This Friday Wikileaks released nearly 20,000 emails from the accounts of several major officials in the DNC (and they’re promising to continue releasing more up until the convention). There is precedence to provide a rational basis to consider these emails to be legitimate. The emails reveal, or at least indicate, several unsavory practices of DNC employees. The Democratic Party is trying to minimize the power of these emails, but after a cursory investigation, it is clear that there is quite a bit of material to be concerned about.

The first issue are several emails that depict a disturbingly cozy relationship between the media and the DNC. In this email Ken Vogel, a journalist for Politico, sends a story about Hillary Clinton to Mark Paustenbach (National Press Secretary and Deputy Communications Director of the DNC) before he sends the story to his editor. Mark relays the story to another DNC official, saying “Vogel gave me his story ahead of time/before it goes to his editors as long as I didn’t share it. Let me know if you see anything that’s missing and I’ll push back.”

In the fallout of the chaotic Nevada convention for the Democratic party, this email indicates that DNC official Luis Miranda was given an article on the topic that he didn’t like. Miranda forwards the article to Walter Garcia (another DNC press official) saying “Walter, please connect with Stewart and get him to push back. You should also push back that DNC had no involvement.” Walter seems to deliver, offering a new link to the article and replying, “Done. Article has been updated.”

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (abbreviated DWS), chairperson of the DNC, also appears to exercise control over the media. Here we see Schultz emailing Chuck Todd from NBC with the subject line “Chuck, this must stop”. She was clearly upset with MSNBC’s story calling for her to step down, and claiming that the primaries have been unfair to Sanders.

There are also a series of emails in which DNC staffers appear not only to treat Sanders and his team with disrespect, but intentionally try to derail his campaign in what many would call unorthodox and dirty ways. Take for example this email for example, where Paustenbach suggests trying to create a “Bernie Narrative” to Luis Miranda. The email shows that Paustenbach is “Wondering if there’s a good Bernie narrative for a story, which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess.”

If his campaign was not a threat, then why does this email from the DNC say “Super PAC paying young voters to push back online on Sanders supporters”? I guess it’s because us young ones aren’t buying the “Bernie Narrative” so Clinton/DNC have “to continue to appeal to young liberals as opposed to pivoting back to center”.

Any assessment of the Sanders campaign as being weak is somewhat rude and also untrue (Sanders has conducted one of the largest grassroots campaigns in history and won 13 million votes in more than 20 different primaries/caucuses). The DNC was clearly quite focused on derailing his success, and if the “Bernie Narrative” was fact and not fiction, then these emails wouldn’t have been written. The dirty tricks only get worse however, like this email in which Schultz calls the Sander’s campaign manager Jeff Weaver an “ass” because he announced he would continue onto the convention in July. Many of the emails released regarded the Sanders campaign rudely, as documented by The Intercept.

In this email DNC staffers are alerted by Eric Walker (DNC Deputy Communications Director) that “report shows RI gov’t opening only a fraction of polling locations”, and additionally that “Bernie leads Hillary by 4 in the latest poll”. After acknowledging that polling locations were limited in a state where Sanders was projected to lead, DNC staffer Walker makes a chilling statement:

“If she outperforms this polling, the Bernie camp will go nuts and allege misconduct. They’ll probably complain regardless, actually. We might want to get out in front of this one with an inquiry to the RI Gov, even though she’s one of ours.” – Eric Walker

Not only is this statement condescending, the staffer previously acknowledged that there were limited polling stations in Rhode Island, and that Sanders was projected to be ahead. What’s even more shocking is a high ranking DNC official claiming that a publicly elected official, a Governor, is “one of ours”. Is that how democracy works?

Perhaps the most disgraceful email is where a DNC official suggests to Paustenbach and Miranda that the press should focus on the religious beliefs of Bernie Sanders. Bernie has gotten further politically than any Jewish American in history. His silence on his beliefs is most likely because he finds it irrelevant to his campaign for presidency, and because there is obviously still anti-Semitism in America and there are far more people who dislike Jews than there are Jews (the Jewish population accounts for about two percent of the American population).

Yes, Bernie Sanders is Jewish. No, he doesn’t like to announce it, and why should he? America is becoming more and more socially permissive, but what does it say about our culture that the most successful Jewish politician in history has to try and minimize his heritage. When asked questions about his heritage, they are politically loaded. The Democratic Party will denounce these emails as either being false, petty or unimportant. As people have more time to comb through the 20,000 files they will find an increasingly embarrassing portrait of a party that is rooted in a culture of manipulation, vitriol, and secrecy.