GOP lawmaker wants White House answers on Sestak

The top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants the White House to spell out all its official contacts with Rep. Joe Sestak (D., Pa.), saying it may have broken the law if it offered Sestak a federal job to sway him from challenging Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary.

Sestak said in a television interview last month that he was offered a high-ranking position to drop his planned Senate campaign. He has since declined to provide details but has stood by the assertion.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has brushed off repeated questions from reporters about Sestak, and Specter blasted Sestak this week for making "a big black smear without the specifications" against the administration.

On Wednesday, Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the ranking oversight committee Republican, wrote to White House general counsel Robert Bauer demanding details of all official contacts with Sestak. Issa said the administration may have violated a statute barring government employees from using their official authority for the "purpose of interfering with or affecting the election or nomination of any candidate" for federal offices, including senator.

"While the White House may think this is politics as usual, what is spectacularly unusual is when a candidate - a U.S. Congressman no less - freely acknowledges such a proposal," Issa wrote in the letter, first reported by Politico. "Almost always candidates keep quiet about such deals, and for good reason - they are against the law."

The job-offer report resurfaced in the Senate campaign Tuesday when MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough asked Sestak about it.

"Something happened last July, before I got into the race, and I never got asked about it," Sestak said. "All of a sudden, somebody asked me. And, you know, I answered it honestly. I just said yes. But I didn't go beyond that. And, actually, I don't think I should."

Sestak had been asked by Philadelphia journalist Larry Kane during a Feb. 19 taping of Kane's public-affairs show on the Comcast Network whether the White House had offered him a job to forgo a run against Specter, its preferred candidate. Sestak said yes.

Later Tuesday, Specter, during an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, said Sestak should back up his assertion.

"That's a very, very serious charge," Specter said. "It's a big black smear without the specifications. But I'm telling you it is a federal crime punishable by jail, and anybody who wants to say that ought to back it up. Listen, Congressman Sestak has gotten a lot of political mileage out of that, and it's really an attack on the administration."

The administration initially issued a blanket denial of Sestak's assertion - anonymously. Since then, Gibbs has declined to confirm or deny it several times, fueling questions about whether he was contradicting the denial.

"I don't have anything additional on that," Gibbs said yesterday during his regular news briefing, when asked about Issa's letter.

"Are you ever going to have anything additional on that?" the reporter persisted.

"I don't have it today," Gibbs said.

The briefing-room back-and-forth began Feb. 22, when ABC News correspondent Jake Tapper asked about Sestak's assertion. "I was traveling for a couple of days, as you know," Gibbs said then. "I haven't looked into this."

He promised to get answers. On March 1, a reporter asked Gibbs about that promise. "I have not made any progress on that," Gibbs said. "I was remiss on this and I apologize."

Issa's letter asked for all communications "at any time" between anyone at the White House and Sestak about his Senate bid. He asked specifically about chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, and demanded to know what steps the White House had taken to investigate the matter.

As of last night, Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella said, Bauer had not responded.