Ethics

is for someone to lie about it.

This is a point that should be obvious to most ethics lawyers, but it is not always obvious to people in public life.   In my book on government ethics I discuss the "psychology of the cover up", which seems to be an epidemic in Washington.  Many scandals happen because someone did something embarassing but legal and then made it into a crime by lying about it.  I don't believe that has happened here, but the priority for the White House going forward is making sure everyone who discusses this matter, particularly with Congress, is disclosing everything known to themselves or to anyone else in the Administration.

As I have explained in earlier posts. regardless of what happened with the Sestak job offer it is unlikely that a crime was committed.  Whether it was an advisory board position or Secretary of the Navy or something else does not matter.  There was no demonstrable quid pro quo.  The bribery statute does not apply.  The Hatch Act language is ambiguous and potentially very broad, but has not been interpreted and applied that way by the Executive Branch for a long time.

I have no reason to believe anyone in the Administration is lying, and I assume the White House is disclosing everything it knows.  Indeed one of the reasons I did not urge immediate disclosure in this matter is that I believe it extremely important to investigate the facts fully first.  The White House Press Office is not always willing to wait for a complete investigation of the facts before getting out a statement, yet hurried disclosure can be a big mistake.  If the disclosure already made is incomplete, they should fix it.  What the facts are probably does not matter in this case, but whether people tell the truth about them does matter.  A lot.