White House offered Joe Sestak unpaid advisory board position

I noted below that the White House asked Bill Clinton to meet with Joe Sestak to gauge whether he'd be open to alternatives other than running for Senate.

Now I've got some detail on precisely what alternatives were discussed.

According to a source familiar with the situation, the White House asked Clinton and his adviser, lawyer Doug Band, to suggest to Sestak an unpaid position on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

This is similar to what The New York Times' Peter Baker was told by sources, and Baker adds that the White House counsel looked at the the offer and concluded it wasn't illegal:

    The office of Robert F. Bauer, the White House counsel, has concluded that Mr. Emanuel's proposal did not violate laws prohibiting government employees from promising employment as a reward for political activity because the position being offered was unpaid. The office also found other examples of presidents offering positions to political allies to achieve political aims.

That dovetails with what I'm hearing the White House has concluded.

The fact that this is an unpaid position could be key. I've checked in with a good government expert to gauge this latest, and will update you when I hear back.

UPDATE, 12:02 p.m.: Here's the official response from the White House counsel on what happened. The White House says, as noted above, that it asked Clinton to suggest to Sestak an unpaid advisory board position.

The White House's response says no secretary of the Navy gig was discussed, and that this sort of offer has happened numerous times in past administrations.

Also: Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says there's no "there" here. This couldn't be bribery, she says, because the position was unpaid.

Beyond that, Sloan adds, the Federal bribery statute requires an offer of something of value in exchange for an official act. Sloan says that not running for Senate would not constitute an official act in any case, even if a paid position were offered in return for dropping a run for office.

And: Sam Stein has more new detail, including the interesting fact that the White House looked into this and reached its conclusion over two months ago, making one wonder why they didn't put this to rest earlier.

Cover Up?
People are asked all the time to serve in govt... as ambassadors, or in specific missions such as George Mitchell in N. Ireland, or Hillary Clinton as sec of state.
The preliminary invitations are usually behind the scenes to establish weather there is interest or if there are specific conditions if they accept.

For a Coverup... See:
~ Oliver North-Iran Contra.
~ Bill Clinton- Monica.
~ Bush/Cheney - Valarie Plame
etc etc etc.

Why would a person already in Congress want a non paying job, why did it take so long to answer the question in the first place unless they putting their story together, and why would Clinton offer a job when he has no authority to offer said job? When your administration has a record of not telling the truth it tends to cast doubt on your answers.