Bill Clinton Bribes Sestak?

[Professor S]

(CNN) - Administration officials engaged in no improper conduct as part of alleged efforts to dissuade Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak from launching a primary challenge against Sen. Arlen Specter, White House Legal Counsel Robert Bauer asserted Friday in publicly-released memorandum.

According to Bauer, Sestak was offered a high-level but unpaid position. Sestak turned the offer down, and ended up scoring an upset victory over Specter in last week's Pennsylvania primary. The White House was instrumental in last year's switch by Specter from the GOP to the Democratic party. It backed him in his bid for a sixth term in the Senate, and was eager to clear the field of any primary opponents.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...id=aTzGuDkBe_8

I love the assumption that offering a position with no pay (even if that is true) means it has no value. Lets look that the flawed reasoning behind that:

Someone is offered "A" in return for "B". If "A" has no value, why would the offering party expect to receive "B" in return? Because this was an exchange, "A" must inherently have value or else the proposal would have never come to pass and the offering party would have simply asked for "B" without offering anything.

Now I'm not one of the people intoning such exaggerated consequences as impeachment, but this was tampering and a significant abuse of power, and if everything went down the way its been explained so far there should be consequences. My suggestion would be the resignation of Rahm Emanuel, who is am embarrassment to the white house as it is. His resignation alone would improve bipartisanship.

[Xantar]

Oh come on, Strangler. You don't really think anything Obama could do up to and including the firing of Rahm Emanuel would improve bipartisanship at this point, do you? The GOP is a rump party for a reason.

And I know that the White House nominally said that they support Specter, but that was some pretty weak support they were throwing his way. Joe Biden couldn't even be bothered to give an endorsement speech when he was traveling through Pennsylvania.

Oh and by the way, the very worst reading possible of what we know is that the White House may have offered Joe Sestak a position in the administration in order to get him to drop his primary campaign against Specter because the Hatch Act prohibits someone from being a member of the executive branch and also being a candidate for office. Accepting that all to be true, I'm very hard pressed to see where the outrageous abuse of executive power is here. Do you really think Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter and everybody all the way back to LBJ has never struck a deal like this? It's not even illegal. Some people have tried to cite 18 USC 595 as a statute saying this is illegal bribery, but the case law just doesn't back them up and I have not seen any legal professional saying that it does.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Xantar

Oh come on, Strangler. You don't really think anything Obama could do up to and including the firing of Rahm Emanuel would improve bipartisanship at this point, do you?

Yes, I do. There will always be those that will see admission of guilt it as a point of weakness to attack, but I think I don't think you have to convince pundits or opportunists like Boehner to improve bipartisanship. Rahm is a sack of shit running as Chief of Staff. He practices the worst kind of politics and even democrat lawmakers fear and hate his guts. Its only been 18 months and there are already a littany of accusations against him of unethical and possibly illegal behavior. How would firing such a partisan dirt bag NOT improve bipartisanship, at least a little?

Even if if doesn't improve bipartisanship, that doesn't mean that he shouldn't face consequences for unethical and very possibly illegal behavior.

And I know that the White House nominally said that they support Specter, but that was some pretty weak support they were throwing his way. Joe Biden couldn't even be bothered to give an endorsement speech when he was traveling through Pennsylvania.

Irrelevant to the situation.

Oh and by the way, the very worst reading possible of what we know is that the White House may have offered Joe Sestak a position in the administration in order to get him to drop his primary campaign against Specter because the Hatch Act prohibits someone from being a member of the executive branch and also being a candidate for office. Accepting that all to be true, I'm very hard pressed to see where the outrageous abuse of executive power is here. Do you really think Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter and everybody all the way back to LBJ has never struck a deal like this?

Ok, lets say they all did the same thing and got away with it? Does that make this violation any more ethical or even legal? I no longer ascribe to "but he did it" political philosophy, as all it does is justify horrible behavior by both parties.

It's not even illegal. Some people have tried to cite 18 USC 595 as a statute saying this is illegal bribery, but the case law just doesn't back them up and I have not seen any legal professional saying that it does.

Well, lets take a look at that law you cite:

Whoever, being a person employed in any administrative position
by the United States, or by any department or agency thereof, or by
the District of Columbia or any agency or instrumentality thereof,
or by any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States, or
any political subdivision, municipality, or agency thereof, or
agency of such political subdivision or municipality (including any
corporation owned or controlled by any State, Territory, or
Possession of the United States or by any such political
subdivision, municipality, or agency), in connection with any
activity which is financed in whole or in part by loans or grants
made by the United States, or any department or agency thereof,
uses his official authority for the purpose of interfering with, or
affecting, the nomination or the election of any candidate for the
office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member
of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate
from the District of Columbia, or Resident Commissioner, shall be
fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or
both.

This section shall not prohibit or make unlawful any act by any
officer or employee of any educational or research institution,
establishment, agency, or system which is supported in whole or in
part by any state or political subdivision thereof, or by the
District of Columbia or by any Territory or Possession of the
United States; or by any recognized religious, philanthropic or
cultural organization.

In my mind this is actually the one related law that you could argue Rahm didn't break, but there are two more that are much more appropriate that you did not cite.

1) Lets also look at 18 USC 211

Whoever solicits or receives, either as a political contribution, or for personal emolument, any money or thing of value, in consideration of the promise of support or use of influence in obtaining for any person any appointive office or place under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both. Whoever solicits or receives any thing of value in consideration of aiding a person to obtain employment under the United States either by referring his name to an executive department or agency of the United States or by requiring the payment of a fee because such person has secured such employment shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both. This section shall not apply to such services rendered by an employment agency pursuant to the written request of an executive department or agency of the United States.

Even in this law, you may be absolutely correct, legally. Bill Clinton is not financed by the United States government, so therefore by having Rahm Emanuel use Bill Clinton as a go-between, they avoid breaking the letter of the law.

The spirit of the law is obliterated and ethics are out the window, but yes, the letter of the law has been observed. If that's good enough for, God bless you. I think Socrates just threw up in his grave a little.

But wait! There's MORE!

2) You are missing 18 USC 600 on that list

Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment,
position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit,
provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of
Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such
benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any
political activity or for the support of or opposition to any
candidate or any political party in connection with any general or
special election to any political office, or in connection with any
primary election or political convention or caucus held to select
candidates for any political office, shall be fined under this
title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

How did Rahm NOT break this law?

But even all of this skirts the issue: The administration offered compensation so that they could affect the outcome of an election. Even in the unlikely event that this did not violate any laws, the severity of the offense to ethics and democracy in general cannot be stated. Its hard enough getting good candidates to run in a two party system... we don't need the White House fudging things even more.

All of this has just begun. It will be interesting to see what else is dug up on this case, and since Rahm is involved, there is probably a LOT of dirt to uncover.

[Vampyr]

You were advocating about how the letter of the law had to be followed in the manga porn guy thread.

[Xantar]

Look, Strangler, you can't just quote a law and say, "There! That describes the situation we're talking about so it's illegal!" That's not how our legal system works. Those statutes are so vaguely written that technically I could be prosecuted for getting a job in a Congressman's office after volunteering on his campaign. After all, I received "employment" and "compensation" for a "political activity." But that's not how you interpret statutes, and in fact you and I are not the ones who decide how statutes are interpreted. There's a reason we pay highly trained experts to interpret statutes for us. You have the text of the law and then you have the interpretation of the law as provided by the courts. USC 600, for example, has been around since 1948. If it really is applicable to this situation as you claim, there should be hundreds of cases where it is interpreted that way by now, but the case law doesn't back you up. The courts have always treated this sort of thing as "politics as usual" and prosecutors have never batted an eye at it. So unless you can show me case law where somebody is prosecuted under the statutes you cite, there's nothing to this scandal.

I guess this kind of deal removes us from an idealized, perfectly functioning, 100% efficient democracy that we never had in our entire history. I'm not going to weep about the fact that our republican form of government involves some horse trading. And by the way, the chief White House ethics officer under George W. Bush thinks there's no scandal here. He points out that the position wouldn't even have prevented Sestak from running for office under the Hatch Act. Sestak could have taken the advisory position and then kept right on running for Senate. Bush's Attorney General also thinks trying to apply the statute (the article doesn't say which one) to this situation would be "a stretch".

So cite me some legal authority, one that doesn't have a political agenda, which says this is illegal.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Vampyr

You were advocating about how the letter of the law had to be followed in the manga porn guy thread.

Is my stance on this issue inconsistent with my statements in the pedophile manga porn thread?

Xantar: If case law essentially reverses the law itself, then what is the point of making laws? At that point, aren't judges just making shit up as they go? I have a hard time believing that after reading 18 USC 600 that no law was broken. If our legal system can be that backwards, there is a serious problem.

In any case, the legalities of this are far less damning to me than the ethical violations. Natural law is not the same as human law, nor should it be. Law does not equal ethics, and the minute we use the legal system to judge whether or not an action was ethical is the minute our society crumbles.

This entire escapade is utterly unethical and is tampering whether you would like to turn the other cheek or not. A bribe was offered from the White House to alter a political campaign. Your argument in defense of the White House is STILL "hey, I think they did it, so its ok" or "this guy says its ok so its ok".

Stop referring to other people to make judgements for you. Look at what happened. The important question is "Do you think this type of behavior is acceptable from our highest public officals or not, or not?"

[Xantar]

If case law essentially reverses the law itself, then what is the point of making laws? At that point, aren't judges just making shit up as they go? I have a hard time believing that after reading 18 USC 600 that no law was broken. If our legal system can be that backwards, there is a serious problem.

The fact that you are making this argument quite frankly demonstrates that you have no legal training. It doesn't reverse the law. It just clarifies what the hell the law says. Look at all the statutes you quoted. Can you even pretend that those are written in plain English? They have all kinds of terms of art in there, and any English professor is going to throw up their hands in despair halfway through reading them. It's up to the court system to make sense of it, and judges both conservative and liberal have all said for over 50 years that political horse trading is fine. And yes, as much as some would like to pretend otherwise, court rulings are part of the law. This is Legal Theory 101. Judges do make law. That is what it means to have a common law legal system such as we have in the United States: a precedent set by a previous court ruling is binding upon all future court rulings even if the judge might personally disagree with it. You have a problem with that? Change the legal system to a Civil Law system like they have in France or Hong Kong. I might even join you. But this is the way our legal system works. Any lawyer will tell you the same thing. Go ahead and ask one.

In any case, the legalities of this are far less damning to me than the ethical violations. Natural law is not the same as human law, nor should it be. Law does not equal ethics, and the minute we use the legal system to judge whether or not an action was ethical is the minute our society crumbles.

This entire escapade is utterly unethical and is tampering whether you would like to turn the other cheek or not. A bribe was offered from the White House to alter a political campaign. Your argument in defense of the White House is STILL "hey, I think they did it, so its ok" or "this guy says its ok so its ok".

Stop referring to other people to make judgements for you. Look at what happened. The important question is "Do you think this type of behavior is acceptable from our highest public officals or not, or not?"

Do I think it's acceptable? Yes. I don't think it's ideal, I don't think it's great, and I don't think it's the absolute best way to govern if the world was a simulation run on my computer. But I think it's acceptable. You keep trying to dismiss my real world cases and examples because they don't fit your perfect ethical world view, but here's the thing: those are the real world. I live in the real world. This kind of horse trading has happened in every form of representative government that has ever existed and many governments that weren't representative as well. We've done fine with it so far. If you want to get worked up into such a blustery high dudgeon about it, I suggest you go indict the corpse of Ronald Reagan.

And it's not a phenomenon we can really get rid of either. In fact, you could argue that we shouldn't completely prohibit it. Governor Jim Huntsman of Colorado was appointed to be Ambassador to China. Yeah, it so happens that he was talked about as a Republican Presidential contender in 2012 and he got taken out of the running by this appointment. But he is also a hugely successful businessman who worked as a missionary in China when he was younger and is fluent in Mandarin. I honestly can't think of a better person for the job. It would be ludicrously naive to think that political considerations had nothing to do with his appointment, but we got a politically savvy, economically knowledgeable and well-qualified ambassador to China out of the bargain. Yes, I think that's perfectly acceptable.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Xantar

The fact that you are making this argument quite frankly demonstrates that you have no legal training.

You didn't need to to see that statement to know that. Perhaps my legal training comes from the University of "DUH" but to me this law is not nearly as complicated as you make it sound.

Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment,
position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit,
provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of
Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such
benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any
political activity or for the support of or opposition to any
candidate or any political party in connection with any general or
special election to any political office, or in connection with any
primary election or political convention or caucus held to select
candidates for any political office, shall be fined under this
title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

Now perhaps I'm a legal novice at best, but when I read that law its pretty clear to me that it was violated, and I would have to hear a very strong case to understand how is wasn't violated. But as you said, perhaps that's just my inexperience talking, but the more I understand law, the more I find that those that work in law misunderstand its philosophical intent, and tend to use it as a means to get away with horrible behavior rather than encourage good.

Do I think it's acceptable? Yes.

I'm glad to have the clarification. I don't agree, regardless of the continued "but he did it" arguments. And for the record I never called for the indictments of anyone, just the resignation of the person who orchestrated it. I would call for the same action from ANY administration regardless of party affiliation. This partisan tit for tat argument you keep bringing up is not politically healthy.

And it's not a phenomenon we can really get rid of either. In fact, you could argue that we shouldn't completely prohibit it. Governor Jim Huntsman of Colorado was appointed to be Ambassador to China. Yeah, it so happens that he was talked about as a Republican Presidential contender in 2012 and he got taken out of the running by this appointment. But he is also a hugely successful businessman who worked as a missionary in China when he was younger and is fluent in Mandarin. I honestly can't think of a better person for the job. It would be ludicrously naive to think that political considerations had nothing to do with his appointment, but we got a politically savvy, economically knowledgeable and well-qualified ambassador to China out of the bargain. Yes, I think that's perfectly acceptable.

I don't think these were comparable, at least as far as we know. Do we know that Huntsman was offered the position specifically so he wouldn't run in 2012? No. We know this with Sestak. You can't take action on a hunch or even an educated guess.

My tolerance for the underside of politics has worn considerably. I am done supporting or defending this type of nonsense from any party. The political process to be for those that are represented, not to continue a machine whose only ethical defense is "but its what we've always done."

Oh, and in case anyone simply thinks I'm being a partisan hack, I am no longer a Republican or a Conservative (listening to that obnoxious theocrat Santorum cured me of that disease). The best way to describe my current political ideology would be Constitutional Libertarian, I guess.

[Professor S]

Oh, and apparently Romanoff (Colorado) was offered his choice of a series of positions off of the political a la carte menu..

http://www.scribd.com/doc/32417684/M...Romanoff-Email

"Um, do fries come with the Director, U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) or the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America and Caribbean, USAID? Oh, to hell with the diet... I'll have the Director, Office of Democracy and Governance, USAID."

Sounds democratically DELICIOUS! YAY ETHICS!