Exposed Clinton-DNC ties face criticism from Democrats, Republicans

A new book by former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile says Hillary Clinton had ethically dubious influence over the governing body long before her nomination.

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Donna Brazile’s book, “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House,” comes out Tuesday. However, it was excerpted by Politico online last Thursday — and the reverberations are still being felt.

According to the book, the DNC was broke long before the Democratic primary campaign began, and both of Clinton’s campaign funds (Hillary for America and the Hillary Victory Fund — its joint fundraising vehicle with the DNC) had taken care of most of the debt (about $10 million).

According to the deal, Brazile writes, in exchange for the funding, Clinton would control the party’s finances, staffing, strategy — and all the money raised, whether by the state parties, the DNC or the campaign.

This “Victory Fund Agreement,” however, was signed in August 2015, almost a year before Clinton officially had the nomination. Customarily, this kind of control over the party apparatus is given to the nominee only after the convention. The Clinton campaign got it much sooner.

‘Egregious’ and ‘Undemocratic’

Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont who was Clinton’s biggest primary opponent, had long claimed that the DNC was favoring Clinton before the nomination. Reacting to the revelations, his former campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, called the DNC actions “egregious” and “undemocratic” in an interview with CNN’s Brooke Baldwin.

While urging the party to work for needed reforms, Weaver also repeatedly said it was important for Democrats to move on and unify in opposition to Trump’s policies.

The castigation of the past on the one hand, and the call to look to the future instead, was echoed by many on the Democratic side.

Former DNC chairman and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said, “There was no crime committed, but it would’ve been easy to avoid. [So] I don’t think it was rigged, I think what the DNC did was just awful. But we should stop talking about it; it’s passed….Let’s focus…on going forward.”

‘This Takes the Cake’

On Saturday, Tom Perez, the new DNC chair, released a statement that focused in part on reassuring party stalwarts, saying that the DNC “is committed to the task of making sure that our 2020 nominating process will be unquestionably fair and transparent.”

Republican criticism was biting. House Speaker Paul Ryan told Fox News Sunday, “We’ve all said the Clintons live above the law, but this takes the cake.”

Meanwhile, Trump took to his favorite media, Twitter, to post several reactions on Friday, and suggested that the FBI or the Justice Department investigate the matter.

Bernie SandersDNCDonna BrazileHillary ClintonTom Perez