Donna Brazile was appointed interim Chair of the DNC after Debbie Wasserman Schuiltz resigned during the Convention. Shortly afterward, Brazile began investigating the DNC because some hacked emails suggested the Clinton campaign improperly used the DNC to obtain the nomination for Hillary. The accusation was that the DNC was not neutral as it claimed and was supposed to be, but instead tried to and did influence the process for Hillary. Brazile promised Bernie Sanders she would get to the truth and tell him, no matter what that truth was.
What she found left her heartbroken because there was a “cancer” in the DNC. In her new book, “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House," part of which was excerpted in Politico this morning, Brazile reveals that “[b]y September 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart.” In August 2015, the DNC, which was broke, essentially sold itself to the Hillary Campaign. In a written agreement, the Clinton Campaign was given control over the “party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised,” as well as personnel decisions.
When I got back from a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, I at last found the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America.
The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.
Politico, by Donna Brazile: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC
Why is this wrong? Brazile, who was the Gore for President campaign manger in 2000, explains that the DNC is supposed to be neutral until there is a clear nominee:
When the party chooses the nominee, the custom is that the candidate’s team starts to exercise more control over the party. If the party has an incumbent candidate, as was the case with Clinton in 1996 or Obama in 2012, this kind of arrangement is seamless because the party already is under the control of the president. When you have an open contest without an incumbent and competitive primaries, the party comes under the candidate’s control only after the nominee is certain. When I was manager of Gore’s campaign in 2000, we started inserting our people into the DNC in June. This victory fund agreement, however, had been signed in August 2015, just four months after Hillary announced her candidacy and nearly a year before she officially had the nomination.
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The funding arrangement with HFA and the victory fund agreement was not illegal, but it sure looked unethical. If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity.
Brazile kept her promise to Bernie:
I had to keep my promise to Bernie. I was in agony as I dialed him. Keeping this secret was against everything that I stood for, all that I valued as a woman and as a public servant.
“Hello, senator. I’ve completed my review of the DNC and I did find the cancer,” I said. “But I will not kill the patient.”
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I told Bernie I had found Hillary’s Joint Fundraising Agreement. I explained that the cancer was that she had exerted this control of the party long before she became its nominee. Had I known this, I never would have accepted the interim chair position, but here we were with only weeks before the election.
Bernie took this stoically. He did not yell or express outrage.
Bernie kept it quiet for the good of the party and Hillary’s election.
So when the Clinton Campaign “negotiated” with the DNC about the number of debates, for example, it did not negotiate; it ordered the DNC to fix the number it wanted. It had contractual control of the DNC.
I voted for Hillary Clinton last November, suspecting but not knowing this. I would do it again. Trump is a fascist. But the Democratic Party needs to ensure that this kind of corrupt deal never happens again.