Will Eric Holder Order Investigation of Sestak Bribe Allegation?

When Attorney General Eric Holder appears before Congress today, one of the questions he's going to be asked is why he didn't appoint a special prosecutor to investigate why the White House tried to lure away Joe Sestak from competition with beleaguered Senator Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania primary of May 18^th. It was Sestak who first announced the White House attempt at dissuading him from running against Specter, by the offer of a high-profile federal job in exchange for quitting the Democrat primary campaign in Pennsylvania.

How does this differ from standard backroom political deals? The "F" word, in short. F-E-L-O-N-Y convictions may arise from actions designed to interfere with the outcome of federal elections. If it's true that the White House tried to ensure that Arlen Specter was the only person running for Senate under the Democrat's banner, then the rights of Pennsylvania citizens to vote has been suborned.

The rumor had circulated political blogs before Sestak confirmed it in an interview with Fox News Martha McCallum in February of this year.

"I was asked a direct question yesterday and I answered it honestly,"said Sestak, referring to the White House job offer.

Sestak declined to provide further details, saying there was "nothing more to go into" aside from confirming the job offer. In a February 18^th 2o10 interview with long time Philadelphia reporter Larry Kane, Sestak answered "Yes" to Kane's question as to whether he'd been offered a high profile job by the White House, but he refused to comment on whether that job was as Navy Secretary.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has been asked numerous times about the Sestak bribe allegation but consistently sidesteps the question. Gibbs does acknowledge that some sort of discussions which took place between the White House and Sestak but there was "nothing problematic" about that. "Nothing problematic" for Gibbs, perhaps, but for Republican House Oversight and Reform Committee ranking member, Darrell Issa of California, there is a language problem.

Fox News reporter Bill Hemmer spoke to Representative Issa in March and Issa told Hemmer that Sestak's allegation of a felony bribe must be investigated, even if Sestak had "gone quiet." Issa told Fox News that his questions to the White House had gone unanswered and that an appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Sestak's assertion was therefore appropriate. Issa says he checked all the dictionaries, including Black's Law (Dictionary) and could not find "not problematic" as a legal term.