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Donna Brazile Claims Emails She 'Allegedly' Sent CNN Questions to Clinton Team Don't Tell 'Complete Story'

Donna Brazile / Twitter screenshot
February 27, 2017

Former Democratic National Committee interim chairwoman Donna Brazile maintains that the Wikileaks emails showing her relaying CNN questions ahead of debates to Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary do not "tell a complete story."

In an interview with Politico published Monday, Brazile, a former CNN contributor, acknowledged the emails "allegedly" show her passing the information to the Clinton campaign.

But she says the emails do not explain the full story.

"You know, I think there's always a lot of confusion when something is put out in a dump of emails that trickles out," she said. "So, the first answer is an easy answer. Did CNN provide Donna Brazile or any other contributor debate questions? No. I've never received questions from CNN. I've made that very clear, I've made that very plain."

She concluded that the emails did not tell the full story.

"The emails that were allegedly sent to me or sent from me, you know, told a story but it didn't tell a complete story," Brazile stated.

The last eight months for Brazile have been difficult, Politico reported. She has been dealing with the repercussions of the 2016 elections and the Russian hacking of the DNC.

The issues began early, when she was the interim chair and the FBI called her in to tell her what they knew of the extent of the hacking, and Russia's role in it. The experience was scary for her.

"I was scared that first day and night. I went home that night, I couldn't talk to anybody because I had a — I couldn't even tell the staff what was happening to them," she said.

What followed were months of new security measures being put in place, with cameras installed and sweeps for Russian bugs. Brazile tried to make light of the situation by walking around the DNC headquarters with a green watering can, joking, "I'm watering the bugs."

In the fall of 2016, WikiLeaks released hacked emails of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman. In some of the Podesta emails, Brazile was seen alerting the campaign of specific questions and topics that Clinton should prepare for before appearing in the debates hosted by CNN. This gave the appearance that she was favoring Clinton over other Democratic candidates.

Brazile said she never provided the questions in advance, and the questions were not coordinated for the debate. But, the questions she had alerted the Clinton campaign to did come up on two separate debates, according to the Washington Examiner.