Bernie Sanders was right about rigged system
Bernie Sanders said it was a rigged system, and now, a year after the election, the exposure of the rigging hardware has begun.
A new book by Donna Brazile, the former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, describes the unusual joint fundraising agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and the Clinton campaign committee, called Hillary for America.
“In exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC,” Brazile writes, “Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy and all the money raised.”
The agreement gave Clinton control over key staffing positions including party communications director.
It required the DNC to check with her campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data and mailings.
It’s not unusual for the party’s nominee to take control of the party’s campaign and fund-raising apparatus, but Clinton wasn’t yet the party’s nominee.
The agreement was signed in August, 2015, before a single primary or caucus had been held.
Brazile says the fundraising was legal, but the joint fundraisers allowed the Clinton campaign to collect as much as $353,400 for the Hillary Victory Fund from donors who had already given the maximum allowable $2,700 to her campaign committee.
The Victory Fund could collect $10,000 for each of the 32 states’ parties that were part of the agreement, plus $33,400 for the DNC.
The money, Brazile writes, was quickly transferred from the state parties to the DNC and then to the Clinton campaign.
By the time the Democrats held their first debate on October 13, 2015, Clinton had been secretly controlling the supposedly neutral Democratic National Committee for two months.
There were four other candidates on the stage — Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee — but they were just props in the DNC-Hillary show.
A potential candidate who chose not to get into the race, Vice President Joe Biden, was wise not to try it.
Why is Brazile telling this story now?
Is it because the party is worried that Clinton’s ambition might lead her to run again in 2020?
If she does, it won’t be a coronation.
By the time the Democrats held their first debate on October 13, 2015, Clinton had been secretly controlling the supposedly neutral Democratic National Committee for two months.