“As Party Chair, this week I will open and close the Convention and I will address our delegates about the stakes involved in this election not only for Democrats, but for all Americans”, Wasserman Schultz said in a lengthy statement. Her decision came after leaked e-mails from the DNC appeared to show workers there favoring Clinton over her chief rival, U.S. Sen.
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The Florida congresswoman has faced calls for her resignation after a WikiLeaks release of about 20,000 internal emails from seven DNC official which showed the committee was biased in its handling of the Democratic primaries, the article said.
Democratic National Committee communications director Luis Miranda tweeted that Donna Brazile will service as interim chair “through the election”.
In her resignation letter, Wasserman Schultz, of Florida, said she will maintain some official duties at the Democratic National Convention, including speaking to delegates, but that she would officially resign when the event ends Thursday.
“I would ask her to step aside because she’s a distraction in a week that is Hillary Clinton’s week”, David Axelrod a former top strategist to President Obama, told CNN on Sunday ahead of the Florida congresswoman’s decision.
“It’s highly ironic that the most senior Jewish party member was done in by another Jewish staffer playing the Jew-card against the first potential Jewish presidential nominee”, a DNC source told the Forward on Sunday, hours after Wasserman Schultz resigned.
“I’m in Cleveland if you need another chair to help keep your convention in order”, she said on Twitter.
At the Republican convention, Trump cast himself as the law-and-order candidate in a nation suffering under crime and hobbled by immigration, sticking to the gloom-and-doom theme. Sanders’ campaign charged that Clinton’s team was not handing over its fair share of its fundraising, which Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver said was “laundering” and “looting”. She added: “I know that the chair will hold those employees accountable if they’re found to have acted outside of that neutrality and even-handedness”.
“Donald Trump may think America’s in decline, but he’s wrong”.
The revelation threatened to shatter the uneasy peace between the Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders camps and supporters days before the Democratic convention kicks off next week. The chairwoman has been a lightning rod for criticism throughout the presidential campaign, with Sanders repeatedly accusing the DNC of backing Clinton. The Republican Party of Florida qualified Wasserman Schultz’s departure over the leaked emails as “proof of the continued political cronyism” inside the Democratic Party.
Worth noting is whom Wasserman Schultz replaced at the DNC five years ago: Tim Kaine, who is now Clinton’s running mate. “And I’ll move to Canada”. Sanders called for Wasserman Schultz to step down. By the end of the day, some of Sanders’s supporters mulled putting an alternate name into nomination in opposition to Kaine.
Bernie Sanders supporters protest.
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“Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Hillary’s orchestrated collusion cheated thousands of honest Americans, who have invested enormous amounts of money and personal time for real change”, said one of the marchers, Dan Haggerty, 54, an electrician from California. The emails confirmed a widespread suspicion that it is anything but.
