Sestak vs. al-Awlaki

So it appears that Darrel Issa has requested that the FBI investigate that non-illegal, politics-as-usual act of offering Joe Sestak a job.

Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, Friday asked the FBI to begin a criminal investigation into efforts by the White House to convince Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Penn.) to drop out of the Pennsylvania Democratic primary race against Sen. Arlen Specter.

Issa sent the request to FBI Director Robert Mueller hours after Bob Bauer, the White House counsel, released a report on the controversy. It revealed that former President Bill Clinton, acting on a White House request, approached Sestak with the suggestion that he drop out of the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary in exchange for an unpaid position on a presidential or other senior executive branch advisory board in the Obama administration.

However, as far as I can tell, no Republicans or Democrats in Congress have asked the FBI to investigate reports that the Obama Administration has authorized the CIA to assassinate American citizens, something that is almost certainly illegal and most definitely unconstitutional.

I don’t mind that the party in opposition is questioning the legality of President Obama’s acts in office. That’s what parties in opposition are supposed to do. I just wish they’d question things that matter.

FILED UNDER: Intelligence, National Security, Political Theory, Terrorism, US Politics, , , , , , , , , ,
Alex Knapp
About Alex Knapp
Alex Knapp is Associate Editor at Forbes for science and games. He was a longtime blogger elsewhere before joining the OTB team in June 2005 and contributed some 700 posts through January 2013. Follow him on Twitter @TheAlexKnapp.

Comments

  1. With respect to the assasinations, what’s left to ask? It’s all out there. Now if you want to indict, find someone willing to do so.

    With respect to Sestak, there’s an awful lot that smells bad and no one seems to know what really happened. Was it a job offer? Was it a bribe? Was it legal? Somebody’s lying, maybe everybody’s lying, who knows? But it does seem as though asking questions seems to be legitimate.

    Remind me, now that you want to prioritize these activities seemingly with the intent of only doing what you consider the most important, whether a criticism you levelled at the liberation of Iraq was that we weren’t trying to address all the world’s tyrants?