Brazile under siege after giving Clinton debate question

Donna Brazile came to the Democratic National Committee to steady a ship rocked by an email hacking scandal and under fire for allegedly favoring Hillary Clinton during the primary process. Now, thanks to a new email hacking scandal, the DNC’s interim chair is at the center of a controversy of her own — with Clinton’s campaign again caught in the mix.

After hacked emails published Monday by WikiLeaks appeared to reveal Brazile, during her time as a CNN commentator, giving advance notice to Clinton’s camp about a debate question, Brazile has lost a CNN contract (which had been suspended since Brazile took over the DNC in July) and found herself used as fodder for one of Donald Trump’s favorite talking points: that in this “rigged” election, the DNC has been in the bag for Clinton since the beginning.


“And speaking of draining the swamp, Donna Brazile did it again. WikiLeaks, today. She gave the questions to a debate to Hillary Clinton and that was from a couple of weeks ago. Happened again, but this time far worse. She gave the questions to the debate to Hillary Clinton. Now, they’re all blaming Donna Brazile and frankly, I think she just got fired from the network. She should be fired from the DNC,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan on Monday.

Typically, network debate and town hall questions are created in strict confidence. At CNN, they call it ”the cone of silence” and questions are not even emailed to one another for fear of leaks.

But clearly, Brazile had other methods. Now the hacked emails show that Brazile, on two separate instances, tipped off the Clinton campaign ahead of time on questions that might come her way at CNN events.

In the first instance, ahead of a March 13 CNN town hall, it appears that guest-moderator Roland Martin from TV One may have shared his contributions to the questions with Brazile. In an email the day before the town hall to senior Clinton staffers, Brazile wrote: “From time to time I get the questions in advance” and included the text of a question about the death penalty. An email later obtained by POLITICO showed that the text of the question Brazile sent to the Clinton campaign was identical to a proposed question Martin had offered CNN. (A similar, though not identical question, was ultimately posed to Clinton at the town hall).

The Martin connection was seemingly cemented on Monday when WikiLeaks published more of that thread, featuring a newly released reply in which Brazile promises to send additional questions.

“I’ll send a few more,” Brazile wrote, adding, “Though some questions Roland submitted.”

Martin initially denied sharing his questions with anyone, but later said his executive producer and team at TV One had the questions in order to pass them on to the CNN team. Once POLITICO obtained further emails, Martin said he didn’t believe he consulted with Brazile about the questions. Martin did not return a request for comment on Monday.

According to CNN’s statement on Monday, Brazile formally resigned as a contributor from CNN on Oct. 14, just two days after news broke of the leaked town hall question. But no one knew Brazile and CNN had severed ties until Monday, when a new email further provided damming evidence — and new inquiries for the television network — that Brazile was tipping the Clinton campaign off during the primaries.

In the newest email, sent one day before the March 6 Democratic primary debate in Flint, Michigan, Brazile tells senior campaign staff that “One of the questions directed to HRC tomorrow is from a woman with a rash. Her family has lead poison and she will ask what, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the ppl of Flint.”

In her email, Brazile indicated that Flint was an important personal cause. “Folks, I did a service project today. It's so tragic. And what’s worse, some homes have not been tested and it’s important to encourage seniors to also get tested,” she said.

The next night, a woman named Lee-Anne Walters asked both candidates a very similar question.

“After my family, the city of Flint and the children in D.C. were poisoned by lead, will you make a personal promise to me right now that, as president, in your first 100 days in office, you will make it a requirement that all public water systems must remove all lead service lines throughout the entire United States, and notification made to the — the citizens that have said service lines,” the town hall attendee asked.

That the candidates would get a question about how they would help the people of Flint if elected president would have come as no surprise at the debate, which was purposely in Flint to highlight the city’s water problems. A CNN employee, speaking on background, suggested to POLITICO on Monday that Brazile may have met the woman who was set to ask the question at the service project she refers to in the email, but it’s not clear whether the person was Walters or someone else.

But wherever Brazile got the questions from, the email’s posting on Monday by WikiLeaks was the final straw, at least publicly for Brazile and CNN. CNN announced that Brazile had actually previously resigned and said they were “completely uncomfortable” with what they learned in the emails.

“CNN never gave Brazile access to any questions, prep material, attendee list, background information or meetings in advance of a town hall or debate,” CNN spokeswoman Lauren Pratapas said in a statement. “We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor.”

A CNN spokesperson did not respond to follow-up questions as to why Brazile’s Oct. 14 resignation was not announced until Monday, although networks typically don’t publicly announce when commentators have severed contracts unless specifically asked.

To be fair, it’s possible that Brazile was also tipping off Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign off about coming debate questions. The Sanders campaign (and all of the Republican candidates and the Republican National Committee for that matter) has not fallen victim to the same hacks as the Clinton campaign. While a DNC spokesman did not respond to specific questions about whether Brazile also tipped off the Sanders campaign, Sanders’ former national press secretary offered only glowing praise for Brazile in an email on Monday.

“I can’t speak to what she did or didn’t send to Clinton people. All I can speak to is the relationship our camp had with her,” said Symone Sanders, who worked on Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, in an email. “During the primary, Donna regular reached out for messaging guidance from us and was very helpful. She was even-handed and we all had a great working relationship with her. Clearly the same can’t be said about our campaign and other people in the Party. Donna Brazile is one of the reasons the Democratic National Committee was able to move forward following the convention and she is the reason many people like myself have a seat at the table today.”

The White House also expressed support, with press secretary Josh Earnest saying President Barack Obama believes Brazile “has done a fine job stepping in during a very difficult situation to lead the Democratic Party.”

“Look, those of us who have known Donna a long time, know that she is a person of integrity and she is a person of high character. She is a true professional who is a tenacious and effective advocate for Democrats,” Earnest said on Monday.

Asked for a comment about Monday’s developments, a DNC spokesman referred to Brazile’s earlier statement from Oct. 11.

“As a longtime political activist with deep ties to our party, I supported all of our candidates for president. I often shared my thoughts with each and every campaign, and any suggestions that indicate otherwise are simply untrue. As it pertains to the CNN Debates, I never had access to questions and would never have shared them with the candidates if I did,” Brazile said, noting that the U.S. intelligence community has “made it clear that the Russian government is responsible for the cyberattacks aimed at interfering without election.”

“We are in the process of verifying the authenticity of these documents because it is common for Russia to spread misinformation and forge documents, but we cannot bow down to Putin’s wishes and allow foreign actors to try and divide our country with the hope of affecting the outcome on Election Day,” Brazile continued. “There is too much at stake.”

Daniel Strauss contributed to this report.