The head of the Democratic Party resigned on July 24 amid a furor over
embarrassing leaked emails, hoping to head off a growing rebellion by
Bernie Sanders supporters on the eve of the convention to nominate
Hillary Clinton for the White House.
Lingering bitterness from
the heated primary campaign between Clinton and Sanders erupted after
more than 19,000 Democratic National Committee emails, leaked on Friday,
confirmed Sanders’ frequent charge that the party played favorites in
the race.
In
a statement, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the best way
for the party to accomplish its goal of putting Clinton in the White
House was for her to step aside after the convention. Sanders had
demanded earlier in the day that Wasserman Schultz resign.
The
furor was a blow to a party keen on projecting stability in contrast to
the volatility of Republican candidate Donald Trump, who was formally
nominated at a raucous convention in Cleveland last week.
It
also overshadowed preparations in Philadelphia for Clinton’s coronation
as the nominee to face Trump in the Nov. 8 presidential election. She
will be the first woman nominated for president by a major U.S.
political party.
The
four-day Democratic convention will open on Monday. In some good news
for Clinton, The New York Times reported that businessman and former New
York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will endorse her in a prime-time
speech on Monday, saying she will be the best choice for moderate voters
in 2016.
The
cache of emails leaked on Friday by the WikiLeaks website disclosed
that DNC officials explored ways to undermine Sanders’ insurgent
presidential campaign, including raising questions about whether
Sanders, who is Jewish, was really an atheist.
Sanders
said Wasserman Schultz, a U.S. representative from Florida, had made
the right decision for the future of the Democratic Party. “The party
leadership must also always remain impartial in the presidential
nominating process, something which did not occur in the 2016 race,” he
said.
‘RUSSIAN CONNECTION?’
The
Clinton camp questioned whether Russians may have had a hand in the
hack attack on the party’s emails and were interested in helping Trump,
who has exchanged words of praise with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“What’s disturbing to us is that experts are telling us that Russian
state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails and other experts
are now saying that Russians are releasing these emails for the purpose
of helping Donald Trump,” Clinton campaign chairman Robby Mook said on
CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Trump
campaign manager Paul Manafort said the Clinton camp was trying to
distract from its party discord ahead of the convention.
“What’s
in those emails show that it was a clearly rigged system, that Bernie
Sanders … never had a chance,” Manafort said on ABC.
Clinton,
68, a former secretary of state, and Sanders, 74, an independent U.S.
senator from Vermont who ran for president as a Democrat, waged a
bruising months-long battle for the nomination. Branding himself a
democratic socialist, Sanders galvanized young and liberal voters with
his calls to rein in Wall Street and eradicate income inequality.
But
Sanders repeatedly voiced frustration with a DNC and party
establishment he felt was stacked against him, and the resentment from
Sanders and his supporters threatened to disrupt the convention.
“I’m not shocked but I’m disappointed,” Sanders said of the emails earlier on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
The
emails showed DNC officials pondering various ways to undercut Sanders.
Brad Marshall, the DNC’s chief financial officer, apologized on
Facebook on Saturday for an email in which he discussed how some voters
in upcoming nominating contests in Kentucky and West Virginia would
reject an atheist.
“He
had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage,” Marshall wrote in a May
5 email to three top DNC officials. No names were mentioned, but
Sanders was the only Jewish candidate.
“I
think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points
difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big
difference between a Jew and an atheist.”
Clinton
told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired on Sunday that she
had not read any of the emails but it was “wrong and unacceptable” to
bring religion into the political process.
SANDERS SUPPORTERS ANGRY
The
emails angered many Sanders supporters who were already dismayed by
Clinton’s choice on Friday of low-key U.S. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia
as her vice presidential running mate. Kaine, 58, who could appeal to
independents and moderates, has never been aligned with party liberals.
Sanders,
who has endorsed Clinton and will speak on her behalf to the convention
on Monday, said he would have preferred she pick U.S. Senator Elizabeth
Warren of Massachusetts, a favorite of the party’s liberal wing, as her
No. 2.
“I
have known Tim Kaine for a number of years. … Tim is a very, very
smart guy. He is a very nice guy,” Sanders said on NBC’s “Meet the
Press.”
“He
is more conservative than I am. Would I have preferred to see somebody
like an Elizabeth Warren selected by Secretary Clinton? Yes, I would
have,” he said.
Carrying
pitchforks meant to portray Clinton as the devil, hundreds of Sanders
supporters took to the streets of Philadelphia earlier on Sunday to say
they felt betrayed by the DNC.
“It
just validated everything we thought, everything we believed to be
true, that this was completely rigged right from the beginning, and that
you know it was really about what they were doing everything to set it
up so she would win,” Sanders supporter Gwen Sperling said.
DNC Vice Chairwoman Donna Brazile will serve as interim chair through the election, the DNC said on Twitter.
