The seven Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee formally asked Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Joe Sestak's claim that a White House official offered him a job to induce him to bow out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary race against Arlen Specter. The seven allege that the attempted White House arm twisting violated federal criminal laws forbidding the promise of a government position for a favor or “in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any political office.” After all, Sestak is the one who told a reporter in February that the White House official committed a felony despite the fact that the White House lawyers denied it and judged everything “perfectly appropriate.”
Of course, the GOP will not take the word of the Obama lawyers regarding the people who hired them. They wrote that they “do not believe the Department of Justice can properly defer to White House lawyers to investigate a matter that could involve ‘a serious breach of the law.’ The White House cannot possibly manage an internal investigation of potential criminal misconduct while simultaneously crafting a public narrative to rebut the claim that misconduct occurred.” Indeed.
Holder will resist this probe until it becomes politically unfeasible and then he will relent. As although I believe special prosecutors are only marginally more insightful than White House lawyers, I think that Sestak's allegations raise serious issues that merit an investigation. The White House may legally make deals to muscle through legislation, but this is an altogether different, illegal breed of strong arming.
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