Great investigative journalism by The American Spectator’s Jeffrey Lord:

Even as the drama of health care carries the headlines, beneath the surface, visible now, the iceberg of scandal ripples.

First, the timeline on the blossoming scandal upon which we will now officially fix the dreaded “gate” descriptive. Jobsgate.

• September 27, 2009 — The Denver Post reports that Obama White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina allegedly offered a job in the Obama administration to ex-Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff if Romanoff dropped his planned primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Senator Michael Bennet. Romanoff refuses comment and runs anyway.

• February 18, 2010 — Philadelphia TV anchor Larry Kane reports that on his just taped Comcast show, he had asked Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak, who is challenging incumbent Senator Arlen Specter whether it was true that the Obama administration had offered Sestak a job if he would withdraw from his primary challenge to Specter. Sestak answers “yes,” specifically saying the offer came from someone in the White House and that he, Sestak, turned down the offer. Sestak refuses to name who it was that made the offer. Two hours later, Kane calls the White House, plays them the tape, and asks for comment. The White House never calls him back.

Lord continues…explaining why Holder’s Justice Department might not be investigating:

One former high-ranking Justice Department official, after telling me that there were indeed problems with the Department’s silence on this issue, said that in the current political climate at the Holder-run Justice Department, any Justice official who sought to go to Holder with thoughts of investigating Messina or his boss Rahm Emanuel or anyone else in the White House would have to have “brass balls.” A colorful way of saying that Justice Department officials are being intimidated from pursuing the truth, no matter where it leads. Let’s go back to Congressman Darrell Issa.

Issa has stepped up to the plate and sent his letter to White House Counsel Bauer, who now holds the job in the legal precincts of the White House one frequented by Nixon’s John Dean. Bauer, it should be noted, is the husband of now-departed Glenn Beck foil Anita Dunn, briefly the Obama White House Communications Director. Bauer and Dunn have been featured in Newsweek as one of ten “global power couples,” ranking them alongside — honest — Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Bill and Hillary, Beyonce and Jay Z, and Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina’s back-to-back presidents. All of which means, according to Newsweek, the Bauer/Dunn power-combo has power, lots of it. The Congressman has formally requested an answer to his letter — from Bauer — by March 18.

And here are the implications [I hope you'll go read the whole thing. The story is damning.]

If in fact Sestak is telling the truth, if in fact the Denver Post story about Andrew Romanoff is correct — and neither Sestak nor Romanoff reported these offers to federal authorities — Specter is saying both could in fact do jail time for committing a felony.

Even more remarkable is to comprehend why Robert Gibbs may now be standing at that White House podium five different times and refusing to answer questions from Jake Tapper and Major Garrett. If Sestak has told the truth, if the Denver Post got it right — then not only is the person or persons within the White House who made these job offers in big trouble, but anybody else on the Obama White House staff who currently knows this has happened and has not reported it to the proper authorities — the FBI, just for starters — is, according to Specter, a potential prosecution target for “misprision of a felony.” For which this person or persons could also go to jail along with whomever offered the jobs in the first place.

Quite possibly, that could include Robert Gibbs, if in fact he knows these job offers occurred.

So, keep an eye on this story guys. The President and his staff could be in big trouble. This administration is laughable on transparency. What a disgusting mess.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The White House and pay-for-play (michellemalkin.com)
• The Sestak stonewall (powerlineblog.com)

0