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| Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign as DNC chair as email leak rocks Democrats | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee announced her resignation on Sunday, two days after thousands of party emails were leaked and just a day before the party’s national convention began to nominate Hillary Clinton for president. | The chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee announced her resignation on Sunday, two days after thousands of party emails were leaked and just a day before the party’s national convention began to nominate Hillary Clinton for president. |
| Related: DNC email leak: Sanders calls for new leader as Clinton camp blames Russia | Related: DNC email leak: Sanders calls for new leader as Clinton camp blames Russia |
| The Florida congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced that she would step down just hours after Bernie Sanders, who had long accused her of bias during his long primary campaign against Clinton, repeated a call for her departure. | |
| “I’ve been proud to serve as the first woman nominated by a sitting president as chair of the Democratic National Committee,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement. “I couldn’t be more excited that Democrats are nominating our first woman presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, a friend I have always believed in and know will be a great president.” | |
| Barack Obama thanked Wasserman Schultz for her five years of work, saying in a statement: “For the last eight years, Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has had my back. This afternoon, I called her to let her know that I am grateful.” | |
| Wasserman Schultz, he said, “brought Democrats together not just for my re-election campaign, but for accomplishing the shared goals we have had for our country”. Obama also saluted her role in “supporting our economic recovery, our fights for social and civil justice and providing health care for all Americans”. | |
| Clinton, too, thanked Wasserman Schultz. “I am grateful to Debbie for getting the Democratic Party to this year’s historic convention in Philadelphia,” she said, “and I know that this week’s events will be a success thanks to her hard work and leadership. | |
| “There’s simply no one better at taking the fight to the Republicans than Debbie –which is why I am glad that she has agreed to serve as honorary chair of my campaign’s 50-state program to gain ground and elect Democrats in every part of the country, and will continue to serve as a surrogate for my campaign nationally, in Florida, and in other key states. | |
| “I look forward to campaigning with Debbie in Florida and helping her in her re-election bid – because as president, I will need fighters like Debbie in Congress who are ready on day one to get to work for the American people.” | |
| A former DNC official, meanwhile, told the Guardian: “Regardless of the circumstances, you got to feel for someone who has logged the hours DWS has over the last five years. Leaving under these circumstances is a shame.” | |
| However, the former official added: “No one is elected DNC chair for life. She overstayed and her welcome and this result was a matter of time. | |
| “Moving forward, Hillary Clinton has an opportunity to select someone as chair who will compliment the ticket and serve as yet another high level surrogate. Remember, [vice-presidential pick] Tim Kaine served as chair when he was a runner up in the veepstakes. The candidates Clinton just vetted could all be assets – more so than Wasserman Schultz would have been in the closing months.” | |
| Another former DNC staffer simply told the Guardian that he high-fived his former co-workers when he heard the news, describing it as the “best news to happen the party committee in years”. | |
| The emails, posted by Wikileaks from an undisclosed source, revealed Democratic party staffers discussing how they could undermine Sanders’ campaign against Clinton. In one email, the DNC chief financial officer, Brad Marshall, suggested questioning Sanders’ faith, writing, “I think I read he is an atheist.” | |
| “This could make several points difference with my peeps,” he wrote. “My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.” | |
| In another, a staffer suggested the DNC spread a negative article about Sanders’ supporters. | |
| Sanders had accused Wasserman Schultz and the DNC of prejudice for months, most notably when he sued the DNC for denying him access to voter data – a denial itself prompted by the DNC’s accusation that his campaign had inappropriately seen data belonging to Clinton’s team. | |
| His campaign also suggested that the DNC had scheduled debates at odd hours, when people would be less likely to tune in and hear the message from Sanders, a relative newcomer on the national stage. | |
| On Sunday, Sanders told ABC: “I think she should resign, period. | |
| “I don’t think she is qualified to be the chair of the DNC,” he told CNN, “not just because of these 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 does that.” | |
| But he added that the emails did not surprise him. “I mean, there’s no question to my mind, no question to any objective observer’s mind, the DNC was supporting Hillary Clinton and I’m not shocked by this,” he said. | |
| The DNC and a cybersecurity firm it hired earlier this year said the party’s email system system had been breached by Russian hackers, a hypothesis seized on by the Clinton campaign on Sunday. | |
| “Experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, [and are] releasing these emails for the purpose of helping Donald Trump,” campaign manager Robby Mook said. | |
| In June Wasserman Schultz called the breach a “serious incident” and said the firm, Crowdstrike, had “moved as quickly as possible to kick out the intruders and secure our network”. |