Former Obama administration official and Fox News contributor Marie Harf on Thursday said she has "no idea" why Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez made a false claim about the DNC breaking fundraising records in January.
Harf, a former senior adviser for strategic communications to Secretary of State John Kerry, said Perez "clearly wasn't accurate" in claiming the DNC broke fundraising records and that the Democratic Party has "real fundraising challenges."
The Washington Post fact checker gave Perez "two Pinocchios" on Tuesday for falsely claiming the DNC raised more money in January 2018 than any previous January in its history.
"We raised more money in January, for instance, of 2018 than any January in our history," Perez said in a C-SPAN interview on Friday. "So if the question is, ‘Do we have enough money to implement our game plan?' Absolutely."
The DNC raised $6 million in January 2018, the Post reported, which is below the DNC's hauls in January 2014 ($6.6 million), January 2012 ($13.2 million), January 2011 ($7.1 million), and January 2010 ($9.1 million).
DNC spokesman Michael Tyler walked back Perez's claim, saying, "Tom meant to say that we raised more money in January than we had in any January since 2012."
"This elaborate construct may help the DNC chairman save face, but only by sacrificing clarity and hampering voters' understanding of campaign finance," the Post wrote. "We were on the fence between two and three Pinocchios for this one, but in the end Perez's revised statement merits two Pinocchios. The numbers add up, but the spin is misleading."