Rendell fesses up: "I talked to Rahm"

No, it wasn't Rahm Emanuel with a lead pipe in the billiard room. It was Gov. Rendell with a candlestick in the study.

Rendell told Sean Hannity last night that he and the White House chief of staff discussed how to persuade Rep. Joe Sestak to not to run against Sen. Arlen Specter in the 2010 Democratic primary.

"I know about this. Number one, Rahm Emanuel and I had discussions about this," Rendell said on the Fox News show. "We very much wanted to persuade Congressman Sestak to stay in the House and run for his seat, 'cause he would have won his seat easily and now that's a seat that's up for grabs. So I know that the administration did not want to offer him a job that would have meant he would have to leave Congress."

Rendell, who amid the hullaboo over the Sestak job offer had earlier urged the White House to come clean on what transpired, brushed off former President Clinton's role in convincing Sestak to drop out.

"This happens all the time," Rendell said, ticking off a list of state houses where such deals are cut including Harrisburg.

In 2006 Rendell himself persuaded lieutenant governor candidate Joe Hoeffel to opt out of the race against incumbent Catherine Baker Knoll. Shortly after Hoeffel accepts a job as a deputy secretary in the Rendell administration.

He noted that former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who served in George W. Bush's administration, has suggested that no laws were broken.

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