Andrew Romanoff has stepped up big. Taking my June 1, 2010 advice delivered through Huffington Post, Romanoff showed his cards last night and revealed truth. Now, the chips will fall where they will. Andrew Romanoff's brand, as a different kind of Democrat and a politician who can't be bought, remains solid.
The rest of the Dems are screwed. This Romanoff-Sestak Situation stinks to high heaven and all over the White House. Team Obama was handing out taxpayer funded jobs to deprive Democratic citizens of electoral choices. The game changer was last week's realization that 18 USC, Section 600, a criminal statute, seems to fit like a glove around these facts. If the glove fits, you can't acquit. No acquittal will be forthcoming this November for Team Obama in the Court of Public Opinion.
What did President Obama know and when did he know it? Same question for Colorado Senator Michael Bennet. Same question for the retiring Colorado Democratic Governor Ritter who appointed Bennet with Obama's blessing.
Here is an interesting glitch though for Andrew Romanoff. Denver Post editorial page writer Chuck Plunkett told us on our June 2, 2010 show that he heard last September about Andrew Romanoff being offered a job by the White House. So he called Romanoff and asked if it was true and was told that it was not.
An unequivocal NO, the Denver Post wrote in their important June 2, 2010 editorial. In that editorial, titled "Clear the Air on Romanoff Deal," the Denver Post wrote it this way:
The Denver Post last September quoted unnamed sources that said Obama's deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina, contacted former state House Speaker Romanoff, who hadn't yet announced his candidacy, with specific suggestions for Washington jobs in exchange for his staying out of the race against appointed Sen. Michael Bennet.
The White House denied any such offer, but sources told The Post's Michael Riley: "Romanoff turned down the overture, which included mention of a job at USAID, the foreign aid agency."
Obama endorsed Bennet the day after Romanoff formally announced he was in the race.
We read Riley's story with particular interest. Only days before it ran, after hearing whispers of a Romanoff job offer, we asked the former House speaker directly whether he had been offered a job by the White House to drop out of the race.
He told us
unequivocally that he had not been offered a position.
(Emphasis added.)
Plunkett told us the call was to Romanoff's cell phone and the conversation lasted ten to fifteen minutes. Plunkett says it was in September but he doesn't remember the exact day and does not have notes.
The timeline in all of this is important. To a lawyer. To a jury. To a voter. To true journalists. To opposition political candidates. By the way, if you want to hear from the Colorado Republican U.S. Senate candidates, Jane Norton and Ken Buck, regarding the Romanoff-Sestak Situation and accusations at each other, give a listen to our June 2 radio show.
Yesterday afternoon, in that same five p.m. hour, I asked Chuck Plunkett how he would feel if Andrew Romanoff soon disclosed a White House discussion of "drop out of the race jobs." Chuck Plunkett told Caplis and Silverman Show listeners, "I would feel misled."
It was precisely September 27, 2009 that the Denver Post wrote about the White House job offer through White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina. Dan Haley, Plunkett's Editorial Page boss also came on the radio yesterday and told us that the conversation between Plunkett and Romanoff occurred three weeks before the Post's Messina report. September 27 minus three weeks (21 days) is September 6, 2009.
The damning Messina e-mail is dated September 11, 2009.
In order for Plunkett (and the Denver Post) not to feel misled, Romanoff's job offer would need to have come after the Plunkett-Romanoff telephone conversation.
Some have said that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster is Obama's Katrina. Now, this White House has its own problem from the September 11 email to handle. Or is the better reference to Watergate, a crime designed to consolidate power for a President and his political party.
Wade Norris'
What did Senator Bennet know and what was his involvement?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wade-norris/what-did-senator-bennet-k_b_604839.html
The Hypocrite Express rattles on, and it's filled with Repuglicons, "conservatives" and RWNJs.
On a scale that would make this stuff look like peanuts.
Lets be clear, right wing in this country is in bed with oil industry if we really want an investigation lets start with Dick Cheney secret energy task force meeting with Ken Leahy.
Since when did federal job offer become a crime, Judd Greg was offer a job by Obama, but he turned it down why didn't you make a fuss about it then?
On the top of that Obama is leader of democratic party if he wants to keep the majority of party by offering a job on member to win elections, what's wrong with that? Republicans and Democrats do all the time, I am sick of this smoke screen.
Steve Benen
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/monthly/2010_06.php
The White House statement this morning was accurate in claiming that Colorado Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff applied for a job in advance of hearing back from the White House about employment possibilities, a Romanoff spokesman just confirmed to me.
"The White House statement is accurate," Romanoff spokesman Roy Teischer told me by phone just now.
So, what do we have here? Romanoff applied for a job with the administration, and followed up with phone calls to administration officials about possible opportunities. He gave up about a year ago, and turned his attention to the Senate race. When the White House inquired with Romanoff about whether he was still interested about a possible position, he declined.
That's the White House's version of events; that's Romanoff's version of events. There. Is. No. Scandal. As far as political reporting goes, it has all the fascination of watching paint dry.
What's maddening isn't the Republican desire to manufacture a controversy where none exists -- that's expected -- but the excessive amounts of irresponsible journalism. A.L. noted this morning that there's "nothing more aggravating than watching the press latch on to fake scandal even when it's clear they know it's fake."
he's a hater at heart, which is why he can't stop himself from adopting the conservative world view. he and caplis are Rosencrantz and Gildenstern.
As far as Romanoff is concerned, this is the least of our problems, Obama's problems and our problem as a Nation. You can yell and scream all you want, but the fact remains the Bush/Cheney administration committed real crimes including crimes against humanity. The GOP and conservative talk circuit irony and hypocrisy never ends in this country.
Secondly, whatever Bush/Cheney did or didn't do once again has no relevance on whether obama and his administration broke the law.
Secondly, whatever Bush/Cheney did or didn't do once again has no relevance on whether Obama and his administration broke the law. Torture, outing a CIA operative, secret deals with the oil companies, starting a war based on lies and costing the lives of over 5,400 Americans soldiers, none of this matters only the fact that Obama is committing a crime because he is breathing.
Okay we understand now. Thanks for clearing that up.
Some troubling questions come to mind. Were exemption rules in the election laws for broadcasters completely violated and even boastfully admitted in that short conversation?
Does that admission against interest by the host and the worry of the co-host clearly show that the ad was an in-kind contribution and expenditure laws were probably violated?
Were equal coverage rules to keep broadcast exemptions in place obviously not in play from their own admissions? Is this especially true when the host is absolutely dominant in every facet of the program?
Get on it, Craig.
And by the way, the host was Dan Caplis and the co-host was none other than:
Craig Silverman.
The radio station is KHOW. The owner of the radio station is Clear Channel. The broadcast was Oct. 10, 2008, at 5.40pm mountain time. And the Federal Election Commission can be found at fec dot gov.
Just my opinion.
"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, 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, or in connection with any
primary election or political convention or caucus held to select
candidates for any political office, shall be fined under this
title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both."
This statute specifically does not cover offering a job in hopes that a candidate will not seek alternate employment, because covering such as a criminal act would necessarily imply that ALL job offers to politicians currently seeking employment would be illegal.
I'm sorry Mr. Silverman, but in this area of law at least, you do not seem to understand that there is simply no precedent to support this law being applied in this way. There is no prima facie case.
Tempest in a teapot.
It's a PR smear for the opposition party and it's sympathizers, but Romanoff and the WH have no legal problems as cited my Press.GW Bush's own ethics attorney which said that it was silly.
Craig:
I’m glad you are so enraged about the possibility of abuses of power and election law violations.
Now I’m hoping you’ll investigate this smoking gun, the game-changer statement highlighted below, from a radio show I listen to.
Transcript:
[A radio show paying a 30 second John McCain presidential ad as part of a radio show, and not as a paid ad]
End of recorded ad: “I’m John McCain, and I approve this message”.
Host: "The latest John McCain ad, and I, I hope he keeps it up full speed. Polls show at this point, ah, poll came out today, ah, 29 percent of independents are less likely to vote for Obama because of the relationship with Bill Ayres, and that’s after just the tip of the iceberg, just a few days of this starting to sink in to the American consciousness so I say Senator McCain, full speed ahead and of course at the same time you continue talking about your positives, which you know are an enormous part of why I think in the end McCain will pull this out but people need to know the truth".
(continued)