John Shinkle/POLITICO Wasserman Schultz denies claim, despite messages

MIAMI — Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Friday denied claims that her staff offered a deal to reverse her opposition to medical marijuana in order to silence a Florida donor’s criticisms — attributing the controversy to a misunderstanding.

But text messages and emails obtained by POLITICO indicate her top political adviser was aware of some type of offer to donor John Morgan, who is accusing the South Florida congresswoman of after-the-fact spin.


The dispute between donor John Morgan and Wasserman Schultz, which began last year when she opposed his medical-marijuana initiative, flared anew this week amid reports that she might seek a U.S. Senate seat.

Morgan and other medical-marijuana advocates then told POLITICO that they would oppose her candidacy and criticized her votes and positions on the issue.

That’s when the proposal was made by Wasserman Schultz’s staff, Morgan said: If he stopped the criticisms, she would be willing to back his new medical-marijuana proposal.

Wasserman Schultz told her hometown newspaper Friday morning that the allegation was “outrageous” and the story was “false.”

“Wasserman Schultz said there were no emails,” the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

But Morgan released an email chain and related text messages that he said showed the medical-marijuana initiative’s political consultant, Ben Pollara, was in contact with Wasserman Schultz’s political adviser, Jason O’Malley, who received an email concerning the alleged deal.

At one point, after Pollara informed O’Malley that the proposal had been sent to Morgan, O’Malley replied, “thanks,” according to a text message.

And in another exchange that showed an offer of some kind was made, Pollara wrote a text message to O’Malley Thursday evening that read, in part, “I know it wasn’t your call but I told you no good come from me reaching out to morgan yesterday.”

“Why she would go out and lie or cover up when there’s a chain of records is beyond me,” Morgan said in an interview Friday. He noted that Wasserman Schultz, who is typically quick to respond to press inquiries, also waited a day to respond to the allegation.

When asked about the delay in responding, Wasserman Schultz spokesman Sean Bartlett said the office wasn’t “prepared to comment” at the time.

“I just wasn’t prepared to comment when you and I spoke yesterday,” he said.

Wasserman Schultz indicated to the Sun-Sentinel that there was just a misunderstanding. She acknowledges that her office reached out to Morgan over medical-marijuana to discuss her support of his new initiative — a maneuver that coincided with Morgan’s withering criticisms of her.

“I’ve seen the language that they’ve proposed for the 2016 ballot,” Wasserman Schultz told the Sun-Sentinel. “I was more comfortable with the way the language was going…. I wanted to see if, before battle lines were drawn again, we could start a conversation.”

Pollara did not want to comment about his discussions with O’Malley. However, Pollara did not dispute POLITICO’s prior reports or Morgan’s characterizations of his conversations with O’Malley.

O’Malley would not comment. But Bartlett said Pollara has “an unfortunate misunderstanding of his and Jason’s conversation. The Congresswoman wanted it known that she appreciated the direction the new amendment language was headed.”

The two Democrats, Pollara and O’Malley, were thrust into the dispute between Morgan and Wasserman Schultz on Wednesday when Morgan and other medical-marijuana advocates began criticizing the congresswoman for her repeated votes opposing drug-decriminalization and her comments last year concerning Morgan’s proposed constitutional amendment.

That’s when Pollara’s iPhone began blowing up with calls and a text from O’Malley.

The first text message from O’Malley to Pollara came Wednesday at 4:37 p.m.: “Call me asap.”

Pollara didn’t immediately respond by text but called O’Malley, who offered the deal, Morgan said Pollara told him.

Then, at 5:31 p.m. Wednesday, Pollara sent an email to Morgan that bore the congresswoman’s initials: “DWS.” The email summarized the deal that O’Malley offered on behalf of Wasserman Schultz, Morgan said.

“In a tizzy over this politico story. Saying she might be willing to support new amendment. Any chance you’ll retract your statement to Caputo?” Pollara wrote of Wasserman Schultz.

One minute later, at 5:32 p.m., Pollara texted O’Malley to inform him the offer had been relayed to Morgan: “sent email.”

Pollara immediately followed up with another text message to O’Malley: “keep you posted.”

At 6:02 p.m., O’Malley responded to Pollara by text message: “thanks.”

Meantime, everyone waited for Morgan to respond. He was in Maui on vacation. Finally, at 7:14 p.m., he replied to Pollara: “No. She is a bully. I beat bullies up for a living.”

Two minutes later, at 7:16 p.m., Pollara forwarded the email chain to O’Malley.

A minute later, at 7:17 p.m., Pollara texted O’Malley again: “Tried. Failed.”

O’Malley responded with a text to Pollara at 7:55 p.m.: “thanks.”

Bartlett said the exchange was innocent, that “Ben was keeping Jason apprised of his communications with John Morgan. ‘Thanks’ was Jason’s acknowledgement of Ben’s updates.”

Morgan said that’s another clear sign O’Malley knew what the deal was and that he acknowledged it.

“What on earth did he think ‘Tried. Failed’ mean?” Morgan said in the interview.

The following day, Thursday, Morgan leaked the “DWS” email to POLITICO to show, he said, how transactional he believes Wasserman Schultz is. Wasserman Schultz’s office didn’t respond to the allegation of a deal.

But that night, Pollara felt upset about what had happened. He sent another text message to O’Malley at 9:03 p.m. “Dude. I know it wasn’t your call but I told you no good come from me reaching out to morgan yesterday. I’m sorry man. You guys need to fire your press person though.”

O’Malley didn’t respond, according to the messages provided to POLITICO.

The following morning, Wasserman Schultz spoke to the Sun-Sentinel, triggering a new round of stories about the dispute.

Late Friday, Morgan’s medical-marijuana group, United For Care, issued an email that sought to drum up support for his initiative.

“We don’t negotiate with prohibitionists. Or bullies,” Morgan wrote, again attacking Wasserman Schultz’s position. “Everything else is B.S. politics in order to rehabilitate the damage she’s done to herself by being on the wrong side of the issue. It’s not support — it’s a quid pro quo and I won’t do it.”