Sanders calls for ouster of Clinton convention allies
By Daniel Strauss 05/28/16 10:33 AM EDT Updated 05/28/16 12:24 PM EDT
Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign has moved to remove Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy and former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank as the chairmen of two Democratic National Convention Standing Committees.
The Sanders campaign sent a formal letter late Friday to Lorraine Miller and James Roosevelt Jr., the co-chairs of the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee, making a formal credentials challenge to having Frank and Malloy as co-chairmen of two of the three committees.
Malloy serves as the co-chairman of the Platform Committee and Frank is the co-chairman of the convention's Rules Committee. Both have been unsparing in their criticism of Sanders. Frank dismissed the Sanders campaign's objections in an interview with POLITICO Saturday.
The Sanders letter to Roosevelt and Miller reads: "Governor Malloy and Mr. Frank have both been aggressive attack surrogates for the Clinton campaign. Their criticisms of Senator Sanders have gone beyond dispassionate ideological disagreement and have exposed a deeper professional, political and personal hostility toward the Senator and his Campaign."
The Vermont senator has argued before that Malloy and Frank, both Clinton supporters, have unfairly and aggressively attacked his candidacy. The Sanders campaign offered some examples in the complaint.
"In a March interview, Mr. Frank defamed Senator Sanders as “outrageously McCarthyite," the letter said. For Malloy, the campaign pointed out that the Connecticut governor is an "avowed loyalist of the Clinton Campaign, he is an incendiary critic of Senator Sanders. While justly criticizing 'Donald Trump and his extremist agenda' in press remarks, Governor Malloy has gone on to draw pejorative comparisons between Mr. Trump and Senator Sanders.”
Frank brushed off the Sanders camp's charges.
"It is inconceivable to me that anything could come before that committee that will affect who the nominee is," Frank said. "I think what you have here is this: Sanders is losing to Hillary Clinton because she is getting many more votes and many more pledged delegates. Some of [the Sanders supporters] are trying to lay the claim that he's being unfairly deprived of this."
Asked what he thought Sanders' endgame goal was, Frank said it might be to suggest he was robbed of the nomination.
"I hope it is not to lay the basis for an inaccurate claim that he was unfairly denied the nomination and I do see some elements of this," Frank said. "We really had two nomination contests this year. Bernie Sanders is the nominee of the caucuses; Hillary Clinton is the nominee of the primaries, which are more Democratic."
The letter argued that given their bias, Frank and Malloy can't fairly perform their duties as chairmen.
"The appointment of two individuals so outspokenly critical of Senator Sanders, and so closely affiliated with Secretary Clinton’s campaign, raises concerns that two of the three Convention Standing Committees are being constituted in an overtly partisan way designed to exclude meaningful input from supporters of Senator Sanders’ candidacy. The campaign respectfully but emphatically requests, under the qualification standards clause of the Call that both Governor Malloy and Mr. Frank be disqualified from their respective positions with the Standing Platform and Rules Committee."
The letter indicates that a recent agreement by the Sanders campaign and the DNC changing the makeup of the influential convention Drafting Committee was not enough to satisfy Sanders' objections to the makeup of the convention committees. The agreement gave Sanders the ability to pick five members of the Drafting Committee, while Clinton could pick six and DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz picked the remaining four. DNC rules allow Wasserman Schultz to pick all 15.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/05/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-convention-allies-223685#ixzz49yQmQE72
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