NPR is reporting that an unnamed Democratic source has provided them with a memorandum outlining how then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton effectively gained leverage over the Democratic National Committee (DNC) well before she secured the Democratic presidential nomination in early June 2016. The entire memorandum is located below a bolded line of text about halfway down the article that I’ve linked to in this paragraph.
In fact, the memorandum is arguably more of a political bombshell than excerpts of a yet-to-be-released book by former interim DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile, which is titled Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-Ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House, that have re-ignited the same divisions that defined the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination race.
Let me make a few points clear before I discuss the memorandum:
- Had there been no perception of a rigged nomination contest, I think Hillary probably would have received a higher percentage of the vote in the Democratic presidential nomination race than she actually did, since the perception that the DNC was rigging the primaries for Hillary probably drove a lot of people to vote for Bernie Sanders against Hillary.
- For the reason that I stated above, I do not believe that the DNC rigged the Democratic presidential nomination for Hillary, although there was a culture of bias at the DNC in favor of Hillary during the Democratic presidential nomination contest.
- I expect the DNC and lower-level Democratic Party organizations to be completely neutral during intra-party nomination contests within the Democratic Party and completely biased in favor of the Democratic Party’s officially-nominated candidates immediately after, not at any point before, they become official Democratic nominees.
- Traditionally, a major political party national committee becomes an extension of the presidential candidate nominated by the party in question during a presidential election-year general election.
I’ll quote a critical part of the memorandum here (in the memorandum, HFA = Hillary for America):
"HFA's obligations under this agreement, and the release of the Base Amounts each month are conditioned on the following:
- With respect to the hiring of a DNC Communications Director, the DNC agrees that no later than September 11, 2015 it will hire one of two candidates previously identified as acceptable to HFA.
- With respect to the hiring of future DNC senior staff in the communications, technology, and research departments, in the case of vacancy, the DNC will maintain the authority to make the final decision as between candidates acceptable to HFA.
- Agreement by the DNC that HFA personnel will be consulted and have joint authority over strategic decisions over the staffing, budget, expenditures, and general election related communications, data, technology, analytics, and research. The DNC will provide HFA advance opportunity to review on-line or mass email, communications that features a particular Democratic primary candidate. This does not include any communications related to primary debates – which will be exclusively controlled by the DNC. The DNC will alert HFA in advance of mailing any direct mail communications that features a particular Democratic primary candidate or his or her signature.
- If asked by a State Party, the DNC will encourage the State Party to become a participant in the Victory Fund.
(emphasis bolded by me)
The fact that HFA was given veto power over a lot of the DNC’s operations, including hiring of key DNC staffers and DNC messaging during the Democratic presidential nomination process months before any state held a primary or caucus indisputably proves that the DNC-HFA agreement creating the HFA victory fund was the instrument for the culture of bias within the DNC during the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination race.
Thanks to the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination race, we now have a Tea Party of the Left consisting of enraged Democratic voters who, despite being Democrats, have a group grievance against Hillary Clinton, the DNC, the Democratic establishment, and anyone who might even remotely be perceived as “pro-establishment”, aren’t going to be satisfied unless Hillary is thrown in prison for “rigging the primaries”, the DNC is abolished, regard what they perceive, whether it is factual or not, as more important than actual facts, and won’t support Democratic candidates who aren’t completely loyal to their movement and line of thought. We need rational progressives who are strongly committed to social justice, economic justice, getting progressive Democrats nominated, and getting Democrats elected, not establishment hacks or fringe-left blowhards, to take control of the Democratic Party and lead it in a truly progressive direction!
Oh, and there are Democrats on the ballot in parts of the country this coming Tuesday, and you can learn more about some of them here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.