Ethics complaints surge on Sestak offer

The Joe Sestak/White House job flap triggered a huge jump in complaints to the Office of Congressional Ethics from private citizens, in large part due to scrutiny from Republicans and conservative websites, Hotline reports:

The report says 1,700 of the 2,000 complaints had to do with "a single issue involving the Executive Branch" and a member of Congress.

The OCE does not reveal the specific subject of those complaints, but it is likely to be Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), who in May confirmed he had been offered a position by the Obama admin in exchange for staying out of a primary against Sen. Arlen Specter (D).

. . . Other GOPers stayed away from the issue until Sestak beat Specter in the May 18 primary. After his victory, the GOP resurrected the issue, with [Rep. Darrell] Issa at the forefront, blanketing the airwaves denouncing the WH's interference in party elections. The issue died down after the WH issued an internal investigation memo, which showed that Bill Clinton had spoken to Sestak in late '09 about the possibility of halting his bid.

Conservative websites such as WorldNetDaily had provided hyperlinks to the OCE website this spring to enable individuals to offer a submission on Sestak.

While the report would not specify the nature of the "single issue," the sheer number of submissions represents a huge increase when compared to previous OCE quarterly reports. For context, the first quarter '10 report contained submissions from approximately 100 private citizens and the fourth quarter '09 report contained submissions from 45 private citizens.