Published May 30, 2010 | FOXNews.com

Friday: Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa. speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill. (AP)

A California congressman who called it an “impeachable” offense for the administration to offer Rep. Joe Sestak a job in exchange for his quitting a Senate bid said Sunday the cover-up, as usual, appears worse than the crime.

Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said the explanation for the Sestak affair — that former President Bill Clinton offered the Democratic congressman an unpaid position on an advisory board if he would drop his challenge against party-switching Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter — is not plausible because as a sitting congressman Sestak couldn’t have served on a presidential commission.

“It’s a crime because they’ve admitted that they offered this position … So that begs the real question. Do we believe this is a further cover-up because he’s — they’re now talking about a job that President Clinton himself should have known Sestak couldn’t take? ” he said.

“They’re now coming up with a nonplausible answer,” Issa said.

On Friday, the White House revealed that Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had asked Clinton to talk to Sestak about a presidential appointment if Sestak would suspend his bid for the Democratic Senate nomination.

Sestak has said repeatedly since February that he was offered a job to drop out of the race, but he declined. He would not reveal the nature of the conversation until after the White House issued its report on Friday.

“If it’s not a crime — and I believe it is — it certainly is business as usual, politics of corruption. The fact is once you’re in power, if you can use our appointments, you can corrupt the process,” Issa said.

Appearing with Issa on Sunday, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said Obama has cleaned up Washington, but he didn’t say “he was going to change every aspect of everything we’ve done.”

“I think Barack Obama has brought a new level of ethical standards to Washington. Has he changed some basic hard-knuckle politics? No. You need hard-knuckle politics to succeed,” Rendell said. “But he’s not perfect. And there are certain things that have to go on to make things work, and this is one of them.”

Rendell said offers of jobs for political cooperation have happened “for time immemorial.”

“I did the same thing in 2006 to ask a former congressman, Joe Hoeffel, to drop out of the race against Bob Casey in the primary,” Rendell said. “I said come back and see me if you do it. He came back and saw me, and he was out of public service. I appointed him as a deputy secretary of commerce. He did a great job.”

Issa said the difference between Rendell’s scenario and the White House action is that Rendell didn’t have a specific offer in exchange in the deal, so therefore did not violate the U.S. law signed by then-President Clinton.

“Ed Rendell is saying this happens all the time. Sure, it happens all the time, things like this. But it’s usually carefully crafted so it doesn’t fall under this kind of quid pro quo,” Issa said.

Issa said Sunday candidate Obama pledged to conduct a transparent administration so he should submit to an FBI review.

“The question is, has this been transparent? No. Has there been stalling? Yes. Is there a possibility that what we’re being told now is not true because it’s not so plausible? Yes. Should there be independent investigation so we can move on? Yes,” Issa told “Fox News Sunday.”

“I don’t want to be investigating this. I don’t want the White House investigating itself. The FBI or the attorney general should see that it’s investigated so the American people can feel they can put this behind them,” he said.

Issa added he would accept the result if an FBI investigation exonerates the White House of an illegal bribe.

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By Dick Morris

05.27.2010

By Dick Morris and Judge Andrew Napolitano

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?

Full Story

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This is an enlightening report by Cato@Liberty. The report is both enlightening and sickening. Read on.

Posted by Doug Bandow

It’s fair to say that civil liberties and limited government were not high on President George W. Bush‘s priorities list.  Indeed, they probably weren’t even on the list.  Candidate Barack Obama promised “change” when he took office, and change we have gotten.  The name of the president is different.

Alas, the policies are much the same.  While it is true that President Obama has not made the same claims of unreviewable monarchical power for the chief executive-an important distinction-he has continued to sacrifice civil liberties for dubious security gains.

Reports the New York Times:

Civil libertarians recently accused President Obama of acting like former President George W. Bush, citing reports about Mr. Obama’s plans to detain terrorism suspects without trials on domestic soil after he closes the Guantánamo prison.

It was only the latest instance in which critics have argued that Mr. Obama has failed to live up to his campaign pledge “to restore our Constitution and the rule of law” and raised a pointed question: Has he, on issues related to fighting terrorism, turned out to be little different from his predecessor?

The answer depends on what it means to act like Mr. Bush.

As they move toward completing a review of their options for dealing with the detainees, Obama administration officials insist that there is a fundamental difference between Mr. Bush’s approach and theirs. While Mr. Bush claimed to wield sweeping powers as commander in chief that allowed him to bypass legal constraints when fighting terrorism, they say, Mr. Obama respects checks and balances by relying on—and obeying—Congressional statutes.

“While the administration is considering a series of options, a range of options, none relies on legal theories that we have the inherent authority to detain people,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said this week in response to questions about the preventive detention report. “And this will not be pursued in that manner.”

But Mr. Obama’s critics say that whether statutory authorization exists for his counterterrorism policies is just a legalistic point. The core problem with Mr. Bush’s approach, they argue, was that it trammeled individual rights. And they say Mr. Obama’s policies have not changed that.

“President Obama may mouth very different rhetoric,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “He may have a more complicated process with members of Congress. But in the end, there is no substantive break from the policies of the Bush administration.”

The primary beneficiaries of constitutional liberties are not terrorist suspects, but the rest of us.  The necessary trade-offs are not always easy, but the president and legislators must never forget that it is a free society they are supposed to be defending.

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