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WikiLeaks Scandal Sends More DNC Leaders to the Exits
The WikiLeaks email scandal that embroiled the Democrats just before their convention caused DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to step down. Now it appears that hers was only the first of several heads to roll. The DNC’s CEO Amy Dacey resigned in disgrace earlier today, along with two lieutenants. From Politico:
Also out are Communications Director Luis Miranda and Chief Financial Officer Brad Marshall. Marshall has been heavily criticized after a mass hack of DNC emails revealed he had suggested questioning Sen. Bernie Sanders’ religion during his primary contest with Hillary Clinton.
The departures were formally announced in a Tuesday afternoon memo from new DNC head Donna Brazile, but news of Dacey’s resignation broke earlier in the day, before many people in the building had been alerted to her departure.
And other senior aides have been expecting the ax to fall on them too, and there’s a chill around the offices just off Capitol Hill as staffers wait for more resignations or firings.
Brazile also announced a plan for a transition team to prepare for the general election and for a new, permanent DNC chair.
“Tom McMahon, who served as Executive Director under then-Chair Howard Dean, and who led the party’s efforts to develop and operationalize the 50-State Strategy, will lead the transition team,” she wrote.
Brazile, who took over from Wasserman Schultz as interim chair, has been in the office since Monday, beginning the process of rebuilding. Meanwhile, press operations have been largely outsourced to the firm SKDKnickerbocker, longtime consultants for the DNC, according to Democratic officials inside and outside the building.
Will these moves help to right the Democratic ship as it sails toward November, or will the chaos just create more problems for the troubled Clinton campaign?
Published in General
This election should be such an easy lay-up for the GOP. The Democrats have a unlikable candidate who is mired in corruption, have to defend Obama’s terrible record, and now disarray at the DNC.
Pity the GOP nominee seems more interested in taunting a Gold Star father than winning back the White House.
What’s interesting to me about the departures is that the only ones going are the ones who generated the offending emails. They certainly should have been canned (and much sooner), but the one(s) who
didn’t botherfailed to provide any sort of security–the IT guy(s), for instance–are still there.In conjunction with Clinton’s private email server on which she conducted official State Dept business and the DCCC email server, it makes me wonder whether Democrats even care about security.
Eric Hines
@erichines
More than likely, the people responsible for a network breach like that are the bosses of the hapless IT grunts – the former group being people who don’t know not to click on whatever obvious phishing scam the Russians put into the DNC network. It’s far more laudable that the Democrats resisted the urge to scapegoat underlings, since one imagines they would usually take cues from their nominee.
That’s a valid argument; however, no one forced the IT guys to stay with an organization–any of the several–whose management was so willfully careless. The IT guys could have walked away from that situation.
Either way, the situation speaks poorly of Democratic Party attitude toward security.
Eric Hines
It seems that Ms. Wasserman-Schultz will have company watering the koi pond in the atrium of Clinton Global Initiative to the tune of a six figure salary.
Bound to be more resignations at the DNC and elsewhere once they leak Hillary’s missing emails.
Perhaps they did, except for those who shared the mission. Hiring for ideological compatibility has its downside.
Khizr Khan fired the initial volley, serving the Democratic Party, and furthering his agenda of more mass Islamic immigration . Trump was supposed to just sit back and let this man take shots at him on television? Khan is using his son’s grave for Hillary Clinton’s election campaign. The whole “Gold Star families against Trump” spiel is being organized and run by Democrats using Democratic Party aligned front groups, especially the odious VoteVets.
Trump should be hitting this guy back, and more importantly, the people behind him. Khan and his Democrat backers picked this fight.
Why would the IT staff quit? Or even be considered responsible? I have worked IT for years and most of us will tell you that it is not our data and not our network. All you can do is tell the client or management what they should do and let them make the decisions. It is their call on what risks to take, what money to spend, what resources to allocate. So if management thinks it is smart to allow a hacker past the firewall or publish the company’s email on wikileaks then I would just make sure I had the proper CYA email chain backed up, get my paperwork in order and go do it. That is how you keep your job.
What bothers me more than anything that the expectedly corrupt Democrat leadership has done is that Trump is being handed this incredible load of ammo, and he is unable or unwilling to use it. This should be a bonanza. The media won’t give it more than a third page mention, but Trump could be trumpeting this at every rally and interview. Instead he is attacking Cruz or the Khans. He could also have taken some time to defend the Gold Star mother, Ms Smith, who spoke at his convention. Oh, yeah, I remember now. He was doing an interview on air during her speech and probably didn’t take time to read it or learn what she said.
He can hit back all he wants, maybe he’ll land a punch. It still won’t win him any votes in November, and will lose him some.
Does he want to win or not?
All depends upon the Trump-Pence team. They can exploit this and exacerbate the chaos for the DNC. Let’s hope they do . . . it’s low hanging fruit!
Well, if they value their jobs over principle, or morality, or integrity, of course they’d not quit. Security is part of their job, though; if they’re not allowed to do it….
Eric Hines
I hear ya. I don’t know how many times I have advised clients about a risky policy and not have the issue addressed. All you can do is provide the options, possible outcomes, and then implement the policies the client wishes to pursue.
Having a good email trail when disaster hits is good, but clients rarely like to hear ‘I told you so.’
Why do you persist on thinking that the standards and practices of electoral politics, conducted over the last 25-30 years, apply to a man who will protect his brand name By Any Means Necessary?
I think you mistake IT employees, who are often just people trying to keep their heads down and make a salary, for knights-errant of digital security, wandering the land tilting at winmail.dats. I am not going to blame the little guy for not tackling some DNC exec who’s about to put their password in as Password1.
If your doctor tells you to cut back on red meat and you’re not very diligent about it, your high blood pressure is not that doctor’s fault, and I would not expect that doctor to refuse to treat you because you didn’t take their advice.
I think you mistake my remarks to apply to the IT rank and file. I probably wasn’t clear: “IT guy” in my world is the IT MFWIC and his immediate management subordinates, if any. Although the tradeoff between jobs and principle, or morality, or integrity applies to everyone.
I would. And she’s told me she would, and has done so with other patients. She’s right, too. There’s no point in her wasting her time, her nurses’ and PAs’ time, and her resources on those who won’t follow her advice, or say why they won’t. There are plenty of patients who couldn’t otherwise get care, who would jump at the slot in her schedule.
Eric Hines
Khizr Khan fired the initial volley, serving the Democratic Party,
You mean the fellow who just pulled down his website? Khan is just the sacrificial lamb for the House of Saud and the Muslim Brotherhood. You’ll notice those two names never get much mention from either party. Do you wonder why?