politico | Before I called Bernie Sanders, I lit a candle in my living room and
put on some gospel music. I wanted to center myself for what I knew
would be an emotional phone call.
I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National
Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of
whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a
cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had
suggested.
I’d had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of
the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails. But who knew
if some of them might have been forged? I needed to have solid proof,
and so did Bernie.
So I followed the money. My predecessor, Florida Rep. Debbie
Wasserman Schultz, had not been the most active chair in fundraising at a
time when President Barack Obama’s neglect had left the party in
significant debt. As Hillary’s campaign gained momentum, she resolved
the party’s debt and put it on a starvation diet. It had become
dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield
control of its operations.
Debbie was not a good manager. She hadn’t been very interested in
controlling the party—she let Clinton’s headquarters in Brooklyn do as
it desired so she didn’t have to inform the party officers how bad the
situation was. How much control Brooklyn had and for how long was still
something I had been trying to uncover for the last few weeks.
By September 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart.
