Rahm Emanuel: "We were involved in the legislation all the way through."

Video by Real Clear Politics

Hours before his embattled boss gave his first State of the Union address, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel contradicted President Barack Obama’s claim made just two days before that he had nothing to do with the much maligned deal to get the vote of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) for the Senate’s healthcare bill just before Christmas.

Speaking to ABC News’ World News Tonight anchor Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview on Monday, Obama denied being involved in what has come to be known as the “Cornhusker Kickback”

SAWYER: A lot of people think you must say at the end of the day, this is not who I was in 2008, these deals with Nebraska, with Florida…

OBAMA: Let’s hold on a second, Diane. I mean, I think that this gets into a big mush. So let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals. There is a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked. So that’s point number one.

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Several state attorneys general have been asked, or plan, to investigate the deal struck by Senator Ben Nelson to permanently exempt Nebraska from paying Medicaid expenses in exchange for his voting for Obamacare.

An investigation of the Nelson deal would likely have two focuses. First, is the Nebraska exemption unconstitutional under Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution, which requires “all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States?” Secondly, did the deal constitute a form of corruption?

Whether the Nebraska exemption constitutes unlawful corruption obviously depends on the facts surrounding how Senator Nelson cut his deal. However, even a pure constitutional challenge would benefit from a clear understanding and presentation of the facts underlying how and why the Nebraska exemption was reached.

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From FoxNews:

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, who has faced a heap of criticism for appearing to trade his vote on health care for millions in federal Medicaid money, said he’s considering asking that the Nebraska deal be stripped from the bill. But he said other senators are looking for special treatment in light of his success.

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, after securing a sweetheart deal for his state as part of the health insurance reform bill, said Tuesday that three other senators have told him they want to bargain for the same kind of special treatment.

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On Saturday, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Grifter) announced that he would provide the deciding vote in favor of ObamaCare. In exchange–and yes, that is how it was framed–taxpayers in the other 49 states will forever pay the costs of Medicaid expansion in Nebraska. Oh, and non-profit insurance companies in Nebraska will be exempt from a new tax imposed on insurance companies in the rest of the country.

On an unrelated matter, we thought this bit of the U.S. Code was interesting:

Bribery of Public Officials –

We’ll be blunt. The ‘health care reform’ legislation under consideration in the Senate is the most corrupt piece of legislation in our nation’s history. Yes, we understand that is a strong statement and there have been other abominations throughout our nation’s life. But never before did corrupt legislation threaten to radically and forever change the live’s of every American.

Exhibit A is the outright bribe extracted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Corn Huckster State) from Sen. Harry Reid. As a result of Nelson’s performance in his role of Hamlet in the health care deliberations, we will have two health care systems in this country; one for Nebraska and one for the other 49 states.

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