Messina's history of primary meddling and bribery

As we've reported, Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, locked in a heated Democratic primary with White House tool Arlen Specter, has alleged that the Obama Administration tried to bribe him. According to Sestak, Obama's henchmen offered him a high-ranking post in the administration if he dropped his primary challenge to Specter. Many have speculated that the position was Secretary of the Navy, as Sestak is a former admiral. White House press flack Robert Gibbs has refused to deny the allegations on four separate occasions.

We've been wondering for weeks: Who made the bribe? Sestak is almost certainly telling the truth, so who's the culprit? Rahm Emanuel and Patrick Gaspard are likely suspects, but another name has emerged today: Jim Messina. Messina is Obama's deputy chief of staff -- and he has a history of this sort of corruption.

From the September 27, 2009 edition of the Denver Post:

Not long after news leaked last month that Andrew Romanoff was determined to make a Democratic primary run against Sen. Michael Bennet, Romanoff received an unexpected communication from one of the most powerful men in Washington.

Jim Messina, President Barack Obama's deputy chief of staff and a storied fixer in the White House political shop, suggested a place for Romanoff might be found in the administration and offered specific suggestions, according to several sources who described the communication to The Denver Post.

Romanoff turned down the overture, which included mention of a job at USAID, the foreign aid agency, sources said.

Then, the day after Romanoff formally announced his Senate bid, Obama endorsed Bennet.

Romanoff was the Colorado Speaker of the House at the time. The Denver Post spends the rest of the article arguing that such bribery is commonplace in Washington. But that's simply not the case. Even with political mastermind Karl Rove at the helm, George W. Bush's administration never offered anyone a job in exchange for dropping out of a race. Further, according to U.S. Code 18, Section 595, someone who “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 of the District of Columbia or Resident Commissioner, shall be fined under the title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.” This is criminal activity.

Messina is essentially Rahm Jr. -- he shares his boss' love of profanity and Machiavellian political tactics. But he's also far less visible than Emanuel, shunning the press and preferring privacy. He seems like the perfect choice to bribe a bothersome Democrat politician.

Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican of California, is threatening to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Sestak flap. If he succeeds, one of Obama's top political henchmen could find himself facing criminal charges.

Bribery we can believe in

As the Sunday deadline for passing ObamaCare swiftly approaches, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama are desperately doing whatever they can to convince fence-sitting Democrats. They'll stop at nothing at this point, including bribery. We already saw how effective political kickbacks can be in the Senate, where Ben Nelson was bought off with full Medicaid funding for his state. Now special dealmaking has come to the House. Here are just a few of the bribes that have been dangled in front of jittery Blue Dogs' noses.

Rep. Bart Gordon: Gordon is retiring and word on Capitol Hill yesterday was that Obama had offered him the job of NASA administrator if he voted for the bill. Gordon has served on the House Committee on Technology and Science, but otherwise has absolutely no scientific experience whatsoever. Meanwhile a provision was inserted in the reconciliation package that gives higher Medicaid funding to Tennessee hospitals that treated uninsured patients. Gordon flipped from no to yes yesterday.

Rep. John Tanner: Another retiring Tennessean, word has it that Tanner was offered the position of U.S. Ambassador to NATO. Tanner served on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, but otherwise has no foreign policy experience. The deal for Tennessee hospitals likely played a role in Tanner's switch from no to yes as well.

Rep. Suzanne Kosmas: Kosmas met with Obama at the White House last Thursday and reportedly sought out her own deal. Talking with the president, she kept switching the conversation to NASA. Kosmas, a Floridian, represents the Kennedy Space Center and is unhappy that the president's budget is "only" providing KSC with $19 billion next year. Kosmas has yet to make up her mind, but it wouldn't be surprising if she voted yes after Obama guaranteed more generous funding.

Rep. Jim Matheson: Matheson was summoned to the White House earlier this month to meet with the president about ObamaCare. Mere hours before the appointment, Obama announced that he was nominating Matheson's brother, Scott, to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. The bribe doesn't seem to have worked; it triggered a public outcry and Matheson is still undecided.

Meanwhile several other congressmen have been wooed by the president with abject lies. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who opposed the bill from the left, was convinced by the president's stories about Natoma Canfield. We now know that these stories were a lie and that Canfield likely qualifies for Medicaid, among a dozen other options. The optimistic CBO report, which fails to take into account the bill's accounting trickery, may also sway some votes.

Robert Gibbs essentially confirms Obama tried to bribe Joe Sestak

Rep. Joe Sestak is locked up in a tight Democratic Senate primary race in Pennsylvania with White House ally Arlen Specter. Sestak has claimed that the White House tried to bribe him to drop out of the primary by offering him a high-profile job. White House press flack Robert Gibbs refused to comment on Sestak's accusation on three different occasions, claiming he was still gathering the facts. At yesterday's press conference, he got slightly more specific.

“I’ve talked to several people in the White House. I’ve talked to people who have talked to others in the White House,” Gibbs said in response to a question from liberal commentator Bill Press. “I’m told that whatever conversations have been had, are not problematic. I think Congressman Sestak has discussed that this is – whatever happened is in the past and he is focused on this primary.”

CNSNews.com followed up asking if the White House counsel looked into whether the matter was legal. Gibbs responded, “I would refer you to my previous comment.”

Fox News reporter Wendell Goler followed up, “Sestak still says he was offered something.”

Gibbs responded again, “I would repeat what I just said.”

If Sestak were lying, the White House would have nothing to lose and everything to gain by denying his claim. Sestak is unlikely to win the primary and has already positioned himself against Obama by running against White House darling Specter. Instead the only denial has come from an anonymous White House official who spoke to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Nobody will put their name to refuting Sestak's claim, even though the president's honor has been attacked here. There's a general rule in Washington: Whenever someone issues the sort of weasel-worded statement that Gibbs just did, using vague adjectives like "problematic", they're covering something up.

According to U.S. Code 18, Section 595, someone who “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 of the District of Columbia or Resident Commissioner, shall be fined under the title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.” The stakes are high here. Republicans are circling and Specter himself has already said that, if Sestak's claim is true, the White House committed a crime. Whoever Obama makes take the fall for this could potentially spend a year in prison.

Obama: Actually I'm okay with all those Senate deals

The White House flip-flopped today on its insistence that special deals used to bribe senators into supporting ObamaCare be removed.

Taking a new position, Axelrod said the White House only objects to state-specific arrangements, such as an increase in Medicaid funding for Nebraska, ridiculed as the "Cornhusker Kickback." That's being cut, but provisions that could affect more than one state are OK, Axelrod said.

That means deals sought by senators from Montana and Connecticut would be fine — even though Gibbs last week singled them out as items Obama wanted removed. There was resistance, however, from two committee chairman, Democratic Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, and the White House has apparently backed down.

As long as more than one state is somehow touched by a proposed deal, the White House greenlights it. In other words, if Nebraska rewrites the Cornhusker Kickback so that one dollar of its Medicaid funds from the feds are donated to Iowa, it's presumably okay.

Since Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi furiously cut deals left and right to squeak ObamaCare through, the president's new position allows for a whole host of kickbacks. Here's the rundown of special deals that are or probably will be in the health care reform package.

-- Connecticut hospitals. Even though Chris Dodd was always a surefire vote for ObamaCare, he still secured $100 million in the bill for Connecticut hospitals. He's particularly enthusiastic about the University of Connecticut, whose teaching hospital he wants revamped. Technically other states can compete for some of the grant money, so Connecticut isn't the sole state affected.

-- Montana asbestos victims. Max Baucus secured another kickback in ObamaCare for victims of asbestos poisoning from a vermiculite mine in Libby, Montana. In order to avoid some of the negative attention that plagued Ben Nelson's Cornhusker Kickback, Baucus cleverly wrote the language as expanding Medicare to cover "environmental health hazards." That can technically apply to all states, so it stays in.

-- Western hospitals. Connecticut isn't the only state whose hospitals will be larded up with health care money. A provision in ObamaCare increases Medicaid funding for states with 50% or more "frontier counties" -- defined as a county with a population density less than six people per square mile. The Congressional Budget Office said this would include Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Utah. Three of the five are western swing states that Democrats are hoping will lean blue in future elections.

-- Student loans. House Democrats are moving to include a package in ObamaCare that would nationalize student loans. The House already passed the overhaul with 32 more supportive Democrats than ObamaCare. Nancy Pelosi is hoping that tying the two bills together will sweeten the pot for Democrats currently on the fence.

-- Black and Hispanic colleges. Included in the student lending bill is a kickback that would fund historically black and Hispanic colleges and universities. The provision, according to The Hill newspaper, is untouchable thanks to strong support from the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The CBC has expressed concern about ObamaCare diverting attention from creating jobs and the CHC is worried about restrictions for illegal immigrants in the bill.

With his announcement today, Obama finally woke up to reality: The only way he can ram his health care boondoggle through is if he buys off legislators. Note that all the deals in the bill are just to woo Democrats.

White House officials facing prison time over Sestak bribe?

Last week, Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak claimed that the White House had offered him a top position in the government if he would drop out of his Senate race. Sestak is locked in a brutal primary against White House ally Arlen Specter, who Obama coaxed over from the Republican Party. Now two members of Congress have expressed concern that the White House may have committed a crime.

[Senator Arlen] Specter said [on MSNBC], “There is a specific federal statute, which makes it a bribe to make an offer for a public office. When I was district attorney, if somebody came and told me that, I would say, well, name names. Name dates. Name places. That’s a very serious charge. It’s a big black smear without specification. I’m telling you there is a federal crime, punishable by jail. Anybody who wants to say that ought to back it up.

Congressman Sestak has gotten a lot of political mileage out of that. It’s really an attack on the administration.”

...

Meanwhile, Rep. [Darrell] Issa wrote a letter on Wednesday to White House Counsel Robert Bauer citing U.S. Code 18, Sections 211, 595, and 600 regarding the bribery of a public official. Section 595 says someone who “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 of the District of Columbia or Resident Commissioner, shall be fined under the title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”

Whoever made this bribe, likely someone high up in the administration, could go to prison for a year if convicted. The guilty party was likely one of the president's political advisors. Patrick Gaspard seems too clever and elusive to stick his neck out like this. Rahm Emanuel is the main suspect, but Valerie Jarrett and David Plouffe are also possibilities. It's also improbable that the briber was acting without the express permission of Obama, although the president will undoubtedly claim ignorance and let someone else take the fall.

Should we believe Sestak? The only denial of his claims by the administration thus far have been from a single anonymous official. Robert Gibbs has ducked the question three times. If no one is willing to attach their name to this, it's hard to believe they have nothing to hide. It's also hard to believe Sestak, a former Navy admiral, would want to make enemies at the White House before he even entered the Senate.