If Darrell Issa can figure out how to gin up the Sestak/White House story into a way to impeach Obama, you know he's going to try. Which is just one more reason the Republicans retaking the House would be an unmitigated disaster for the country.
Reps. Darrell Issa of California, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, and Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, sent another letter to White House Counsel Bob Bauer on Wednesday, asking the White House to disclose specifics about any job offer to Sestak (D-Pa.) in exchange for dropping out of the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary.
By June 9, Issa wants the Obama administration’s legal records, memos to the press office, and e-mails and phone records in relation to the Sestak job offer. Issa and Smith also are asking for notes and transcripts of interviews with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, former President Bill Clinton, Sestak and Sestak’s brother Richard, who serves as his campaign manager.
As long as we're investigating, maybe there's more to that old story about Issa's military lies.
It turns out that 12 years ago when Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) was running for Senate, the San Francisco Examiner uncovered that his Army record was in doubt.
The Examiner published in May 1998 a devastating article detailing the conflicts between Issa's public statements and public records. A focus in the story was Issa's claim he protected then-President Richard Nixon as part of an "elite Army bomb unit" at the World Series in 1971. But it turns out Nixon didn't even attend the games.
The Examiner scoured military records and concluded that Issa's service on the squad "was marred by a bad conduct rating, a demotion and allegations that he had stolen a fellow soldier's car." It cited his 1998 campaign biography saying he served in the Army nine years, even though records showed he served just over five years. He was enlisted from 1970-1972 and was in a college Army ROTC program from 1972 through 1976, the Examiner reported. It also noted that an Issa press release said he was "detailed to the Army security team" which traveled with Nixon, and quoted from a 1990 San Diego Union story that said Issa "was on a bomb disposal unit for President Nixon and got to see the 1971 World Series because Nixon wanted to go and the stadiums had to be secured."
That's almost as creative as the history Jan Brewer created for her father. But as long as Issa is in the mood to investigate, they might as well open up his own story as well.
In fact, it could be a test case for Hatch's "Stolen Valor Act," that legislation that makes it "illegal to air misleading public statements about one’s military service," unless one is Mark Kirk.