A liberal group made up of former staffers of Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign has responded to the admission by former Democratic National Committee chairman Donna Brazile that the primary was rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton. They said the "corruption that plagues" the party goes far beyond the 2016 primary.
Brazile, who became the DNC's interim chairman during last year's primary, disclosed in Politico on Thursday morning that she was able to find "evidence of internal corruption" showing the DNC rigged the system "to throw the primary to Hillary" during her time as chairman. The evidence came in the form of an August 2015 agreement between the DNC and the Clinton campaign that gave Clinton control of the DNC's finances, strategy, and staffing decisions a full six months before a single vote was cast.
Saikat Chakrabarti, who was director of organizing strategy for the Sanders campaign and now runs a group aiming to change the Democratic Party, said he wasn't surprised to hear the admission from Brazile.
"We all knew that the primary was rigged," Chakrabarti said on behalf of Justice Democrats, a group he founded. "But the corruption that plagues the Democratic Party is bigger than one primary—it's become a rot set at the very root of a party [that] claims to be for working people."
Chakrabarti added that the Democratic Party is currently "devoid of message, devoid of money, and devoid of a winning strategy."
"The people want a party that works for the people and wins," he said. "We are sick and tired of wasting money on helping a party that wastes it through incompetence and corrupt negligence."
Justice Democrats says it has seen an uptick in donations—$2,500 an hour—since Brazile's admission broke on Thursday morning. The group currently has a slate of candidates running for office in 2018, many of them challenging Democratic incumbents.