I’ve just gotten an internal Republican analysis of the White House Sestak statement. There’s no doubt the GOP is highly skeptical of the Obama administration’s story that former President Bill Clinton was enlisted for the purpose of offering an unpaid advisory position — nothing more — to Sestak in return for Sestak’s agreement not to challenge Sen. Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. The GOP analysis includes three objections Republicans are likely to make in coming days:
1) The White House statement was from counsel Robert Bauer. Bauer is the White House’s defense lawyer and cannot be expected to credibly investigate the same people he is defending.
2) The statement says nothing about how Bauer’s information was gathered. It does not say who was interviewed, who did the interviewing, whether there are records of the interviews and whether they were under oath.
3) The statement wrongly concludes that allegations of improper conduct by the White House are unfounded because the job offered to Sestak was unpaid. In fact, the analysis says, the federal law covering the offering of a job for political purposes does not require that the job be paid for there to be a possible crime involved.
Meanwhile, Sestak himself has released a statement that supports the White House version of events:
There are many important challenges facing Pennsylvania and the rest of the country. I intend to remain focused on those issues and continue my fight on behalf of working families.
