crime. Thus, under our scenario above, the shooter could be prosecuted in NJ or NY.
Thus, if Cong. Sestak was in one of his homes, in PA or VA, when he received a telephone call offering him a job if he withdrew from the PA Senate primary against Sen. Arlen Specter, law enforcement authorities in PA and VA — both of which have Republican state Attorneys General — can subpoena Cong. Sestak to testify before a state grand jury and compel him to answer the who, what, when, and where that everyone has a right to know.
The people of the United States and, particularly the people of Pennsylvania, want these questions to be answered honestly. They will not settle for a Democratic stonewall that refuses to let the truth emerge.
Under our federal system, we need not tolerate giving one party the power to be the prosecutor, judge, defendant, defense attorney, and jury. We can open the process to checks and balances.
Corbett should make it possible for the truth to emerge by convening a grand jury and summoning Sestak, Emanuel, and anyone else who may have been involved to answer questions under oath.
Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick’s columns!
PLEASE FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY
THANK YOU!
SESTAK SCANDAL GROWS...AND STILL STINKS
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on DickMorris.com on May 28, 2010
The New York Times revealed this afternoon that anonymous sources have informed it that Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel asked former President Bill Clinton to offer Congressman Joe Sestak a high but unpaid advisory post in the Administration if he would drop out of the Senate race against Senator Arlen Specter. One post mentioned was service on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.
The idea was to immunize Obama and Rahm from possible criminal prosecution by using Clinton, not a government employee, as a cut out and to keep the offer to an unpaid job in hopes of not running afoul of the federal bribery statute.
But these evasions will not blunt the force of the law. If Clinton acted at Emanuel’s request, he was Rahm’s agent and the Chief of Staff is still on the hook. And, an unpaid position is still “something of value” within the meaning of the bribery statute which prohibits the offering of something of value in return for a vote.
And, remember why they wanted Sestak out of the race. The White House needed Specter’s vote to kill filibusters and could only get it if he would switch parties, a move he conditioned on getting Sestak to drop out and assure him a clear field for the nomination of his new party. So the bribe offer to Sestak was made by an agent of a government employee, it involved something of value, and it was to procure a vote in the Senate — all the elements needed for a felony to have taken place.
In a previous column (read it at DickMorris.com) Dick and Fox News Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano suggest that Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, now the Republican nominee for Governor, should empanel a grand jury to get to the bottom of this affair. Today’s revelation makes this ever more urgent.
Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick’s columns!
PLEASE FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY
THANK YOU!
Simple. Obama is Guilty and must be IMPEACHED!!!
Because it's hard for the main stream media to ask questions when they have their faces stuck to Obama's ass.
bookmark.
Someone needs to ask ARLEN if he was Promised that no one would run against him!!!!!
So, Clinton is willing to commit perjury again?! Who will end up throwing who under the bus before this is over? Sestak said someone from the WH offered him a job; Clinton is not someone from the WH.
Clinton is the whore to end all whores.
The “explanation” put forth by the WH and Sesrak is hardly credible.
WHAT TOOK SO LONG?
THIS?
COME ON. NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND IS GONNA BELIEVE THAT SHIT!
Sestak took no time to answer yes, because he was telling the truth. The Whore House response of ‘not reall a crime, but yes we sort of sent the scumbag sinkEmperor to test the waters’ took a week, so far, and had to be preceded by a one-on-one between Barry the bastard and sinkEmperor the degenerate liar. Democrats are so colorful.
Go after the phone records.
D.C. job alleged as attempt to deter Romanoff (0bama Regime offers job to drop out of Sen. race in CO Sep. 27, '09)Sestak-gate: White House Offered Romanoff Job, Too (A Impeachable Firestorm is Brewing) (May 26, '10)
White House Accused of Federal Crime in Specter, Bennet Races
For the second time in five months, the Obama White House is being accused -- by Democrats -- of offering high ranking government jobs in return for political favors. What no one is reporting is that this is a violation of federal law that can lead to prison time, a fine or both, according to Title 18, Chapter 11, Section 211 of the United States Code.
The jobs in question? Secretary of the Navy and a position within the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The favor requested in return? Withdrawal from Senate challenges to two sitting United States Senators, both Democrats supported by President Obama. The Senators are Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania and Michael Bennet in Colorado.
Did Obama Offer Sestak A Bribe?
Michele Bachmann's Comments On Larry King Live Send Denver Columnist Into Near-Seizure
(Obama’s attempt to persuade Representative Jim Matheson to change his vote on Obama-care)
how can you impeach someone who is not legally the president?
Also, check all involved and all their bank account records too. Was anybody paid off? If so, when and how much?
Bump!
Who ya gonna believe?
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