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Legal experts reject Fox's allegation that Sestak was "bribed"

hazlnut

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Legal experts reject Fox's allegation that Sestak was "bribed"

Fox News has seized on false allegations that the White House "bribed" Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) with an administration job in exchange for staying out of a Senate race and claimed it would amount to an "illegal" and possibly "an impeachable offense." In fact, legal experts have rejected the claims that such offers are a bribe or illegal.

Okay, partisan hacks at partisan network make false allegations against the WH... Moving on.

Legal experts dispute claims that a crime was committed

Bush ethics lawyer calls claim that a job offer is a bribe "difficult to support." In a post on the Legal Ethics Forum blog, former Bush administration chief ethics lawyer Richard Painter wrote: "The allegation that the job offer was somehow a 'bribe' in return for Sestak not running in the primary is difficult to support."

For those who want the complicated explanation:

The job offer may have been a way of getting Sestak out of Specter's way, but this also is nothing new. Many candidates for top Administration appointments are politically active in the President's political party. Many are candidates or are considering candidacy in primaries. White House political operatives don't like contentious fights in their own party primaries and sometimes suggest jobs in the Administration for persons who otherwise would be contenders. For the White House, this is usually a "win-win" situation, giving the Administration politically savvy appointees in the Executive Branch and fewer contentious primaries for the Legislative Branch. This may not be best for voters who have less choice as a result, and Sestak thus should be commended for saying "no". The job offer, however, is hardly a "bribe" when it is one of two alternatives that are mutually exclusive.

How long will Fox draw this out?

Spin, baby, spin...
 
Just the fact that this was from Fixed Noise should have been a warning that whatever they were claiming was ... wrong.

Hannity and Melon Head will talk about this for weeks and refer back to it for years. They are sore losers. :lol:
 
Just the fact that this was from Fixed Noise should have been a warning that whatever they were claiming was ... wrong.

Hannity and Melon Head will talk about this for weeks and refer back to it for years.
They are sore losers. :lol:

that's their demographic
 
I am shocked, SHOCKED, that Media Matters would highlight a few people who claimed that this was not bribery and then cite that as proof positive that this is undoubtedly legal.

It's very unlikely that what happened actually violated the federal bribery statute, but it's possible that it violated another federal law as a result of an arrangement that might colloquially be called "bribery." Given that few in Fox News's audience (and few here) understand the distinction, I think they can be forgiven on this one.
 
Just the fact that this was from Media Matters should have been a warning that whatever they were claiming was ... wrong.

Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow will talk about this for weeks and refer back to it for years. They are sore losers. :lol:

Hey, sorry I fixed the error in your post. All is well now!
 
Legal experts reject Fox's allegation that Sestak was "bribed"



Okay, partisan hacks at partisan network make false allegations against the WH... Moving on.



For those who want the complicated explanation:



How long will Fox draw this out?

Spin, baby, spin...

Suspect that if all the legal experts around were polled, most would come to a similar conclusion No laws broken in the release giving out by the Administation. If the current White House explanation ("Clinton's vague conversations with Sestak about a possible unpaid advisor position) holds up to scrutiny believe this will fade away as a non-event. And maybe the WH story is completely valid.

But some may believe that present WH explanation is a bit of stretch..... :shock:


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The fact is that all politicians do this, including Bush (who did the exact same thing regarding Specter!).

Admittedly, it still looks bad no matter who does it but (a) it's not illegal and (b) to make a big deal of this when Obama does it while remaining silent while others do it is hypocritical at least...
 
The fact is that all politicians do this, including Bush (who did the exact same thing regarding Specter!).

Admittedly, it still looks bad no matter who does it but (a) it's not illegal and (b) to make a big deal of this when Obama does it while remaining silent while others do it is hypocritical at least...

Think part of the problem with the current situation is nailing down exactly what "it" is. Believe there are some skeptics out there (spoiler alert: yeah, i'm one) that are not convinced that the WH story released is complete and/or legit. It (the current explanation) just seems like a leap from what Sestak had been claiming beforehand. Granted to your point, there still may or may not be events leading to prosecutable actions, but this Sestak/WH interaction does have a political bad smell to it. Think it deserves a couple of weeks to shake itself out.


(btw....are you gonna be available to watch those Flyers get their bird butts spanked by a notably superior team this evening?? Believe that will be a 8 PM est for your viewing frustration.....:) )


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The fact is that all politicians do this, including Bush (who did the exact same thing regarding Specter!).

Admittedly, it still looks bad no matter who does it but (a) it's not illegal and (b) to make a big deal of this when Obama does it while remaining silent while others do it is hypocritical at least...

No one is disputing that the same type of thing happens frequently, but that doesn't mean that they're all automatically legal or illegal. It depends on what exactly was said/promised/offered. The way Sestak originally described the offer, it sounded far more brazen than most of these deals, which could mean that the law was violated. The way that he's describing it now, it sounds entirely innocuous.
 
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