Romanoff Cracks: Secret White House Jobsgate E-Mail Revealed

[bonnie]

Romanoff Cracks: Secret White House Jobsgate E-Mail Revealed

By Jeffrey Lord on 6.3.10 @ 6:09AM

And…bang!

Can you say James McCord?

In a revelation that will send shock waves through the American political landscape, the Denver Post last night revealed that Colorado Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff has now reluctantly admitted he discussed "three possible jobs with the deputy chief of staff of the Obama administration -- all contingent upon a decision by Romanoff not to challenge U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet."

The White House Deputy Chief of Staff is Jim Messina, a Denver-born Obama aide who served as the chief of staff of the Obama presidential campaign. Messina serves under Rahm Emanuel, the former Illinois Congressman and current White House Chief of Staff.

The Post also published an e-mail from Messina to Romanoff dated September 11, 2009 at 3:24 pm. The e-mail discusses the jobs of Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America and Caribbean, and Director, Office of Democracy and Governance. Both of those positions are under the United States Agency for International Development. The third position mentioned was Director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.

The Romanoff admission -- which comes after months of silence, denials and evasions by the White House beginning in February -- comes on the heels of a letter to the White House from Congressman Darrell Issa and two congressional colleagues demanding access to e-mails and phone logs relevant to the Sestak Jobsgate affair -- the allegation first made by Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak that the White House offered him a job if he would abandon his own Senate challenge to incumbent Democrat Arlen Specter.

On Friday, the White House issued a report by White House Counsel Robert Bauer, saying that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had approached former President Bill Clinton to contact Sestak. The report, which contradicts Sestak, says that "efforts" in the plural were "made in June and July of 2009 to determine whether Congressman Sestak would be interested in service on a Presidential or other Senior Executive Branch Advisory Board, which would avoid a divisive Senate primary, allow him to retain his seat in the House, and provide him with an opportunity for additional service to the public in a high-level advisory capacity for which he was highly qualified. The advisory positions discussed with Congressman Sestak, while important to the work of the Administration, would have been uncompensated."

The positions discussed in the Messina-Romanoff e-mail are all compensated positions.

Sestak says something else -- that former President Clinton made one phone call to him, the offer was only briefly discussed and he, Sestak, rejected the offer.

The report was sufficiently self-contradictory that Issa and colleagues Lamar Smith of Texas and James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin felt compelled to send their letter to White House Counsel Bauer requesting -- by June 9 -- the following:

1. All records and documents created by or produced to the Office of the White House Counsel in the course of the investigation.

2. All records and documents created or produced to the Office of the White House Press Secretary in the course of the investigation of the Sestak matter.

3. All notes or transcripts of interviews conducted by lawyers in the Office of the White House Counsel with witnesses in the Sestak matter, including but not limited to the White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, President Bill Clinton, Rep. Joe Sestak and Richard Sestak.

4. All notes or transcripts of interviews conducted by staff in the Office of the White House Press Secretary with witnesses in the Sestak matter, including but not limited to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, President Bill Clinton, Rep. Joe Sestak and Richard Sestak.

5. All records, documents, interview notes or transcripts referred to either explicitly or implicitly or otherwise relied on to draft the May 28, 2010 Sestak Memorandum.

[Woody]

Wow. This is very serious stuff. Very. It will be interesting how this plays out.