Can a president make it legal? .By REP. DARRELL ISSA | 5/28/10 11:22 AM EDT In an opinion piece, Rep. Darrell Issa (left) argues that the White House’s refusal to deny Rep. Joe Sestak’s account of whether he was offered a job to drop out of the Pennsylvania senate primary race equates to a betrayal of the standards set by President Obama.
President Richard Nixon uttered one of the most infamous quotes in U.S. political history on April 6, 1977, defiantly declaring, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
This sentiment embodies all that is wrong with politics. It explains why, more than 30 years later, the political establishment struggles with the image that Nixon’s misguided statement creates.
Since February, questions have swirled around allegations first made by Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.). He is now the Democratic nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, but he said that someone inside the Obama White House had offered him a job in exchange for dropping out of the primary against Arlen Specter.
Title 18 U.S.C. Section 600 clearly says: “Whoever directly or indirectly promises any employment position, compensation, contract, appointment or other benefit provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such benefit, to any person as consideration, in favor or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party in connection with any general or special election to any political office ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”
Aside from the obvious legal issues that offering someone what amounts to a bribe in an effort to manipulate an election could present, there is a broader and symbolic issue at heart.
After winning the South Carolina Democratic primary, then-candidate Barack Obama proclaimed: “We’re looking to fundamentally change the status quo in Washington.
“It’s a status quo that extends beyond any particular party, and right now that status quo is fighting back with everything it’s got, with the same old tactics that divide and distract us from solving the problems people face ... that’s the kind of politics that is bad for our party, it is bad for our country and this is our chance to end it once and for all. ... We’re up against the idea that it’s acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election.”
