Bernie Sanders Memo Shows Demands: 'A Plane--Or I Contest The Convention'

Sen. Bernie Sanders will back Hillary Clinton in exchange for speaking opportunities at fall campaign rallies, a fully-funded campaign aircraft and a share of the credit for her hoped-for election, according to a negotiating memo obtained by BuzzFeed News and dated two days before the June 7 California primary.

“Request a plane and staff for a series of fall rallies in battleground states … plane would be paid for by the DNC,” according the the Sanders memo, titled “End Game 2016” and addressed to “Bernie 2016.”

The memo’s authenticity has not been confirmed by Breitbart News, but it has not been denied by Sanders’ campaign team.

The memo said Sanders’ goals are a Democratic takeover of the Senate and grabbing partial credit for Hillary Clinton‘s victory in November. Other demands in the memo include: Votes on minority planks on the platform, a primetime speaking slot on Tuesday night at the convention, more convention co-chairs and speakers drawn from the Sanders camp.

Tuesday night is the night the platform is approved. Instead, Sanders was assigned a Monday slot, the night with the theme “United Together,” when Sanders is slated to be joined by First Lady Michelle Obama and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D.-Mass.).

In the Sanders campaign memo, there was also a discussion of the threats the Democrats would have to consider as they decided whether to partner with Sanders, such as waging a contested convention. One threat was that Sanders could “reopen a divisive critique of Clinton–both on viability and substance.” One more threat was the possibility that the Sanders camp would “engage in divisive committee and rules battles over rules and credentials.”

Credentials for delegates are vital and have long been a battlefield at Democratic and Republican conventions. “The effort to construct a Sanders majority could require disqualifying a number of delegates,” the memo said.

The Sanders camp was also looking to settle scores with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.), the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, and former Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank. Frank, long considered a progressive in the vein of Sanders has become an unrelenting critic of the Vermont senator. Frank is a co-chair of the DNC’s Rules Committee, which is another target for reform by the Vermont senator’s campaign.

The memo poses the question: “How much capital are we willing to extend?” in the discussion about forcing Wasserman Schultz out.

The Florida congresswoman resigned from her DNC perch the weekend before the Democratic National Convention opened Monday in Philadelphia, in the wake of the leak of emails from DNC by WikiLeaks.

Another Sanders target was the chairman of the platform committee Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, an ally of the  Clinton  campaign and the man, who was in-charge of drafting the platform in the weeks leading up to the convention.

Among the things the Sanders campaign was willing to offer the Clinton campaign was a formal endorsement at a rally in the week of June 20 after the Progressive Summit held in Chicago.

The Sanders campaign suggested he would headline rallies at the liberal college towns of Ann Arbor, Michigan; Madison, Wisconsin or Bloomington, Illinois. “It would make sense to focus on younger voters,” the memo said.