PHILADELPHIA, Ohio (WKBN) – Party officials decided to not have Democratic National Convention Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz speak or preside over the party’s convention this week.
According to Fox8, the decision was reached following on Saturday after emails surfaced that raised questions about the committee’s impartiality during the Democratic primary. The DNC Rules Committee removed Wasserman Schultz as committee chairwoman and appointed Ohio Representative Marcia Fudge as permanent chair of the convention, according to a DNC source. Fudge will open and close each session, a role Wasserman Shultz had been expected to perform.
The release of nearly 20,000 emails led to Wasserman Schultz being removed as chairwoman. Wasserman Schultz’s stewardship has been under fire through most of the presidential primary race, ans she will not have a major speaking role at the convention in order to “keep the peace.”
One email appears to show DNC staffers asking how to reference Bernie Sanders’ faith to weaken him to Southern voters. Another email seems to show an attorney directing the committee on how to defend Hillary Clinton against accusations from the Sanders campaign of not living up to an agreement for a joint fundraiser.
Wasserman Schultz is still expected to gave the convention in and out but will not speak following the controversy of the leaked emails, according to a top Democrat.
“She’s been quarantined,” another top Democrat said, following a meeting Saturday night.
Her removal could be a concession to to Sanders who had been furious at Wasserman Schultz for what he believed to be favoritism to Clinton.
The Democrat familiar with the decision said it was done in hopes of preventing chaos on the convention floor among Sanders supporters. The decision was blessed by Clinton and Sanders officials, according to the same Democrat.
The emails involved in the leak date from January 2015 to May 2016. Everything from how to deal with challenging media requests to coordinating the committee’s message with other powerful interests in Washington were discussed by Democratic staffers in the leaked emails. The emails were leaked from seven DNC officials, according to Wikileaks. CNN has not been able to independently establish the authenticity of the emails.
One email ponders ways to undercut Sanders who had a bitter relationship with party leadership. Supporters of Sanders alleged the DNC was biased toward Clinton, and Sanders later endorsed Wasserman Schultz’s primary opponent in the Florida congressional race.
On May 5, a DNC employee asked colleagues to “get someone to ask his belief” in God and suggested that it could make a difference in Kentucky and West Virginia. Sanders’ name is not mentioned in the note.
“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 chief financial officer Brad Marshall wrote.
Marshall did not respond to requests for a comment. Baltimore mayor and DNC Secretary Stephanie Rawlings-Blake denied any suggestion that Clinton’s camp was treated more favorably by the committee.
“My expectation is beyond your opinion about a candidate, that you act evenly. All of the officers took a pledge of neutrality and I honored that, and I take that very seriously,” Rawlings-Blake told CNN’s Poppy Harlow. She added, “I know that the chair will hold those employees accountable if they’re found to have acted outside of that neutrality and even-handedness.”
Republican nominee Donald Trump said the emails are proof of the Democratic party’s “rigged” system, an attack he’s leveled against the party before.
“Leaked e-mails of DNC show plans to destroy Bernie Sanders. Mock his heritage and much more. On-line from Wikileaks, really vicious. RIGGED,” Trump tweeted Saturday morning.
One email appears to show an attorney advising the DNC on how to respond to a dispute between the two campaigns over how much money Clinton’s operation had raised for state parties. Sanders’ team alleged Clinton’s team was not handing over its fair share of its fundraising. Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver said it was “laundering” and “looting.”
“My suggestion is that the DNC put out a statement saying that the accusations the Sanders campaign are not true. The fact that CNN notes that you aren’t getting between the two campaigns is the problem,” Marc E. Elias wrote. “Here, Sanders is attacking the DNC and its current practice, its past practice with the POTUS and with Sec Kerry. Just as the RNC pushes back directly on Trump over ‘rigged system,’ the DNC should push back DIRECTLY at Sanders and say that what he is saying is false and harmful (to) the Democratic party.”
Elias and the Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Another exchange involves a discussion on whether to move Maryland ophthalmologist Sreedhar Potarazu from sitting beside President Barack Obama at a DNC event after National Finance Director Jordan Kaplan said he gave less money than Philip Munger, another donor.
“It would be nice to take care of him from the DNC side,” Kaplan wrote, referring to Munger.
Potarazu told CNN Saturday that he wants answers from top DNC officials on how they are responding to these revelations, which have surfaced days before the Democratic convention.
“I was obviously shocked to see my name in the middle of all of this because I’m just an innocent bystander,” he said.
“I’m curious to see what’s happening at the highest levels of the DNC right now,” he added. “I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s a fire drill. The timing is not good.”
Wasserman Schultz called Weaver a liar in May after he criticized the Nevada Democratic Party following protests among Sanders supporters who said Clinton’s backers had gone around party rules. They shouted down pro-Clinton speakers and sent threatening messages to state party Chairwoman Roberta Lange after posting her phone number and address on social media.
“The state party there has a lot of problems. They’ve run things very poorly. It has been done very undemocratically,” Weaver said on CNN in May. “And there seems to be an unwillingness on the part of the Nevada Democratic Party to bring in all of the new people that Bernie Sanders has brought into the process.”
The DNC chair responded in an email: “Damn liar. Particularly scummy that he barely acknowledges the violent and threatening behavior that occurred.”
And in an email quoting Weaver as saying, “I think we should go to the convention,” Wasserman Shultz wrote: “He is an ASS.”
Asked about the exchanges, Rawlings-Blake said, “Expressing an opinion about a candidate doesn’t mean that you’re in collusion, doesn’t mean that you are actively working against them. And I don’t think that that’s what it shows.”
The release of the emails comes just before the start of the convention where the party will try to unite by winning over Sanders’ supporters.
Several Democratic sources said that the emails are a big source of contention and may incite tensions between Sanders and Clinton supporters. Representatives of the former primary rivals were expected to meet Friday night to discuss the issue.
“It could threaten their agreement,” one Democrat said, referring to the deal reached between Clinton and Sanders about the convention, delegates and the DNC. The party had agreed to include more progressive principles in its official platform, and as part of the agreement, Sanders dropped his fight to contest Wasserman Schultz as the head of the DNC.
“It’s gas meets flame,” the Democrat said.
Michael Briggs, a Sanders spokesman, had no comment on Friday.
The issue surfaced on Saturday at Clinton’s first campaign event with Tim Kaine as her running mate, when a protester was escorted out of Florida International University in Miami. The protester shouted “DNC leaks” soon after Clinton thanked Wasserman Schultz for her leadership at the DNC.
Previously, the DNC had files hacked by an individual known as “Guccifer 2.0” with possible Russian ties.
Hackers stole opposition research on Donald Trump from the DNC’s servers in mid-June. Two separate Russian intelligence-linked cyberattack groups were both in the DNC’s networks.
