Friday, May 28, 2010

Yes, a crime was committed

The White House has announced that Rahm Emmanuel asked Bill Clinton to discuss a position with Joe Sestak in exchange for dropping his Senate bid. While the White House contends that the arrangement was legal because the contact was indirect, and because the position would have been unpaid, the law does not explicitly say that employment or positions must be paid. (it's quoted in the article)

A crime was committed, and at the very least, Rahm Emmanuel needs to go, if not his boss. Numerous contacts between the players make very clear as well that there has been some degree of witness tampering and obstruction of justice involved as well.

I would have figured that a Harvard trained lawyer like Obama would be smarter than this, and that Bill Clinton would remember enough about l'affaire Lewinsky not to get involved in a mess like this, but apparently not.

4 comments:

pentamom said...

Never, never, NEVER forget (not that you of all people would) that President Obama might be a Harvard-trained lawyer, but he's a Chicago-trained politician. Nothing of this general type should surprise us, and I expect to see a lot more of it over the next three years.

Ray D. said...

I know that this IS a crime, according to the federal law, but I don't think it SHOULD BE a crime.

As much as I dislike Obama and the Democrats, they do have a right to work together to assemble a Cabinet and a slate of candidates. There is nothing inherently wrong with Obama or one of his henchmen saying, "Hey Joe, we worked hard to get Benedict Arlen Specter to become a Democrat. How about you don't challenge him in the primary, and we will find a nice Cabinet level post for you. With your military experience, you might make a good secretary of the Navy."

Such an offer might be sleazy, and it may show that politics is more important to Obama than governimng effectively, but I don't think there should be a law against it.

Gino said...

when 9 harvard level lawyers cant roughly agree on the the simple language of the 2nd ammendmanet, or the difference tween the words 'purpose' and 'use', its a safe bet that harvard education is heavily over rated.

Bike Bubba said...

Ray, I'd agree with you up to a point; smoke filled rooms are OK until it's the public paying for them.

Which brings up public funding of support for political conventions....