WikiLeaks: DNC Chair Donna Brazile Fed Debate Questions to Hillary Clinton

A new crisis for the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and CNN is emerging from WikiLeaks, which has published emails to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta that clearly state interim DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile fed debate questions to Hillary Clinton in advance.

Brazile holds that interim position because WikiLeaks previously revealed DNC emails that suggested the previous chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL), and her underlings worked in various ways to rig the Democratic primary against Clinton’s challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Brazile is a longtime member of the Clinton inner circle, who worked on Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996, as well as Al Gore’s 2000 campaign.

A few weeks ago, Brazile was obliged to deal with WikiLeaks documents suggesting she gave the Clinton campaign a heads-up concerning a troublesome death penalty question in one of Clinton’s primary debates with Sanders. Brazile was unable to address the content of the leaked email; she could only insinuate, without evidence, that it had been faked somehow.

Now, WikiLeaks has produced another email from Podesta’s account, in which Brazile says of the upcoming March CNN primary debate between Sanders and Clinton, “One of the questions directed to HRC tomorrow is from a woman with a rash.”

“Her family has lead poison and she will ask what, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the ppl of Flint,” Brazile wrote to Podesta and Clinton comms director Jennifer Palmieri. “Folks, I did a service project today. It’s so tragic. And what’s worse, some homes have not been tested and it’s important to encourage seniors to also get tested.”

As with the previous emails Brazile attempted to dismiss as fakes, this one includes an automatically inserted statement that it was “sent from Donna’s iPad.”

The next day, CNN’s town hall debate did, indeed, include this question from a woman in the audience:

After my family, the city of Flint and the children in D.C. were poisoned by lead, will you make a personal promise to me right now that, as president, in your first 100 days in office, you will make it a requirement that all public water systems must remove all lead service lines throughout the entire United States, and notification made to the — the citizens that have said service lines.

CNN has issued a statement on the new Brazile revelation:

On October 14th, CNN accepted Donna Brazile’s resignation as a CNN contributor. (Her deal had previously been suspended in July when she became the interim head of the DNC.) CNN never gave Brazile access to any questions, prep material, attendee list, background information or meetings in advance of a town hall or debate. We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor.