Donna Brazile Dedicates Book To "Patriot" Seth Rich

After a leaked excerpt from her new book “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House” revealed that Donna Brazile feared for her life after the murder of former DNC employee Seth Rich, Axios has reported that Brazile provides more grist for what her former political allies have dismissed as “right wing conspiracy theories” in the book’s introduction.

Nestled among the usual platitudes about thanking friends and family, Brazile dedicates her book to Rich’s memory, describing him as a close colleague and “patriot”.

Rich was murdered in July 2016, two weeks before Wikileaks released a trove of emails stolen from the DNC’s servers that, among other embarrassing details, suggested that the DNC was engaged in widespread rigging of the 2016 Democratic primary to favor “front-runner” Hillary Clinton.

“In loving memory of my father, Lionel Brazile Sr.; my beloved sister, Sheila Brazioutlanle; my fearless uncles Nat, Floyd, and Douglas; Harlem’s finest, my aunt Lucille; my friend and mentor, David Kaufmann; my DNC colleague and patriot, Seth Rich; and my beloved Pomeranian, Chip Joshua Marvin Brazile (Booty Wipes). I miss y’all."

Rich, 27, a former data analyst at the DNC, was fatally shot while walking home late at night in Washington, D.C. The police believe the shooting was a robbery gone wrong. But Brazile says in her book that she was “haunted” by Rich’s death because she feared shadowy elements associated with the Clinton campaign may have played a role in his death as retribution for leaking the emails.

As Newsweek points out, media reports had characterized Rich as a low-level staffer, and his parents wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Post in May claiming the idea that their son leaked the emails to Wikileaks was ridiculous because his position didn’t grant him access to sensitive data.

Brazile mentioned Rich during a Sunday appearance on ABC News’s This Week with George Stephanopouloson Sunday. She told the host about her critics: “They don’t know what it was like to be over the DNC during this hacking. They don’t know what it’s like to bury a child. I did: Seth Rich."

During the interview, Brazile softened her claims that the DNC rigged the primary (though, tellingly, party leaders have said they will reexamine the role of “joint-fundraising agreements” which Brazile alleged helped the Clinton campaign assert financial dominance over the DNC). She also said that her critics in the party can “go to hell."

"I"m not on the payroll, George. I care about my country. I care about our democracy," Brazile said. "And I say go to hell, because why am I supposed to be the only person that is unable to tell my story?"

Through spokesman Brad Bauman, the Rich family said in a statement, “Since Seth was murdered, Donna Brazile has been a great friend to the Rich family and has been extremely supportive of the family’s efforts to find Seth’s killers."

Of course, Democrats have lined up to rebut Brazile’s claims. More than 100 former Clinton campaign aids signed an open letter accusing Brazile of falling for “Russia-fueled propaganda” in what appears to be a feeble attempt to discredit her.

Already, a trove of bombshell allegations included in the book have been widely reported thanks to leaked excerpts, and a teaser chapter that Brazile published as an essay in Politico. For example, Brazile revealed that she considered replacing Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine with Joe Biden and Corey Booker after Clinton fainted at the 9/11 memorial. She also levied accusations of sexism and racism at former Clinton staffers, and - most shockingly of all - revealed that the Clinton campaign took advantage of Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s absentee leadership of the party to make the DNC financially dependent on Clinton.

Donna Brazile Says Clinton Campaign Officials Made Her Feel Like "Patsey The Slave"

The Democratic Party"s nominal support for "identity politics" has once again been exposed as little more than hollow virtue-signaling...

By now, it’s become clear that the Democratic party establishment installed Donna Brazile has the head of the DNC expecting her to be an obedient stooge who would turn a blind eye to the endemic corruption and mismanagement inside America’s oldest major political party. Unfortunately for them, Brazile had no intention of keeping quiet when she discovered that Obama’s negligence had left the party in debt, effectively allowing the Clinton to play a deciding role in doling out resources, setting strategy and myriad other issues.

A year after Trump’s upset victory over Clinton poleaxed the Washington establishment and smug Democratic elitists who felt it was their candidate’s god-given right to effortlessly slide into office despite being one of the most unpopular major-party candidates in recent memory, Brazile is speaking out in a new book, excerpts from which have been published in Politico and the Washington Post.

In one detail printed today by WaPo, Brazile recounts how Clinton’s top aides repeatedly disrespected and demeaned her, which she equated to being treated like a slave.

Brazile alleges that Clinton’s top aides routinely disrespected her and put the DNC on a “starvation diet,” depriving it of funding for voter turnout operations.

 

As one of her party’s most prominent black strategists, Brazile also recounts fiery disagreements with Clinton’s staffers — including a conference call in which she told three senior campaign officials, Charlie Baker, Marlon

 

Marshall and Dennis Cheng, that she was being treated like a slave.

 

“I’m not Patsey the slave,” Brazile recalls telling them, a reference to the character played by Lupita Nyong’o in the film, “12 Years a Slave.” “Y’all keep whipping me and whipping me and you never give me any money or any way to do my damn job. I am not going to be your whipping girl!”

Over the past two days, Brazile has revealed how former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz effectively ceded control of the party to the Clinton campaign, which looted funds from state party organizations and restricted the money flowing into the DNC after agreeing to pay off most of its debt.

She also revealed that she considered replacing Clinton with Joe Biden after she collapsed during a ceremony at the 9/11 memorial. But most shockingly of all, she said that she feared for her life after the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich, which she feared may have been planned by nefarious elements from within the party.

Donna Brazile Says She "Feared For Her Life" After Seth Rich Was Killed

Perhaps the most shocking revelation contained in the excerpts from former DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile’s book was, unsurprisingly, buried in a Washington Post overview of the various allegations (and frankly, we’re surprised the Post, given its status as a protector of the Washington establishment, deigned to publish it).

In the aftermath of Wikileaks’ decision to publish a cache of emails stolen from the DNC’s servers, Donna Brazile says she became increasingly paranoid about both possible Russian efforts to sway the election. Surprisingly, she says top Democrats initially instructed her not to discuss her concerns with others.

But even more than the Russians, Brazile says she feared possible retribution from shadowy elements within the campaign and the Democratic Party who might blame her for the leak. Her fears only intensified, she says, after the mysterious shooting of former campaign staffer Seth Rich, who the authorities said was killed during a robbery, though many so-called conspiracy theorists have speculated about a possible Democratic plot to kill Rich for his role in leaking the stash of DNC emails to Wikileaks. Brazile"s anxiety eventually spiraled out of control, to the point where she feared for her own life while serving as interim chairwoman of the DNC.

Brazile describes her mounting anxiety about Russia’s theft of emails and other data from DNC servers, the slow process of discovering the full extent of the cyberattacks and the personal fallout. She likens the feeling to having rats in your basement: “You take measures to get rid of them, but knowing they are there, or have been there, means you never feel truly at peace.”

 

Brazile writes that she was haunted by the still-unsolved murder of DNC data staffer Seth Rich and feared for her own life, shutting the blinds to her office window so snipers could not see her and installing surveillance cameras at her home. She wonders whether Russians had placed a listening device in plants in the DNC executive suite.

 

At first, Brazile writes of the hacking, top Democratic officials were “encouraging us not to talk about it.” But she says a wake-up moment came when she visited the White House in August 2016, for President Obama’s 55th birthday party. National security adviser Susan E. Rice and former attorney general Eric Holder separately pulled her aside quietly to urge her to take the Russian hacking seriously, which she did, she writes.

While she doesn’t elaborate on her reasons for suspecting that Rich’s death may have been a homicide, just the fact that Brazile says she, too, suspected that something nefarious might’ve been afoot is reason enough to take a second look at Rich’s death. Of course, if it’s true that Rich was killed as punishment for leaking the emails, then that would of course invalidata most of the evidence supporting the Russia interference narrative that has been propagated by the Democrats and their partners in the intelligence community.

DNC Asks Entire Staff For Resignation Letters

Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who took over as the chair of the Democratic National Committee in late February following Hillary"s stunning November defeat, has asked for his entire staff to submit their resignation letters by no later than April 15th.

Of course, the move comes after a series of scandals plagued the DNC throughout the 2016 election cycle, including rather undeniable evidence that former Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz intentionally undermined the campaign of Bernie Sanders while her replacement, Donna Brazile, seemingly did the same by passing Hillary"s team debate questions in advance of Town Hall discussions with Bernie. 

According to NBC, Tom Perez decided to clean house at the DNC shortly after taking over the leadership role from Donna Brazile and will use the mass firing as an opportunity to restructure how the party will be run going forward. 

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has launched a major reshuffling of the party"s organization that has been stung by recent crisis — and the DNC has requested the resignation letters of all current staffers be submitted by next month.

Party staff routinely see major turnover with a new boss and staffers were alerted earlier to expect such a move. However, the mass resignation letters will give Perez a chance to completely remake the DNC"s headquarters from scratch. Staffing had already reached unusual lows following a round of layoffs in December.

Immediately after Perez" election in late February, an adviser to outgoing DNC Interim Chair Donna Brazile, Leah Daughtry, asked every employee to submit a letter of resignation dated April 15, according to multiple sources familiar with the party"s internal working.

A committee advising Perez on his transition is now interviewing staff and others as part of a top-to-bottom review process to help decide not only who will stay and who will go, but how the party should be structured in the future.

Back in late February, Perez appeared on Meet the Press to tell Chuck Todd that he would look to implement a "culture change" at the DNC before comparing his own party to a busted plane traveling at 20,000 feet.

Perez has spent his first weeks on the job in "active listening mode," hearing from Democrats in Washington and in small group meetings across the country before making any big moves.

"What we"re trying to do is culture change," he told NBC News between stops of a listening tour in Michigan Friday. "We"re repairing a plane at 20,000 feet. You can"t land the plane, shut it down, and close it until further notice."

"If your goal is you have to please everyone then you end up pleasing no one," he added.

We"re still awaiting confirmation from Rachel Maddow that this mass firing came after the discovery that the DNC was infiltrated by Russian spies coordinating with the Trump campaign.