CBS News carries this potentially ominous story:
Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight committee, told CBS News Wednesday that he will call for a special prosecutor to investigate the White House if it does not address Rep. Joe Sestak's claim that he was offered a federal job in exchange for dropping out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary....
The California Republican has been pushing for the White House to provide details of conversations between Sestak and administration officials in the wake of Sestak's comment during a radio interview last month that he was offered a high-ranking administration job in exchange for dropping his primary challenge against Sen. Arlen Specter.
Asked if that job was secretary of the Navy, Sestak declined to comment. His press secretary told CBS News that the lawmaker stands by his original statement that he was offered the job in exchange for an administration post. Sestak did not drop out of the race....
The White House did not respond to Issa's letter by its March 18 deadline. Reporters have asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs about the inquiry on six occasions.
On February 23rd, Gibbs said he had not looked into the matter. On March 1st, he said he had not made any progress on it. On March 9th, he said he did not have an update with him. On March 11th, he said he did not have anything additional on the matter. On March 12th, he said he did not have any more information on it.
On March 16th, Gibbs finally addressed the situation.
According to the CBS story, Gibbs' March 16 response was this:
"Look, I've talked to several people in the White House; I've talked to people that have talked to others in the White House," he said. "I'm told that whatever conversations have been had are not problematic."
Oh well, that should settle it. We hear that the "conversations [that] have been had" -- whatever they might be, as to which zero detail is provided -- are "not problematic." The reason Mr. Gibbs knows they're "not problematic" is that the people whose behavior is being questioned gave assurances -- to their colleague down the hall appointed to put a smiley face on "problematic" things -- that everything's OK.
Whew! Thank goodness! We can set our minds at rest.
I was, for a time, Special White House Counsel for President George H. W. Bush. I don't hold myself out as an expert on how the White House works, since I'm not. I do know something about it, however, and I can tell you that when the press secretary evades an issue for close to a month, and then comes up with a non-answer answer in the mold Mr. Gibbs used, something is up, and it ain't good.
I don't know whether the White House offered Sestak a fat federal job in exchange for dropping out of the Pennsylvania primary. CBS reports that he claims he was. If that is true, it's corrupt, and it's a felony. It also shows a staggering lack of seriousness about who will be running the Navy in a time of war.
This might sound partisan, but it isn't. For a much longer time than I was in the White House, I was in the US Attorney's Office as a career appointee. It made no difference to me, then or now, what the malefactor's political affiliation was. Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham wound up in the slammer for influence peddling, and all to the good. Ditto for Republican Congressman Bob Ney, now serving time for bribery and other forms of corruption. Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, was convicted by a Special Prosecutor of lying to the grand jury. His original sentence was too harsh in my view, but the prosecution was sound and vindicated the principle that people in power are accountable to the law in the same way everyone else is.
The party in power has changed but the principle hasn't. If we can't get straight answers on this Sestak business, then a Special Prosecutor may well have to get them for us.
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