On 10/29/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
When secrecy replaces transparency, democracy cannot exist. The DMC
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What the WikiLeak Revelations Reveal About Donna Brazile and the DNC
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/what_the_wikileaks_revelations_reveal_ab
out_donna_brazile_and_the_dnc_20161/
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Posted on Oct 28, 2016
By Donald Kaufman
Donna Brazile. (Tim Pierce / CC 2.0
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/qwrrty/30219832340/in/photolist-N3qxj5-KjrArL
-JTCfT3-KaK9VT-qAmNqX-pVMqiw-pVMqSC-qAd7Ld-qAd7QG-qSMtAV-qQuzWh-qQuyaS-qAmJ9
v-qQuxpU-pVMm2f-qAe8wS-qAe9WL-qQuwPL-pVMpdf-qQuy8Y-d5ULqm-qSCkw2-qQuwD5-qSMu
HK-qQuzy3-qSCn7g-qSH4pJ-qQuwGb-qQuzUJ-qAe62m-qQuzLN-qAd9FL-pW1hFR-pW1iq6-qSM
xAZ-qSCmLX-pVMkUG-pW1g6M-qAe6kh-pVMmu9-qQuyMJ-qAe5ds-qAe6CS-pW1geT-qAmH7F-d8
Xx5G-qSH2UQ-qSCjzx-d8XB4A-pW1i7k) )
Donna Brazile, interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, faces
new scrutiny as evidence points to abuses of power.
Brazile's alliance with the Hillary Clinton team looks to have started in
2008. In February of that year, while Clinton was running for president
against Barack Obama, CNN political commentator and consultant Paul Begala
wrote an email to the Clinton team saying that it should "court" Brazile.
(https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/27555) At that time, during
the primaries, Brazile refused to publicly endorse a candidate but worked
closely with the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Until recently, she
also worked for CNN and ABC News. Her close relationship with the Clinton
camp has deepened over the years.
Evidence that Brazile would begin working to help Clinton is seen in an
interview
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/just-asking-donna-brazile
-on-who-shes-for-post-racial-reality-and-the-best-cocktails-in-dc/2014/07/14
/0d894928-f806-11e3-8aa9-dad2ec039789_story.html) she gave with Joe Heim
of
The Washington Post in 2014. She told Heim:
Technically, I'm neutral, but neutrality is something that gets you in
trouble because, you ever notice someone who stands on the white line in
the
middle of the road? They get run over. And I don't want to get run over. So
I'm not neutral. I have to tell people that I'm neutral, but I'm ready for
Hillary.
By the time this interview was conducted, she was already vice chair of the
DNC. It is important to note that article 5, section 4 of the DNC Charter
(https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2989759-Impartiality-Clause-DNC-Cha
rter-Bylaws-Art-5-Sec-4.html) requires that the chairperson, national
officers and staff of the DNC "maintain impartiality and evenhandedness
during the Democratic Party Presidential nominating process."
If the WikiLeaks emails are not falsified (and all evidence and history
point to that being the case), this notion of impartiality was used by the
Clinton camp, to its advantage, throughout the primary campaign.
In late October 2015, Adrienne K. Elrod, director of strategic
communications and amplification for Hillary For America, sent out an email
under the title "Bernie Pushback Update" that included a broadcasting
strategy with the help of Brazile
(https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/21238) . The plan was to have
Brazile appear on TV in the guise of a "strategist" and call out rival
Bernie Sanders' campaign for having a "Bad Strategy."
Elrod wrote: "All of our friends going out tonight post debate, including
[former Michigan Gov. Jennifer] Granholm, Donna Brazile and [political
consultant] Bill Burton, are ready to call Bernie's team out if it comes up
tonight."
The email was a response to a critique
(https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-28/bernie-sanders-brain
-trust-says-he-can-beat-hillary-clinton) of Clinton by Sen. Sanders.
The reliance on Brazile for help appears to have continued into the new
year. On Jan. 3, 2016, an email exchange
(https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5616) between John Podesta
and Brazile titled "Happy New Year" went as follows:
Subject: Re: Happy New Year
On Jan 3, 2016, at 2:25 PM, John Podesta wrote:
Wishing you a happy New Year. 2015 was challenging, but we ended in a good
place thanks to your help and support. Look forward to working with you to
elect the first woman President of the United States. >> Have a great New
Year. >> -John
On Sunday, January 3, 2016, Donna Brazile wrote: As soon as the nomination
is wrapped up, I will be your biggest surrogate.
On Jan 3, 2016, at 19:33 PM, John Podesta wrote:
Thanks Donna. Holed up in the bunker and miss seeing you.
Two days after this exchange, Brazile let the Podesta team know that
Sanders
was planning to launch a Twitter campaign. The emails reveal that the
impartiality clause in article 5, section 4 would be violated again and
again.
On Feb. 2, she sent an email to Podesta
(https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/25203) titled "Good Luck
Tonight" and wrote "Shake things up. It's going to be rough. Very rough."
This was the day before a town hall event
(https://hillaryspeeches.com/2016/02/03/watch-now-new-hampshire-democratic-t
own-hall-on-cnn/) in which Clinton and Sanders would appear.
More damning is an email Brazile sent to Podesta
(https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5205) on March 12 titled
"From Time to Time I Get The Questions In Advance." In the email, she
wrote,
"Here's one that worries me about HRC." It was a question on the death
penalty that was asked-verbatim-the following day at the town hall with
Sanders.
Brazile released a statement
(http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/wikileaks-email-hack-clinton-donna-br
azile-229609) earlier this month after the Podesta emails revealed this
exchange. "I often shared my thoughts with each and every campaign, and any
suggestions that indicate otherwise are simply untrue," Brazile said in the
statement. "As it pertains to the CNN debates, I never had access to
questions and would never have shared them with the candidates if I did."
Perhaps the DNC could be forgiven by claiming they did not know Brazile had
such deep ties to Clinton and her campaign. But on July 22, before the
Podesta emails were revealed, WikiLeaks released more than 19,000 DNC
emails. The revelations forced DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign
after evidence pointed to a heavy bias against Sanders. Brazile was chosen
as interim chair, even though the DNC leaks revealed her potential bias.
In an email exchange, Abby Phillip of The Washington Post asked Brazile to
respond to allegations (https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/6807)
that
the DNC was not giving adequate representation to the Sanders camp.
Brazile's response: "I have no intention of touching this. Why? Because I
will cuss out the Sanders camp!"
In addition, new videos surfaced
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/19/two-democra
tic-operatives-lose-jobs-after-james-okeefe-sting/) last week from
conservative activist James O'Keefe alleging that the Clinton camp and the
DNC worked with influential Democratic operatives on dark campaign
strategies against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The videos
and allegations mostly center around interviews with Scott Foval and Robert
Creamer. Foval was a Democratic operative and national field director for
Americans United for Change. Creamer was a Democratic operative working for
the DNC
(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/us/politics/video-dnc-trump-rallies.html?
_r=0) , a consultant for Americans United for Chance, the founder and
president of Democracy Partners and the husband of Illinois Rep. Jan
Schakowsky.
In the videos, Foval talks about inciting confrontation and violence on
behalf of the DNC and the Clinton campaign at Trump rallies. Foval is also
seen talking about voter fraud schemes and is caught saying, "We manipulate
the vote with money and action, not with laws."
Creamer, who is also implicated throughout the videos, has a seemingly
close
relationship with President Obama. Since 2009, Creamer has visited the
White
House 342 times, including having made 40 visits to Obama himself. The
videos also reveal that Creamer is well connected to the Clinton campaign;
he boasts about talking on the phone with campaign operatives at 10:30 a.m.
every day. The WikiLeaks documents confirm that they indeed had a close
relationship.
Aaron Black, a DNC rapid response coordinator who worked under Foval, can
also be seen taking credit for the shutdown of a Chicago rally for Trump in
March. Trump had to cancel his appearance
(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/12/us/trump-rally-in-chicago-canceled-after-
violent-scuffles.html) after violence broke out.
According to O'Keefe, one of the terms used for inciting this type of
conflict is known as "bird-dogging." Multiple Podesta emails make reference
to this term. One email (https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2175)
written by Ilyse G. Hogue, director of political advocacy and
communications
at MoveOn.org, explained: "Our members are bird dogging Republican
candidates in character all over the country. They dress up as execs from
'RepubliCorp' a not-so-fictitious merger between the Republican party and
multi-national corporations and go to events." However, the emails making
reference to bird-dogging do not implicate the kind of violence that Foval
does in the videos.
According to The Washington Post reports
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/19/two-democra
tic-operatives-lose-jobs-after-james-okeefe-sting/) : "Bird-dogging is a
fairly common activist tactic, and reporters often recognize it when
seemingly "perfect" questions come from a political audience."
The videos also allege that Hillary Clinton herself had an idea to place
people in Donald Duck costumes at every Trump and Pence rally. The video
alleges that Clinton and the DNC wanted Americans United for Change to make
this happen. According to O'Keefe, if the Clinton campaign and the DNC
worked with the group, it would be an "illegal coordinated campaign
expenditure" and a violation of Federal Election Commission (FEC)
regulations. According to the video, the Clinton campaign and the DNC
(including Brazile) talked on the phone with Creamer to coordinate where
the
"Donald Ducks" should be placed. Foval said any messages the "ducks" were
carrying had to be cleared with the DNC. Creamer was asked why the DNC
didn't fund the project itself. He explained that the committee was worried
about a trademark issue between Brazile and ABC, which is owned by Disney.
For some added context, O'Keefe has a history of sometimes editing videos
in
a way that slightly misrepresent the story.
Since the videos were released, Foval has been fired from Americans United
for Change and Creamer announced his resignation from the DNC.
Democracy Partners released this statement on Oct. 18, 2016:
Our firm has recently been the victim of a well-funded, systematic spy
operation that is the modern day equivalent of the Watergate
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal) burglars. The plot
involved the use of trained operatives using false identifications,
disguises and elaborate false covers to infiltrate our firm and others, in
order to steal campaign plans, and goad unsuspecting individuals into
making
careless statements on hidden cameras. One of those individuals was a
temporary regional subcontractor who was goaded into statements that do not
reflect our values.
According to The Washington Post, neither man defended the "content of the
videos," but instead questioned the way the videos were edited and the
impartiality and history of O'Keefe himself. You can watch the videos here
(http://www.projectveritasaction.com/) .
After the third presidential debate last week, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly
grilled Brazile
(http://www.thewrap.com/presidential-debate-wikileaks-hillary-clinton-megyn-
kelly-donna-brazile-dnc-cnn/) over the allegations in the video and the
WikiLeaks emails. Brazile refused to answer directly. Instead, she said she
was being "persecuted" and that she wouldn't "validate falsified
information." Asked if the videos were falsified, she dodged the question
and Kelly pointed out that no one has come forward to question the videos'
legitimacy. Pressed regarding the WikiLeaks emails, Brazile responded: ".
Thank God, I have not had my personal emails ripped off from me and stolen
and given to some criminals to come back altered." She added, "I have seen
so many doctored emails. ... I will not sit here and be persecuted, because
your information is totally false."
Robert Graham, from tech blog Errata Security, wrote that using a mechanism
called DKIM he was able to prove that none of the emails was modified or
doctored
(http://blog.erratasec.com/2016/10/yes-we-can-validate-wikileaks-emails.html
#.WBJYPuErLR3) .
You can watch the Kelly-Brazile interview below:
</p><p>
On Monday, Brazile appeared on Tavis Smiley's talk show, continuing to
spin
the WikiLeaks emails. She refused to respond to the actual content, saying
that the source of the leaks was "people who have proven to lie and
manufacture stories" and that she was launching a cyber security task
force.
To date, none of the WikiLeaks releases in the past 10 years of publication
(which include more than a million documents) ever has proved to be altered
or false. Brazile asked Smiley, "How do you disprove a lie?" and repeatedly
invoked Russia, claiming that the Russians were trying to sow "seeds of
doubts into our entire election apparatus." Resurrecting Cold War sentiment
against Russia is not exclusive to Brazile. In fact, the Clinton camp has
been doing plenty of this.
People have every right to fear a Trump presidency, but when Clinton talks
about a no-fly zone in Syria and the DNC is pushing the theory that Russia
is trying to undermine the U.S. election, questions must be asked. If the
Podesta emails are real, one can see a long history of ulterior motives at
play. As of now, Brazile remains the chair and face of the DNC and Clinton
looks set to be our next president.
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