Brazile says Obama left DNC in deep debt; Clinton camp controlled party finances before 2016 primary
Former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile says President Barack Obama decimated the party’s finances to win re-election in 2012 and that Hillary Clinton’s campaign took control of the DNC long before she defeated Sen. Bernard Sanders for the party’s presidential nomination last year.
In excerpts from her upcoming book, Ms. Brazile said she was shocked at the sorry condition of the DNC’s finances when she took over in July 2016 for embattled Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whom she said was “not a good manager.”
Ms. Brazile described a phone call she had with Gary Gentler, the chief financial officer of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, on the morning after the Democratic National Convention ended in late July 2016.
“He told me the Democratic Party was broke and $2 million in debt,” Ms. Brazile wrote. ” ‘What?’ I screamed. ‘I am an officer of the party and they’ve been telling us everything is fine and they were raising money with no problems.’ That wasn’t true, he said. Officials from Hillary’s campaign had taken a look at the DNC’s books. Obama left the party $24 million in debt $15 million in bank debt and more than $8 million owed to vendors after the 2012 campaign and had been paying that off very slowly.”
She said Mr. Obama’s campaign was not scheduled to pay it off the debts until 2016.
“If I didn’t know about this, I assumed that none of the other officers knew about it, either,” Ms. Brazile wrote. “That was just Debbie’s way.”
In an excerpt published by Politico, she also said that she eventually discovered a written agreement that proved what Mr. Sanders had been claiming that the DNC was in the tank for Mrs. Clinton long before primary voting ended. She said the deal was struck by Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook and Mrs. Wasserman Schultz.
She said the Clinton campaign was essentially controlling the bulk of the party’s contributions and sending a small share to the DNC to “keep it on life support,” unbeknownst to Mr. Sanders’ campaign. Ms. Brazile said Mr. Gentler told her the Clinton campaign “had to do it or the party would collapse.”