The Democratic national convention in Philadelphia was turned into a near-disaster by the release of more than 19,000 private Democratic Party email messages and dozens of voicemails that were provided to major news outlets by the independent organization Wikileaks.
Wikileaks, which previously has released material related to U.S. diplomatic cables, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, is run by near-imprisoned journalist Julian Assange in London.
The emails, which came from the accounts of at least seven Democratic National Committee (DNC) members, document clear efforts by the party to discredit the candidacy of progressive Hillary Clinton rival Bernie Sanders and show how the DNC worked closely with mainstream media outlets to carefully script the stories that they wanted written in the press.
Bernie Sanders, who had been drawing record crowds of voters to his rallies right up until the end of the primary season, had struggled for media coverage of his campaign and for recognition among undecided voters, many of whom did not watch any of the six debates between Sanders and Clinton because the DNC scheduled them to take place on Saturday nights.
The DNC, which is required by its charter to uphold a policy of neutrality toward all Democratic candidates, showed a clear bias against Sanders, whom it attempted to publicly smear in several ways.
One of the methods discussed in the emails was to use Sanders’ religious preference (he is Jewish) against him, particularly in deeply religious states such as Kentucky and West Virginia.
In an email between DNC CFO Brad Marshall and DNC CEO Amy Dacy, Marshall states, “It might (make) no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points’ difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.”
DNC national press secretary Mark Paustenbach suggested planting negative stories about Sanders in the media that would give the impression that Sanders “never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess.”
In another email, Florida Congresswoman and DNC chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz said, “[Sanders] isn’t going to be president.” Schultz further went on to write about Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver, calling him a “damn liar,” “scummy” and “an ass.”
When MSNBC commentator Mika Brzezinski called Schultz out for her clear anti-Sanders bias, Schultz emailed MSNBC Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd, saying that such comments “must stop.” In another email, she asked a DNC staff member to tell MSNBC president Phil Griffin to order Brzezinski to apologize.
Schultz was further accused of deciding how much money state Democratic parties would receive from the national DNC, angering various officials in her camp. Still more emails disclosed that Schultz used DNC funds to make personal purchases, including gifts for friends and a new wardrobe for herself.
Schultz also used the DNC to dig up information on her competitor Timothy Canova in the upcoming race for her Congressional seat, a clear violation of campaign finance laws. Emails to the web outlet RealClearPolitics asked the nonpartisan site to delete Canova’s name from one of its headlines. Another email requested information about the relationship between Sanders and Canova.
In the face of tremendous public outcry over these leaks, Schultz was booed off the stage at the Democratic national convention. Party officials strongly pressured her to resign her chairperson position, but Schultz resisted until finally receiving a personal call from President Obama.
Despite her public vilification, Hillary Clinton’s campaign immediately appointed Schultz honorary chair of its 50-state program and declared that Clinton would continue to support her.
An email from April 20 of this year from Jordan Kaplan, national finance director of the DNC, discussed plans to reward large donors to the Democratic Party with federal appointments to commissions and boards. An article in the Daily Caller “implied that the documents and emails showed [Hillary] Clinton traded appointments for donations.”
Despite this, another article in The Huffington Post claimed “The White House strongly [denies] any link between financial support for the party and appointments.”
Further emails showed that the DNC collaborated in fundraising with the Clinton campaign, organizing a dinner with actor George Clooney and concerts with musicians Katy Perry and Elton John that cost thousands of dollars to attend.
When the Sanders campaign complained about this fundraising, the DNC stated that part of the funds were to go to downticket election candidates, but emails show that less than one-half of one percent of this money was spent this way. DNC then sent emails to state party officials telling them how to respond to media inquiries regarding these efforts and other fundraising.
The Democratic Party has always prided itself on reaching out to minorities, but in emails that were part of the leak, clear efforts to lure Hispanic voters were noted. One email detailed a list of objectives that needed to be met in order to “own Hispanic loyalty” and called Hispanics “brand-loyal consumers.”
This brought condemnation from prominent U.S. Latin-American community leaders and politicians, including Governor of New Mexico Susana Martinez.
In the wake of the email release, Hillary Clinton’s campaign accused Russia of hacking her party’s servers and supplying the information to Wikileaks. A Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, denied the allegations, saying they were “absurd” and “paranoid.”
On June 16, responsibility for the email leak was claimed by a hacker going by the name of “Guccifer 2.0” (the original Guccifer was a Romanian computer user who distributed personal photos of the Bush family and other celebrities).
However, some cyber security firms believe this is a cover story being propagated by Russian sources. Guccifer 2.0 has also claimed to have hacked newspaper The Washington Post and has released information about banks that received bailout money after donating to the Democratic Party.
Wikileaks has denied a Russia-sponsored connection and has promised further leaks damaging to the Clinton campaign. No doubt the press and the public look forward to them eagerly.
In the meantime, fallout from the scandal has tarred the Democrats and divided their unity. Angered supporters of Bernie Sanders stormed out of the Democratic convention on its second day and have taken their grievances to social media.
While the mainstream media has covered the scandal, it hasn’t given it as much attention as it did to the speech of Melania Trump on the opening day of the Republican convention or to various statements of presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Further disclosures in the campaign season may have more of an impact, so conservatives will just have to wait and see what else Mr. Assange and his contacts in London have up their sleeve.
