New
York Times Edited Bernie Sanders Article For Hillary Clinton’s
Campaign
Edison
Starkweather
Medium,
27 July, 2016
Emails
hacked from the Democratic National Committee reveal that Nicholas
Confessore suppressed information about Hillary Clinton’s victory
fund in anarticle he
wrote about Bernie Sanders. The New York Times political
correspondent made the omissions at the request of Hillary Clinton’s
campaign lawyer, Marc E. Elias, and DNC officials.
The
emails, published
by Wikileaks,
also appear to show that Confessore made other edits to the article
at the request of former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Shultz.
After Confessore’s revisions, DNC National Press Secretary Mark
Paustenbach suggested that the DNC Chairwoman grant anoff-the-record
interview to
a group of New York Times writers.
In
an email to
Paustenbach, Miranda writes, “We were able to keep him from
including more on the JVF, it has a mention in there, but between us
and a conversation he had with Marc Elias he finally backed off from
focusing too much on that.”
The
initials JVF stand for: joint victory fund, the name DNC staff use to
refer to the Hillary
Victory Fund.
On April 18, Bernie Sanders’ campaignquestioned whether
the DNC is using the victory fund as a way of “improperly
subsidizing Clinton’s campaign bid by paying Clinton staffers.”
A
May, 2, Politico
article suggested
that state parties involved in the joint fundraising effort may be
“acting as money laundering conduits” for the Clinton campaign.
After paying into the joint fund, the state parties involved may not
see much return on their investment.
In Confessore’s final
revision of the article, the Hillary Victory Fund is not mentioned by
name. The controversy is only alluded to in one sentence: “The
Democratic National Committee now relies on Mrs. Clinton’s
fund-raising to provide a fifth of its monthly income, an arrangement
the Sanders campaign has criticized.”
In the same email Miranda
writes, “Longabaugh also strikes a somewhat conciliatory tone
described here.” Miranda appears to be referencing another change
the DNC requested from Confessore.
In Wassserman-Shultz’s
response to Miranda she writes, “This is an updated version of the
story from when it posted last night. Longabaugh’s comment about
being well represented on all the committees wasn’t in that
version. It should also include that each candidate will get their
proportion of the remaining 167 members of the committee. The Chair’s
At-Large appointments are only 25 on each committee.”
The DNC Chairwoman seems
annoyed that not all of her revisions were made by Confessore. The
offending sentence appears to be: “Of 45 potential members
submitted by Mr. Sanders, she (Wasserman-Shultz) appointed just
three, according to Mr. Sanders’s campaign.”
Within two hours of
Wasserman-Shultz’s email, Paustenbach wrote to Miranda again. In an
email titled “DWS Media Strategy,” Paustenbach recommends that
the DNC Chairwoman do an off-the-record interview with Confessore and
his colleagues at the New York Times: Senior Editor for Politics
Carolyn Ryan and Presidential campaign correspondent Maggie Haberman.
This article was
submitted to the Op-Ed editors of four of the United State’s
leading newpapers. They did not respond. Please spread this
information through social media.
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