Skimming through Donna Brazile’s book Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House, I have so far found just a couple excerpts worth quoting to shed more light on the story. I previously discussed the initial media reports about the book here, and have follow up information information here. The second post includes information debunking false claims made by Clinton supporters.
Clinton supporters have often claimed that Clinton deserved the nomination more than Bernie Sanders because of she was raising money for other candidates. While this would not justify nominating a corrupt warmonger such as Clinton, Brazile’s book shows that this isn’t even factually true. This is seen in this excerpt from chapter 10 of Hacks:
Right around the time of the convention the leaked emails revealed Hillary’s campaign was grabbing money from the state parties for its own purposes, leaving the states with very little to support down-ballot races. A Politico story published on May 2, 2016, described the big fund-raising vehicle she had launched through the states the summer before, quoting a vow she had made to rebuild “the party from the ground up… when our state parties are strong, we win. That’s what will happen.”
Yet the states kept less than half of 1 percent of the $82 million they had amassed from the extravagant fund-raisers Hillary’s campaign was holding, just as Gary had described to me when he and I talked in August. When the Politico story described this arrangement as “essentially… money laundering” for the Clinton campaign, Hillary’s people were outraged at being accused of doing something shady. Bernie’s people were angry for their own reasons, saying this was part of a calculated strategy to throw the nomination to Hillary.
After the release of information from Brazile’s book, Clinton supporters made a number of false claims including that the funding agreement didn’t take effect until after the primaries were over and that Bernie Sanders was offered the same agreement. While this is debunked in my previous post, Hacks also showed that this was not the case:
The other campaigns—Martin O’Malley and Bernie—also signed victory fund agreements that kicked in should they secure the nomination, not seven months before. They also did not specify as much immediate control from the campaign as the one Hillary signed with the DNC.
While this line has been widely quoted for the past week, it is also worth repeating:
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.
There is no doubt that it was unethical. It remains to be seen whether this attempt to evade federal campaign finance laws was legal.
As I noted in the previous post, Donna Brazile has been trying to walk back her accusations that the nomination was rigged, but while doing so said that the Clinton campaign was a cult.
