Sanders, DNC rift palpable in emails

In this March 21, 2016 file photo, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair, Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. is interviewed in New York.
In this March 21, 2016 file photo, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair, Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. is interviewed in New York.

WASHINGTON — A cache of more than 19,000 emails from Democratic Party officials, leaked in advance of the party’s convention this week in Philadelphia, details acrimony between the Democratic National Committee and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders during his run for the presidential nomination. He has since endorsed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

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AP Photo/File

This June 23, 2016, file photo shows Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., addressing supporters in New York.

Several emails posted by WikiLeaks on its document-disclosure website show DNC officials scoffing at Sanders and his supporters and, in one instance, questioning his commitment to his Jewish religion.

Although WikiLeaks’ posting of the emails Friday did not disclose who provided the private material, those knowledgeable about the breach said last month that Russian hackers had penetrated the DNC computer system. At the time, DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the breach was a “serious incident” and that a private contractor hired to sweep the organization’s network had “moved as quickly as possible to kick out the intruders and secure our network.”

On its Web page, WikiLeaks said the cache of emails came from the accounts of “seven key figures in the DNC” and warned that the release was “part one of our new Hillary Leaks series” — an indication that more material might be published soon.

Among the officials whose emails were made public were DNC spokesman Luis Miranda, national finance director Jordon Kaplan and finance chief Scott Comer, but other DNC and media figures and even some White House officials communicated with them between January 2015 and this May, WikiLeaks said.

The emails include several stinging denunciations of Sanders and his organization before and after the DNC briefly shut off his campaign’s access to the party’s key list of likely Democratic voters.

The DNC temporarily curtailed Sanders’ access to the list in December 2015 because the organization accused the campaign of illegally tapping into confidential voter information compiled by the Clinton campaign. The Sanders campaign briefly sued the DNC, but the party reached an accord with Sanders, and the suit was dropped in April.

The emails show that after the dispute over the voter records was resolved, hostility simmered from top DNC officials over the Sanders campaign.

In mid-May emails with Miranda, his deputy, Mark Paustenbach, questioned whether the DNC should use the voter-record dispute to raise doubts about the Sanders campaign.

“Wondering if there’s a good Bernie narrative for a story, which is that Bernie never had his act together, that his campaign was a mess,” Paustenbach wrote. Miranda spurned the idea, although he agreed with Paustenbach’s take: “True, but the Chair has been advised not to engage. So we’ll have to leave it alone.”

In another email exchange, Miranda asked Wasserman Schultz whether they should call CNN to complain about a segment the network aired in which Sanders said he would oust the chairman if he was elected.

“Do you all think it’s worth highlighting for CNN that her term ends the day after the inauguration, when a new DNC Chair is elected anyway?” Miranda asked.

Wasserman Schultz responded by dismissing Sanders’ chances.

“This is a silly story,” she wrote. “He isn’t going to be president.”

The emails appear to bolster Sanders’ claims that the committee, and in particular Wasserman Schultz, did not treat him fairly. His campaign accused the committee of scheduling debates on weekends so fewer people would see them. And in May, Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager, said on CNN that “we could have a long conversation just about Debbie Wasserman Schultz and how she’s been throwing shade at the Sanders campaign since the very beginning.”

In another email to DNC officials, Brad Marshall, the chief financial officer of the committee, said of Sanders: “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.”

The Associated Press emailed Miranda, Paustenbach and Marshall about the WikiLeaks releases, but the officials were not immediately available for comment.

Weaver said Saturday that the emails show “what many of us have known for some time, that there were certainly people at the DNC who were actively helping the Clinton effort and trying to hurt Bernie Sanders’ campaign.”

Weaver said the emails showed that the DNC’s “senior staffers” attacked Sanders about his religion and had roles in “planting negative stories about him with religious leaders in various states.”

Weaver also said the emails may make it harder to promote party unity as Sanders’ supporters mix with Clinton’s majority at the Philadelphia convention. Sanders endorsed Clinton and appeared with her earlier this month in Vermont, but there are concerns over whether some of his embittered supporters might sit out the election this fall.

BRAINSTORMING EMAILS

The emails also showed officials brainstorming about ideas for political hit jobs on Republicans such as GOP nominee Donald Trump.

In one case, they discussed creating a fake advertisement for a job in the Trump Organization. The emails suggest that it was intended to be a clearly satirical attempt to highlight Trump’s perceived treatment of women as sex objects.

“Seeking staff members for multiple positions in a large, New York-based corporation known for its real estate investments, fake universities, steaks, and wine,” said the proposed copy, forwarded in an email by Christina Freundlich, a committee spokesman.

“The boss has very strict standards for female employees, ranging from the women who take lunch orders (must be hot) to the women who oversee multi-million dollar construction projects (must maintain hotness demonstrated at time of hiring),” it added.

The title for the job: “Honey Bunch (that’s what the boss will call you).”

The new WikiLeaks releases also included exchanges between DNC officials and White House event-planning officials about whether to allow several influential Democratic Party donors to attend events where President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama were scheduled to appear. The emails contained lengthy discussions about the donors’ backgrounds, including, in some cases, criminal histories.

One email exchange concerned whether to allow singer Ariana Grande to perform at a DNC event in the wake of an online video posted on the TMZ website that showed Grande licking other customers’ doughnuts at a bakery in California. DNC officials also worried about the singer’s comment in the same video that “I hate America.” Grande, whose real name is Ariana Butera, later apologized for the comment.

According to the emails, White House officials vetoed Grande’s performance.

Information for this article was contributed by Stephen Braun and Catherine Lucey of The Associated Press; and by Michael D. Shear, Matthew Rosenberg and Mark Landler of The New York Times.

Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said the emails showed that the DNC’s “senior staffers” attacked Sanders about his religion and had roles in “planting negative stories about him with religious leaders in various states.”

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