Tim Canova got only 43% of the vote in that primary, but he challenged the results in court. While the case was being decided, Canova requested that Broward County hand over the thousands of paper ballots that had been cast. When Brenda Snipes' office refused, he sued - only to find out later that Snipes had destroyed the ballots in direct violation of federal law and Florida state law.

Broward County, FL election head Brenda Snipes is back in the news, as a former candidate who ran against Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the 2016 Democratic primary wondered aloud in a tweet why the Department of Justice never prosecuted her for illegally destroying paper ballots from the race.

Sun-Sentinel:

“Canova, who was checking for voting irregularities in the race, sought to look at the paper ballots in March 2017 and took Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes to court three months later when her office hadn’t fulfilled his request. Snipes approved the destruction of the ballots in September, signing a certification that said no court cases involving the ballots were pending. Snipes called the action a “mistake” during testimony she gave in the case, saying the boxes were mislabeled and there was “nothing on my part that was intentional” about destroying the contested ballots.”

Big League Politics reported, "On May 11, 2018, the Florida Circuit Court granted Plaintiff Canova summary judgment, and found that Snipes had violated numerous state and federal statutes, including laws punishable as felonies with up to five years in prison. The Court’s ruling made clear that Snipes’ destruction of ballots was illegal on several separate counts.”

It doesn't matter if the destruction of the ballots were intentional or not. But both the county and the feds refused to prosecute. Why?

Assistant United States Attorney for the US Attorney's Office is none other than Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's brother, Steven. And Canova found out from the local district attorney, who was considering prosecuting Snipes, who was involved in the decision not to prosecute Snipes:

I’ve been told it was Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy AG, along with his assistant Steven Wasserman no doubt, who stopped a Federal investigation into Broward’s illegal destruction of all ballots cast in our 2016 primary against Debbie What’sHerRig Schultz.

.

https://t.co/9WNEd5JL9a — Tim Canova (@Tim_Canova) February 6, 2019

Familiar partisans in the Justice Department.

Needless to say, the fact that Rosenstein was directly involved with the strongly partisan activities documented by the FISA memo makes it unsurprising that he would interfere on behalf of associates of Hillary Clinton. Setting the possibility that Wasserman-Schultz's brother may also have been involved in protecting Snipes from prosecution aside for the moment, Canova's allegations raise a myriad of new questions, including: who benefits from protecting Snipes? Undeniably, the most obvious answer is Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the alleged beneficiary of Snipes's illegal ballot destruction. Similarly, one wonders what connection such a decision may have with the DOJ's refusal to prosecute the Awan scandal, a move from which Debbie Wasserman-Schultz also directly benefited. In light of this, we are led to ask: Who benefits from shielding Debbie Wasserman-Schultz from the blowback of multiple national scandals? What would induce the DOJ to prop up such an embarrassment?

Snipes' malfeasance in the 2018 election can now be seen in an entirely different light. Either she is the most incompetent election official in America or she manipulates elections for partisan reasons using the power of her office.

It doesn't matter that Canova had no chance of overturning the results of the 2016 primary. Snipes acted illegally and both local and federal authorities turned a blind eye to it. The whole matter stinks of partisan manipulation - which only serves to buttress the case that the permanent bureaucracy at the Justice Department is hopelessly corrupt.