Dems, journos denied Dem primary rigging for Clinton

A lot of people are eating their words now that ex-DNC chair Donna Brazile is saying she has “proof” that Hillary Clinton rigged the 2016 Democratic primary in her favor.

(Article by Amber Athey republished from DailyCaller.com)

Bernie Sanders and his supporters long alleged that the DNC was giving Clinton an unfair advantage in the primary race, although Sanders never went as far to call the race “rigged.” Brazile has now revealed that there was a financial scheme between Clinton and the DNC that gave her nearly full control of the organization.

Some journalists and Democrats now look awfully silly because they vehemently denied any election rigging and even laughed at people who believed it was possible.

Ari Berman, writing in The Nation in June 2016, called election rigging a “conspiracy theory” that has been “extensively debunked.”

“Outlandish claims fall apart when subjected to closer scrutiny,” Berman asserted. “Crying wolf about rigged elections, like some Sanders supporters have done, undermines the legitimacy of documented cases of voter suppression.”

Dana Houle, meanwhile, wrote an article for the New Republic in July titled “No, the DNC Didn’t Rig the Primary in Favor of Hillary.”

Houle denied that leaked emails from the DNC show they were favoring Clinton, and called the overall rigging claim “improbable.”

“The main problem with the notion that the DNC rigged the results for Clinton is that it requires one to assume the improbable,” he said. “The DNC had no role or authority in primary contests, which are run by state governments.”

He also urged Democrats to “stop quibbling about whether the DNC rigged the nomination” and instead focus on the Russians’ ability to hack into email servers.

An anonymous writer for The Daily Kos, going by the name “Anc260,” argued in a highly popular piece that the primary was rigged — but against Hillary Clinton. He contended that the caucus system allowed Sanders to collect more delegates from less voters than Clinton did.

“Considering this data, the Sanders campaign has been incredibly disingenuous to suggest that the system is rigged against him,” he said. “In reality, the inclusion of caucuses in the nominating process negatively affected Hillary Clinton in both 2008 and 2016.”

There were top members of the Democratic Party who denied rigging as well.

Patrice Taylor, the DNC’s director of party affairs & delegate selection, insisted that “the election is not rigged for one candidate or another” while defending the party’s use of “superdelegates” in a Medium post last February.

“The rules that I just described were first established in the 1970s, long before any current candidate declared for office. All candidates run under the same rules,” Taylor said, perhaps not realizing that Clinton had special access to her organization.

Tom Perez, who now chairs the DNC, said that Clinton won the primary “fair and square” and that he had previously “misspoke” when he suggested the primary was rigged.

“Hillary became our nominee fair and square, and she won more votes in the primary — and general — than her opponents,” he stated.

Read more at: DailyCaller.com