Brazile Denies Democratic Primary Was Rigged

Donna Brazile, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called Hillary Clinton staffers who criticized her take on the 2016 campaign out of touch. Brazile, appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” defended her claims that Clinton control of the DNC tied the group’s hands and made it difficult for the group to be involved in the campaign, but denied that the primary was rigged against Bernie Sanders.

“Here's what they don't know. What it was like to be over at the DNC during the hacking. What it's like to bury a child. I did, Seth Rich. They don't know what it's like to protect a staff from further harassment,” Brazile said.

“They don't know what it's like because they're — the high command of Brooklyn,” Brazile added. “The people making the decisions, even for the DNC, they didn't come and work with us. They told us to shut up. And basically let them win the election. When we tried to intervene, we had to spend money we raised to try to help them win. That was my job as chair of the party.”

In a racially charged comment rarely applied to fellow Democrats, Brazile also said that she had to tell the Clinton campaign that she was no slave. “Yeah, I'm not Patsy the slave because I got sick and tired of people trying to tell me how the spend the money,” Brazile  said. “I wasn't getting a salary. I was volunteering my time. I was trying to increase the level of enthusiasm and passion for Hillary Clinton and the rest of the ticket across the country.”

In other comments, Brazile denied that the Democratic primary was rigged against Bernie Sanders. "I said I would get to the bottom of everything, and that's what I did," Brazile said. "I called Senator Sanders to say, you know, I wanted to make sure there was no rigging of the process ... I found no evidence, none whatsoever."

“The thing, 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 added.

Brazile’s claim that Hillary Clinton colluded with DNC long before Clinton won the Democratic nomination is ethically questionable, but falls short of actually rigging the election. In Brazile’s version of events, she discovered the Clintonian control of the DNC after the convention in July. Per Brazile, Bernie Sanders agreed to campaign for Clinton even after he was told of the party’s duplicity.

In spite of the result of the election, Brazile stands by her actions. “Do I regret taking on a job the second time in my life as chair of the party? Cleaning up everyone's mess? Taking all of the income in? Being unable to spend funds that I raised? Do I regret being on the road 100 percent of the time? Being hacked by the Russians? Being — being harassed, getting death threats? Do I regret any of that?” she asked rhetorically.

“Do I regret standing up for what is right? Helping Hillary Clinton? Helping the Democratic Party? … No, I wish I could have done more.”

Originally published on The Resurgent