As usual, context is critical. By the end of the primary, DWS was a lightning rod of controversy. Hillary recognized DWS was an obstacle to the Bernie wing rallying behind her and so she made a deal with DWS to get her to step down without a fight. She wasn't "forced" out due to wrongdoing, it was purely a political move to put the primary fights to rest and look towards defeating Trump. Had DWS stayed and defended herself, that would have severely weakened party unity. In such cases, truth takes a back seat to reconciliation.
Brazile's case is trickier. Taking everything she says at face value (which is a mistake), the main thing she demonstrated was that Hillary's campaign saved the DNC from bankruptcy before the primary by assuming its debt. Hillary (reasonably) put some controls on the DNC's finances in response to the mismanagement. Brazile had no evidence, nor did she claim that Hillary or anyone directed the DNC to act against Bernie. Besides, with the unfiltered look into the DNCs emails and Hillary's campaign's emails, you would expect to see mountains of evidence of Hillary manipulating the DNC against Bernie. But there was no such evidence whatsoever.
The other issue is the fundraising agreement that combined DNC-raised money with Hillary campaign money. But the fundraising agreement was standard and Bernie's campaign had the opportunity to sign the same fundraising agreement but declined.
First, the former DNC chairwoman was going to lose her job anyway. The DNC chair position alternates every four years. She was "fired" early to make peace with Sanders, who believed (correctly) that DWS favored Clinton. It was a move to give unity to the party, and possibly to get Sanders endorsement. It's hard to say for certain what would have happened if they hadn't.
Donna Brazile forwarded a single question to Podesto. The optics looked bad, but, as the email chain showed, it was a question they already had an answer to.
Believing this "proves!" anything is ignoring the facts.
You're right; however, Brazile was not the DNC chair at the time she did that (not until July), so she would have been allowed to help one candidate over another without it being the DNC rigging anything. Feeding Clinton questions is still bad but not an indication that the DNC rigged the primary against Sanders.
> In her new book, former party chairwoman Donna Brazile calls out the Clinton camp for the "unethical" arrangement it had with the Democratic National Committee
An arrangement that directly lead to DWS stepping down in the first place.
You mean Brazile, the one who leaked town hall questions ahead of time to Clinton?
edit: I'm not a Bernie supporter so it doesn't really bother me, I just found it amusing that you're quoting Donna Brazile here. Who was responsible for one of the clear, actual offenses against Bernie in 2016 for which she was forced to resign from CNN only to be rewarded with being head of the DNC. Well if she says everything was fine, I guess I better reconsider my sources...
Huh? DWS got forced out because she was a shit DNC chairman who couldn't keep her foot out of her mouth and then started chewing.
And, personally, I don't give a damn if the DNC was hostile to an avowed independent. Bernie was a carpetbagger. I like Bernie, but the Democrats treated him far better than I expected.
Well, it was apparently convincing enough for the former DNC chair to lose her job, and for the subsequent DNC chair to be fired from her position at CNN. If you choose to ignore what happened, then that's your own perogative.
The issue is it was clear Clinton was winning before the race was over based on polling, superdelegates, and what states were remaining. The DNC wanted to discuss (privately) how to limit damage to HRC from Sanders attacks before the general.
These sort of private discussion are totally reasonable for an organization like the DNC to have before the primary was 100% over cause they could see the writing on the wall. I didn't read every leak or anything like that but what I did see was mostly of this nature. This of course pissed off Sanders supporters (the point of the leak in the first place) but it really wasn't that bad imo.
The Brazile thing was though and I'm amazed she's not hiding in a cave somewhere in disgrace.
By "DWS scandal" do you mean the Debbie Wasserman Schultz issues[1]? I've read about that reasonable extensively, and they don't seem a huge deal to me at all. I mean it's good she resigned, but to me it looks more like a "perception of bias is as bad as bias itself" thing.
She probably did some things that benefited Clinton in the primary, but these don't seem that big a deal in the scheme of things.
The Wikipedia link I posted seems a reasonable summary. Which of them exactly is this big threat to democracy? For example, I thought the "removal of Sanders access to database" was a big deal until it became apparent that Sanders staffers had accessed private Clinton campaign information and it was restored in less than 24 hours[2].
"Hillary has also lied, I admit it, but it is not even on the same league of Trump."
Come on, even as a liberal - when DWS resigned from the DNC for ethics violations related to the primaries, it was what ... thirty six hours before the Hillary Campaign announced that she was working on the campaign.
That was a "fuck you, we're corrupt and you can't do anything about it".
And in case there remained any doubt, we saw the same thing repeated with Donna Brazile. Fed debate questions to Hillary beforehand, left DNC ... to work for Hillary.
The head of the DNC was already fired from CNN for directly colluding with Hillary Clinton (she gave HRC questions for the democratic debates ahead of time).
I have no idea how Bernie still supports her. She literally cheated against him to get the nomination.
This is not speculation. It's direct evidence of corruption in the DNC (and it revolves around guess who---Hillary Clinton).
They advertised her superdelegate lead before the voting even began. They leaked debate questions to her in advance of the event. They smeared Bernie with unfair accusations and labels. They worked directly with big media outlets to either deny or put out negative coverage of Bernie. The Washington Post put out 16 negative stories on Bernie in one day. There was unregistering of progressives in New York, and a botched delegate counting process in Nevada. They reduced the number of debates before the first primary by at least a third. DNC leads got caught actively cheating, leading to their resignations - Debbie Wasserman Shultz and Donna Brazile. They actually used the excuse in court that the Democratic party is private and has no legal obligation to run fair elections, and could select in a backroom smoking cigars if they wished. They actually said on national television that superdelegates served the purpose of preventing grassroots candidates from winning. I could go on and on. All of these things are easily verified. I can give you more if you'd like, with references.
How does claims that Hilary's takeover of the DNC to ensure her position as the Democratic candidate relate to a volunteer lying to the FBI or a guy who laundered a bunch of money over 7 years ago?
The DNC did suppress Sanders and showed massive bias towards Clinton, the email leaks showed it. Clinton's campaign got debate questions early. They got preferential treatment in the media. Then when Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair at the time, was kicked out because the collusion became public knowledge, the Clinton campaign _immediately_ hired her. If there wasn't massive collusion, then there was at very least an image problem, which Clinton did nothing to help by hiring the very person forced to resign.
Also, the message sent by the two were not identical at all. Sure, if you tallied them all up and compared them by existence they would be very similar, but the difference was in the focus. Sanders' campaign focused on socioeconomic inequality which would have resonated more in rural America, while Clinton's campaign focused more on social issues, which matters more in the urban centers where the economy is less of an issue.
>“The agreement — signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and [Clinton campaign manager] Robby Mook with a copy to [Clinton campaign counsel] 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,” Brazile wrote in the story under the headline “Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC.”
>Brazile added of the deal: “[Clinton’s] 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.”
Brazile's case is trickier. Taking everything she says at face value (which is a mistake), the main thing she demonstrated was that Hillary's campaign saved the DNC from bankruptcy before the primary by assuming its debt. Hillary (reasonably) put some controls on the DNC's finances in response to the mismanagement. Brazile had no evidence, nor did she claim that Hillary or anyone directed the DNC to act against Bernie. Besides, with the unfiltered look into the DNCs emails and Hillary's campaign's emails, you would expect to see mountains of evidence of Hillary manipulating the DNC against Bernie. But there was no such evidence whatsoever.
The other issue is the fundraising agreement that combined DNC-raised money with Hillary campaign money. But the fundraising agreement was standard and Bernie's campaign had the opportunity to sign the same fundraising agreement but declined.
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