In 2012, polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Mar­tin Gilens sur­veyed five decades’ worth of pub­lic opin­ion polling and leg­isla­tive records. He found a dis­tinct pat­tern: If you were poor, or even mid­dle class, what you thought had vir­tu­al­ly no impact on the poli­cies the gov­ern­ment enact­ed. If you were wealthy, how­ev­er, it was anoth­er sto­ry. ​“If rich peo­ple are in favor, the pol­i­cy is sig­nif­i­cant­ly more like­ly to become law,” he wrote.

The emails illustrate a pervasive culture of pay-to-play within the Democratic party, where wealthy donors are granted the type of unprecedented access to party officials and lawmakers that ordinary citizens can only dream of, all in the hope that doing so will unlock access to their checkbooks.

Some of the near­ly 20,000 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee (DNC) emails released by Wik­iLeaks last Fri­day may help to explain why. As well as expos­ing that the sup­pos­ed­ly neu­tral DNC seem­ing­ly worked to under­mine the Sanders cam­paign, the emails show a Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty where the prac­tice of pay­ing for access is alive and well. They illus­trate a per­va­sive cul­ture of pay-to-play with­in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, where wealthy donors are grant­ed the type of unprece­dent­ed access to par­ty offi­cials and law­mak­ers that ordi­nary cit­i­zens can only dream of, all in the hope that doing so will unlock access to their checkbooks.

In advance of this week’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion in Philadel­phia, the DNC was engaged in a furi­ous scram­ble for cash. In an April 25 email, one staffer sent Nao­mi Aber­ly, a vice chair­woman of the DNC’s nation­al finance com­mit­tee and major Demo­c­ra­t­ic fundrais­er, a list of donors to con­tact ​“who have maxed the past few years but have yet to max this year.”

In oth­er emails, DNC staffers dis­cussed using FEC records ​“to research exist­ing DNC donors.” ​“It’s a way to eval­u­ate which of our donors have greater giv­ing capac­i­ty, and gives us prospects for reach­ing out for an ask,” wrote tech­ni­cal finan­cial man­ag­er Matt Johnson.

Part of this scram­ble involved sell­ing spe­cial ​“con­ven­tion pack­ages” to big mon­ey donors that promised them ever more impres­sive perks the more mon­ey they gave or raised.

One of the doc­u­ments released by Wik­iLeaks out­lines these pack­ages. The top-tiered pack­age, called ​“Rit­ten­house Square,” promis­es any indi­vid­ual who either rais­es $1.25 mil­lion or gives $467,600 to the DNC by June 1 a vari­ety of ben­e­fits. Along with ​“pri­or­i­ty book­ing in a pre­mière hotel,” night­ly access to VIP lounges and par­ties, and an exclu­sive pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ty, the pack­age also tempts donors with seats at ​“an exclu­sive round­table and cam­paign brief­ing with high-lev­el Demo­c­ra­t­ic offi­cials,” and par­tic­i­pa­tion in var­i­ous busi­ness round­ta­bles and indus­try pan­els tak­ing place through­out the event.

Low­er tiers offer sim­i­lar, albeit less gen­er­ous, perks. The ​“Main Line” pack­age, for instance — for which indi­vid­u­als must either raise $250,000 or donate $66,800 — only pro­vides two seats at round­ta­bles with Demo­c­ra­t­ic offi­cials instead of six.

The emails show that DNC staffers were heav­i­ly push­ing these pack­ages on wealthy donors in the run up to the Con­ven­tion, and sug­gest that the mon­ey-for-access quid pro quo was under­stood by all par­ties. In May, two staffers — Nation­al Finance Direc­tor Jor­dan Kaplan and Mid-Atlantic Finance Direc­tor Alexan­dra Shapiro—exchanged emails about pin­ning down a wealthy donor, Cal­i­for­nia sur­geon John Maa, to attend a DNC round­table between Demo­c­ra­t­ic offi­cials and donors. ​“He knows that he needs to give to us to come to this thing and I’m pitch­ing a con­ven­tion pack­age with it too,” Shapiro told Kaplan. ​“It’ll be fine.”

Emails also show staffers pitch­ing the con­ven­tion pack­ages to Scott Wal­lace, co-chair of the pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tion Wal­lace Glob­al Fund, and his wife (“You cur­rent­ly qual­i­fy for the ​‘Main­Line’ pack­age and will qual­i­fy for the next lev­el up, the ​‘Fair­mount’ pack­age if you each give $33,400 this year again”), and dis­cussing push­ing the pack­ages on oth­er donors.

Kaplan sent an email in late April to finance chair Zachary Allen ask­ing him to step up his solic­i­ta­tion. ​“I see a total of 7 donor con­tacts for the week,” he wrote. ​“I would like to see that up to 15 per week which is sim­ply 3 a day.”

In anoth­er email, he appeared to be dis­ap­point­ed at the dol­lar totals that were com­ing in. ​“Why are there so many small dol­lar con­tri­bu­tions,” he asked.

Allen was court­ing some big names for the con­ven­tion pack­ages at the time. Accord­ing to his memo, these includ­ed bil­lion­aire com­put­er sci­en­tist, hedge fund man­ag­er and Oba­ma advi­sor David Shaw; Google exec­u­tive Jonathan Bel­lack; film pro­duc­er and Cuo­mo fam­i­ly mem­ber Maria Cuo­mo Cole; and Hans Humes, whose hedge fund Grey­Lock Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment held up Greek bailout funds in 2012 to pro­tect its bot­tom line.

The DNC also used pre-con­ven­tion events to push donors who were on the fence to buy the pack­ages. One such event was a DNC Donor Recep­tion to be held in Philadel­phia on May 5, which, accord­ing to a brief­ing, was ​“part of a site vis­it for DNC donors and PACs” that would fea­ture Penn­syl­va­nia Sen. Bob Casey, DNC Chair Deb­bie Wasser­man Schultz and two oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic offi­cials. The attendee list includ­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from ammu­ni­tion man­u­fac­tur­er Day & Zim­mer­mann, infra­struc­ture invest­ment firm Steel­Riv­er, real estate firm Ter­ra­no­va Corp. and Home Depot.

“The pur­pose of this recep­tion is to keep the donors moti­vat­ed about the con­ven­tion and encour­age fur­ther giv­ing to the DNC,” the brief­ing states. It out­lines a strict sched­ule for Wasser­man Schultz, with exact­ly 35 min­utes of mix­ing and mingling.

An ear­li­er memo on that event from finance chair Zachary Allen and direc­tor of data and strate­gic ini­tia­tives Dan Par­rish states that ​“Invit­ing folks with pack­ages and those on the cusp of one to the May 5th site vis­it” was part of their ​“Con­ven­tion Strategy.”

But it is in var­i­ous events held through­out May that the DNC’s pay-to-play cul­ture is most evi­dent. Two brief­in­gs includ­ed in the leaks explain that at a May 18 off-the-record, closed-to-the-press dis­cus­sion, for exam­ple, over 20 long-time donors from the Mid-Atlantic area would have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sit down with Wasser­man Schultz and oth­er DNC offi­cials. Not only that, but the Wash­ing­ton, D.C., event would also see a vis­it from Pres­i­dent Obama.

“[The donors] are inter­est­ed in a con­ver­sa­tion focused on busi­ness and eco­nom­ic con­cerns but many are also com­mit­ted to edu­ca­tion and social issues,” says one brief­ing, meant for Oba­ma. It out­lines who the var­i­ous atten­dees are, their con­nec­tion to the DNC and when the last time Oba­ma met them was, pre­sum­ably to facil­i­tate his even­tu­al min­gling. In one case, he is informed he last saw a donor at a Novem­ber 2015 event for the stage musi­cal Hamil­ton. As well as authors and diplo­mats, the guest list fea­tured a pletho­ra of cor­po­rate lawyers and investors, as well as Phil Munger, son of bil­lion­aire Berk­shire Hath­away vice chair­man Charles Munger.

The Pres­i­dent, the emails show, was a hot com­mod­i­ty for donors. When a friend of entre­pre­neur Paresh Ghe­lani told a DNC staffer that he would be ​“EXTREME­LY inter­est­ed in attend­ing” an event that would fea­ture the pres­i­dent (“This is all con­tin­gent upon Pres­i­dent Oba­ma speak­ing and hav­ing a round­table … that is what Paresh is MOST inter­est­ed in doing”), the staffer replied that she would keep him in mind for future events: ​“I’m hap­py to keep you in the loop about [oth­er] oppor­tu­ni­ties for him so that we can ensure he writes his check and gets his event!” A month lat­er, she informed the friend about the May 18 round­table, though Ghe­lani would ulti­mate­ly be unable to attend.

As has already been report­ed else­where, the day before the round­table, Kaplan and Shapiro had a testy exchange over which donor would get a seat next to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma at the event. Kaplan want­ed to give it to Phil Munger, ​“one of the largest Demo­c­ra­t­ic donors in the coun­try,” as a way of encour­ag­ing his generosity.

The emails show that staff had con­sid­ered a vari­ety of oth­er names for the round­table, show­ing the types of indus­tries whose rep­re­sen­ta­tives are grant­ed access to top Demo­c­ra­t­ic offi­cials in order to eke out big mon­ey dona­tions. When Shapiro asked senior advi­sor Andrew Wright about which calls ​“would be help­ful on the round­table front,” he replied: ​“Ben­ter. Ask for $334,000.” (“Ben­ter” is most like­ly bil­lion­aire horse-rac­ing gam­bler and Demo­c­ra­t­ic donor Bill Ben­ter). Oth­er names includ­ed real estate exec­u­tive Con­nie Mil­stein (whose firm was recon­struct­ing the Jef­fer­son Hotel, where the event would take place); phil­an­thropist Earl Stafford, Jr.; finan­cial advi­sor Peter Glass­man; and real estate devel­op­er Con­rad Cafritz.

Although DNC staffers pur­sued donors eager­ly, donors did not nec­es­sar­i­ly win their pri­vate respect. ​“If every­one comes we’re look­ing at 28,” wrote Shapiro, regard­ing atten­dance for the event. ​“If all these clowns drop off, we’re look­ing at 20.” Fur­ther in the chain, staffers dis­cussed Phil Munger’s gen­er­ous giv­ing to pro-Oba­ma non-prof­it Orga­niz­ing for Action. ​“What does he think he gets from them with all that $?” asked Shapiro.

Per­haps answer­ing their own ques­tion, oth­er doc­u­ments show the spe­cial atten­tion wealthy donors received from the par­ty. Wasser­man Schultz received sev­er­al brief­in­gs for one-on-one meet­ings with big mon­ey donors, com­plete with bios on the donors. One was ship­ping mag­nate George Logo­thetis, who the brief­ing notes was com­mit­ted to donat­ing. ​“We dis­cussed con­ven­tion pack­ages with his staff on Thurs­day,” it reads.

It wasn’t just prospec­tive con­ven­tion pack­age buy­ers who received spe­cial access. Anoth­er email, this one from Lester Coney, a top Oba­ma fundrais­er and exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of finan­cial ser­vices firm Mesirow, reveals the inter­twin­ing of mon­ey, polit­i­cal con­nec­tions and pri­vate interests.

On May 17, Coney emailed the DNC’s Mid­west, Flori­da and Geor­gia Finance Direc­tor Clay­ton Cox about a client’s inter­est in Min­neso­ta Gov. Mark Day­ton. ​“I have a very impor­tance client/​friend need­ed access with some­one with­in the admin­is­tra­tion [sic],” he wrote. ​“So I promise him I would inves­ti­gate. The con­nec­tion do not have to be the gov­er­nor him­self., just some­one with clout with­in the admin­is­tra­tion [sic].”

Cox for­ward­ed the email to Kaplan, telling him, ​“No idea what to tell him here.” Kaplan replied: ​“I talked to him. I told him to call rt.” ​“Rt” like­ly refers to for­mer Min­neapo­lis May­or and DNC Vice Chair R.T. Rybak. Although it’s unclear what, if any­thing, came of Coney’s email, the casu­al nature of his request and Kaplan’s response sug­gests such an appeal is not out of the ordinary.

The party’s cod­dling of wealthy donors builds on data pre­vi­ous­ly leaked by the hack­er known as ​“Guc­cifer,” who is believed to be the source of the Wik­iLeaks dump. One doc­u­ment released in June lists atten­dees to the DNC, how much they donat­ed and their par­tic­u­lar demands regard­ing accom­mo­da­tion at the con­ven­tion (“He wants a suite. He was very adamant on this.”).

Their five-star treat­ment also con­trasts with that of the del­e­gates to the con­ven­tion, who serve an actu­al pur­pose at the event. Del­e­gates must pay their own way, an increas­ing­ly impos­si­ble require­ment giv­en sky­rock­et­ing costs in Philadel­phia. Some del­e­gates have attempt­ed to crowd-source fund­ing for their trip, while oth­ers are shar­ing rooms with as many as four others.

The cost involved in attend­ing the con­ven­tion was cit­ed by one Demo­c­ra­t­ic offi­cial as a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for appoint­ing atten­dees as superdel­e­gates: ​“For the last 20 years, four times a year, I pay my own way, my own tick­et, I use my fre­quent fly­er miles, I pay my own hotel room,” says Elaine Kamar­ck, a DNC mem­ber who is a superdel­e­gate her­self. ​“You shouldn’t give me a vote at the con­ven­tion for all the free time I give to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party?”

The par­ty con­ven­tions this year are unprece­dent­ed­ly suf­fused with cash. Con­gress elim­i­nat­ed pub­lic fund­ing of nom­i­nat­ing con­ven­tions in 2014, mak­ing this the first year in decades that they will be financed entire­ly by pri­vate mon­ey. At the same time, rule changes passed in the same year have allowed the par­ties to raise unprece­dent­ed amounts of mon­ey from any source, includ­ing lob­by­ists, cor­po­ra­tions and Super PACs.

As the par­ties become increas­ing­ly reliant on wealthy donors to fund every­thing from their elec­tion cam­paigns to their nom­i­nat­ing con­ven­tions, those with the biggest check­books ulti­mate­ly have the loud­est voic­es. It’s not sur­pris­ing, then, that to many the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty seems out of step with not just its grass roots, but its his­to­ry of stand­ing up for work­ing people.