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Amid email furor, Wasserman Schultz will step down as Dem Party chief

Rep. Marcia Fudge of OH will serve as convention chairwoman as ratified by the convention’s Rules Committee on Saturday night.

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Brazile is an ABC News contributor.

Sanders reiterated his sentiments this morning: “I mean there’s no question to my mind, and I think no question to any objective observer’s mind, that the DNC was supporting Hillary Clinton and was at opposition to our campaign”, Sanders said.

President Barack Obama, whom Wasserman Schultz helped re-elect as party chairwoman in 2012, also offered her his thanks Sunday. She should step down, he said, “not only because of the prejudice I think [the DNC] showed during the campaign but also because I think we need new leadership that will open up that party” to working people, young people and “have the kind of vitality we need”.

Donald Trump, the GOP candidate, has celebrated Wasserman Schultz’s demise, tweeting that his party’s chairperson is better than her.

“I don’t think she is qualified to be the chair of the DNC, not only for these very bad emails, which revealed the prejudice of the DNC, but also because we need a party that reaches out to working people and young people, and I don’t think her leadership style is doing that”, Sanders told Tapper on “State of the Union”, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

The DNC chairwoman, long seen by Bernie supporters as being in the tank for Hillary, announced she’ll step down after the Philly convention.

Marcia Fudge, member of the US House of Representatives for Ohio’s 11th congressional district, was announced on Sunday as a new convention chair. But she had insisted that she would remain as chair until after the general election in November.

Wasserman Schultz will step down at the end of the Democratic National Convention, she said in a statement on the eve of the confab in Philadelphia that is set to anoint Clinton as the party’s presidential nominee.

In the emails, staffers considered ways to hurt Sanders at the polls.

DNC Chief Financial Officer Brad Marshall wrote one email in May saying, “It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief”. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage.

“I am not an atheist”, he said.

“This could make several points difference with my peeps”.

Amy Dacey, CEO of the DNC, subsequently responded “AMEN”, according to the emails.

The Florida congresswoman took over the reins of the party in 2011, succeeding Tim Kaine, who was seeking a Virginia Senate seat the following year and recently was chosen by Clinton to join the Democratic ticket. “Maybe back six months ago when Bernie asked her to resign, but now it seems like, ‘Oh the convention is starting, so I just won’t show up and will go away.’ It seems like the cheap way out”.

Sanders said the 19,000 emails published by the website Wikileaks appeared to confirm his suspicions.

Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America’s retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and elections.

As a result, Wasserman Schultz had become a poster child for Democratic Party insider bias. Late Saturday, CNN reported Wasserman Schultz had been stripped of her speaking role at the convention as Democratic leaders fretted about potential hecklers.

The DNC has previously had its files hacked by an individual named “Guccifer 2.0” that may have had ties to the Russians.

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“The emails just proved what we believed to begin with”, Dora Bouboulis of Vermont told AFP as she marched in a Philadelphia demonstration.

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