berniesanders.com/…
Unlike Clinton’s presidential campaign committee, Hillary for America, the joint committee may accept large donations of up to $356,100. The first $2,700 of this amount is eligible for transfer to the Clinton campaign, $33,400 can be transferred to the DNC, with any remaining amount, up to $10,000, to each participating state party. According to public disclosure reports, however, the joint Clinton-DNC fund, Hillary Victory Fund (HVF), appears to operate in a way that skirts legal limits on federal campaign donations and primarily benefits the Clinton presidential campaign.
The financial disclosure reports on file with the Federal Election Commission indicate that the joint committee invested millions in low-dollar, online fundraising and advertising that solely benefits the Clinton campaign. The Sanders campaign “is particularly concerned that these extremely large-dollar individual contributions have been used by the Hillary Victory Fund to pay for more than $7.8 million in direct mail efforts and over $8.6 million in online advertising” according to the letter to the DNC. Both outlays benefit the Clinton presidential campaign “by generating low-dollar contributions that flow only to HFA [Hillary for America] rather than to the DNC or any of the participating state party committees.”
The questionable outlays “have grown to staggering magnitudes” and “can no longer be ignored,” Deutsch added.
The expenditures on advertising and fundraising are at best “an impermissible in-kind contribution from the DNC and the participating state party committees” to Clinton’s presidential campaign, the letter said. “At worst, using funds received from large-dollar donors who have already contributed the $2,700 maximum to HFA [Hillary for America] may represent an excessive contribution to HFA from these individuals.”
In addition, the joint committee has paid the Clinton campaign committee $2.6 million ostensibly to “reimburse” the Clinton presidential campaign staff for time spent running the joint committee. The unusual arrangement, Deutsch said, “raises equally serious concerns that joint committee funds, which are meant to be allocated proportionally among the participating committees, are being used to impermissibly subsidize HFA through an over-reimbursement for campaign staffers and resources.”
Thank you Jeff Weaver for finally calling it what it is!
There should be no doubt that the DNC actively hindered Bernie from Day 1.
Copy of the letter:
berniesanders.com/...
For those that don’t seem to get it. Excess donations that are intended for state parties are being funneled back into the Hillary Victory Fund and spent directly on Clinton mailer campaigns, Clinton ads, and Clinton staff reimbursements. This tosses out the whole “down ballot” fundraising argument.
ELI5:
Debbie Wasserman Shultz, (DWS) is the head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), responsible for ensuring that a viable democratic candidate does as well as possible to win in the general election.
As such, in this leadership role, she is responsible to remain unbiased and impartial during the primary process and allow the people -- through caucuses and primary voting systems to -- choose the party nominee. This means she needs to not put her thumb on the scales of free choice in any ways.
The DNC obtains various funds which are supposed to go toward Get-Out-The-Vote efforts, promote the DNC platform, inform and energize the body electorate, and ensure fair and well planned debates, etcetera.
DWS has however instead allowed fundraising "bundling" efforts to feed money improperly toward Hillary Clinton's campaign through various tricks and shell games to try and pretend that she and the DNC are not unfairly putting a thumb on the scales of YOUR free choice.