PHILADELPHIA — The Bernie Sanders campaign considered demanding a private plane staffed and funded by the Democratic National Committee as part of negotiations with Hillary Clinton heading into this week’s convention, according to a Sanders memo obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The plane was to be used “for a series of fall rallies in battleground states,” according to the “Bernie 2016” memo, which was drafted in the days before Sanders’ sound defeat in the June 7 California primary, the contest that effectively ended his insurgent bid.

“This plane would be paid for by the DNC,” it reads.

The document reveals a campaign in its final days, considering whether to fight on with a “divisive critique” of Clinton, yet attuned to diminished influence inside the party.

Aides believed a tour of the battleground states would help keep Sanders center stage. The memo, titled “End Game,” also suggests that the Vermont senator’s campaign for Senate Democrats to “help deliver a majority and take credit for it” — one of several references throughout the four-page document showing the extent to which aides remained aware of opportunities to take “credit” amid decreasing “leverage.”

“As time goes on our leverage will diminish,” the memo reads.



“The more Sen. Sanders campaigns the more credit he can take for a Democratic victory and continue to keep his movement energized and in place.”

A copy of the memo was shared with BuzzFeed News after it was found on June 5 in a Los Angeles hotel, a DoubleTree where Sanders and his aides stayed that night. The document details the ways the campaign hoped to keep their candidate relevant and further his “political revolution” ahead of the convention kicking off here Monday.

Senior officials from the Sanders campaign declined to comment. The Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

The memo begins with a pressing question: Should Sanders concede defeat and endorse Clinton, appeasing the Democratic establishment? Or should he fight through the convention and “force a roll-call vote for the nomination,” reopening “a divisive critique of Clinton” and casting the party’s controversial superdelegate system in a negative light?

The campaign concedes that the latter scheme would require a robust plan “beyond the scope of this memo,” but acknowledges that regardless of a delegate strategy or convention floor operation, Sanders would face “two difficult challenges”: attacking Clinton “on viability and substance,” and engaging “in divisive committee and floor battle over rules and credentials.”

In the end, of course, Sanders chose not to fight on much longer after California, conceding the nomination and endorsing Clinton several weeks after being defeated in the state’s primary.