The 2016 primary and election

Donna Brazile became interim DNC chair in July 2016. In her 2017 book she said she found a 2015 agreement that gave Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters control over DNC spending. On ABC she said: “the only thing I found — which I said, ‘I found the cancer, but I’m not killing the patient’ — was this memorandum that prevented the DNC from running its own operation.” She also said: “I wanted to make sure there was no rigging of the process … I found no evidence, none whatsoever.” [1][2]

Sanders donors and voters sued. The appeals court in 2019 dismissed the case — some claims for lack of standing, others because the complaint did not plead fraud specifically enough. It did not decide whether the primary was fair, and it noted “deep disagreements” about the DNC’s conduct. [3]

Primary ballots are cast and counted by state and local election officials, and the counts are public. The documented complaint is about party money, staff and scheduling — real advantages — not altered ballots. [4]

Hacked Podesta emails released in October 2016 showed Brazile, then a CNN contributor, forwarding potential topics before a CNN town hall in spring 2016. In a March 2017 essay she wrote: “sending those emails was a mistake I will forever regret.” [1]

She also wrote that the Russians, “by stealing all the DNC’s emails and then selectively releasing those few,” made it look like she was “in the tank” for Clinton. [1]