Letter sent by Bernie on April 13, as reported by the NY Times:
Dear members of the Board of the Center for American Progress and CAP Action Fund:
I write to express my deep concern and disappointment with the destructive role that the Center forAmerican Progress and its affiliated Action Fund arm are playing in the critical mission to defeat DonaldTrump.
Last week, you published an article on ThinkProgress criticizing me for my appearance and for the income I earned from writing a book. Then, a day later, you published a video that dishonestly attacked me for hypocrisy in my effort to address income inequality in America – a video that was excitedly discussed on many conservative websites.
Sadly, I’m not the only candidate in the 2020 field who has experienced personal attacks from your institution. My friend and colleague Elizabeth Warren was unfairly targeted by a November 2017 article on ThinkProgress that echoed Donald Trump’s bad faith claims that she was being a hypocrite about her ancestry. That attack that was linked on the Drudge Report and immediately immersed her into a rather unhelpful debate. Again in October 2018, you published an article stating that she was hurting NativeAmerican people.
That’s not all. In February of this year, an article on ThinkProgress attacked another friend and colleague of mine, Cory Booker, for moving in a progressive direction and joining with me on a prescription drug importation bill.
Center for American Progress leader Neera Tanden repeatedly calls for unity while simultaneously maligning my staff and supporters and belittling progressive ideas. I worry that the corporate money CAP is receiving is inordinately and inappropriately influencing the role it is playing in the progressive movement.
I and other Democratic candidates are running campaigns based on principles and ideas and not engaging in mudslinging or personal attacks on each other.
Meanwhile, the Center for American Progress is using its resources to smear Senator Booker, Senator Warren, and myself, among others. This is hardly the way to build unity, or to win the general election.I will be informing my grassroots supporters of the foregoing concerns that I have about the role CAP is playing. Should your actions evolve in the coming months, I am happy to reconsider what kind of partnership we can have. —
www.documentcloud.org/...
Many in the center have insisted on, and even demanded “unity” from progressives in the past. With Bernie Sanders as the early front-runner in the primary race, it’s time to see whether CAP and others can deliver unity by being allies and following when necessary. If they cannot, then their calls for unity were nothing more than opportunistic power plays.
In the accompanying article, NY Times reporters say:
The Center for American Progress, which is known as CAP, was founded in 2003 by John D. Podesta, a close ally of the Clintons, and is based in Washington. It has played an important role in Democratic politics, even as it is legally required to be independent from the party. It has been funded by major Democratic donors, like the financier George Soros, as well as entities with interests that do not always align with progressive politics, including health insurance companies, Walmart, big banks, defense contractors and foreign governments. [...]
Both Mr. Podesta, who was the chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign, and Ms. Tanden, who advised it, were mentioned as candidates for White House chief of staff had Mrs. Clinton won. Ms. Tanden has privately disparaged some of Mr. Sanders’s supporters and advisers during the 2016 campaign. Among them was Faiz Shakir, who advised Mr. Sanders’ 2016 campaign and is his 2020 campaign manager. He worked at CAP for years, helping to launch and run ThinkProgress, which he defended in 2008 as independent from CAP, writing that the website “will oftentimes write items that are bolder, more strident, or more critical than what others here at the institution may be comfortable with.” — www.nytimes.com/...
— @subirgrewal