This is what Corruption Looks Like: How Hundreds of Superdelegates were “bought” by the Clinton Campaign.

Hillary and Debbie Wasserman Schultz: More than BFFs.

You know, I always thought it was somewhat strange that so many Superdelegates had endorsed Hillary Clinton even many months before the Primary race started.

As Debbie Wasserman Schultz explained to Rachel Maddow, the Superdelegates should not be treated or counted like pledged delegates. They do not have to declare their preference until the Convention.

I always thought it was strange, then, that so many Party officials and officeholders would be tripping all over each other in a mad rush to endorse Hillary, when the convention was still a year away.

Now I know why.

You see, these Superdelegates are members of their State Democratic Parties, upon whom they rely for support and funding for re-election. And the money that will be available for those re-election efforts has, in many cases, been provided by Hillary Clinton.

Clinton has provided funds for these candidates through a sophisticated system of money laundering that has allowed the Clinton campaign to funnel billionaire’s donations to State parties in return for their participation in a massive money-laundering payback system to also funnel money to the Clinton campaign itself.

Margot Kidder supports Bernie.

The whole sordid affair was recently brought to light in a Counterpunch article and showcased on The Young Turks. As Margot Kidder (yes, THAT Margot Kidder) writes in Counterpunch:

In August 2015, at the Democratic Party convention in Minneapolis, 33 democratic state parties made deals with the Hillary Clinton campaign and a joint fundraising entity called The Hillary Victory Fund. The deal allowed many of her core billionaire and inner circle individual donors to run the maximum amounts of money allowed through those state parties to the Hillary Victory Fund in New York and the DNC in Washington.

Remember, this was in AUGUST — 6 months before the first vote was cast in the actual Primary. Margot continues:

The idea was to increase how much one could personally donate to Hillary by taking advantage of the Supreme Court ruling 2014, McCutcheon v FEC, that knocked down a cap on aggregate limits as to how much a donor could give to a federal campaign in a year. It thus eliminated the ceiling on amounts spent by a single donor to a presidential candidate.
From these large amounts of money being transferred from state coffers to the Hillary Victory Fund in Washington, the Clinton campaign got the first $2,700, the DNC was to get the next $33,400, and the remainder was to be split among the 33 signatory states. With this scheme, the Hillary Victory Fund raised over $26 million for the Clinton Campaign by the end of 2015.

… and the rest of the money went to the State Parties and, eventually, the candidates, including many officeholders who are Superdelegates.

These Superdelegates are actually PLEDGED — to Clinton

Many people are speculating as to whether or not Superdelegates from States that have voted for Bernie will move their support away from Bernie.

Unfortunately, that will NEVER happen.

You see, when it comes to all this money flowing in from the millionaires and billionaires who give to Hillary, the Clinton Campaign can decide which State Parties get to partake in the spoils:

The fund is administered by treasurer Elizabeth Jones, the Clinton Campaign’s chief operating officer. Ms. Jones has the exclusive right to decide when transfers of money to and from the Hillary Victory Fund would be made to the state parties.

So if a Superdelegate whose State voted overwhelmingly for Bernie switched her support to Sanders under the reasoning that she was representing the will of her State, then Clinton’s Campaign COO would shut off the spigot and all that sweet, sweet billionaire cash would stop flowing into the coffers of her State Democratic Party — and the candidate herself.

As Kidder gently puts it:

One could reasonably infer that … the super-delegates of these various partner states would either pledge loyalty to Clinton, or, at the least, not endorse Senator Sanders. Not only did Hillary’s multi-millionaire and billionaire supporters get to bypass individual campaign donation limits to state parties by using several state parties apparatus, but the Clinton campaign got the added bonus of buying that state’s super-delegates with the promise of contributions to that Democratic organization’s re-election fund.

So — there you have it. Not a pretty story. It is not just the money-laundering operation itself, which has allowed the Clinton campaign to “legally” obviate campaign finance law, but it has further allowed them to pervert the political process of the Democratic Party by “buying” the fealty of the Superdelegates. These Superdelegates are supposed to be “free to choose the best candidate” according to their own beliefs and their own conscience. But now many of them will have that choice essentially turned into a dilemma: they can support Hillary and stay in politics, or they can support Bernie and deprive both themselves and their State Party of significant funding from the Clinton campaign — thereby ending their career.

Spread the Word!

The next time you hear or read someone challenging you to prove that the DNC and/or the State Parties are “in the tank” for Hillary, or possibly doing ANYTHING to help Hillary defeat Bernie, show them this diary or the original article — or even this article on AlterNet. It is clear that it is in the direct financial interest of all these groups to have Hillary win — our at least be seen to be helping her win, so that their gravy train of Clinton campaign cash does not derail.

The next time you see Rachel Maddow or someone else criticise Bernie for not supporting down ballot candidates, and you hear them crow about how Hillary has “raised significant money” for Democrats, you should point out that that money came from billionaire donors using a clever money-laundering process to avoid campaign finance laws, and that Clinton’s “altruism” and “Party loyalty” has in fact been nothing more than a corrupt scheme to “buy” the votes of hundreds of Superdelegates and thereby subvert the political process and the will of the People.

The Rogue’s Gallery

Here is a handy list of the beneficiaries of the Clinton Victory Find scheme. Super delegates from these States will not be able to switch to Bernie if they want to keep any friends in their State Party.

Recipient Party Type** Office Sought Total Clinton, Hillary D C Pres $4,440,000 DNC Services Corp D P $2,263,436 Democratic Party of Wisconsin D P $207,278
Democratic Party of Oklahoma D P $140,000
Democratic Party of New Hampshire D P $74,700
Democratic Party of Pennsylvania D P $70,500
Democratic Party of Texas D P $69,100
Democratic Executive Cmte of Florida D P $66,200
Democratic Party of Nevada D P $66,200
Democratic Party of Colorado D P $66,000
Democratic Party of Ohio D P $66,000
Democratic Cmte of Utah D P $64,100
Democratic Party of Alaska D P $64,100
Democratic Party of Mississippi D P $64,100
Democratic Party of Montana D P $64,100
Democratic Party of Oregon D P $64,100
Democratic Party of South Carolina D P $64,100
Democratic Party of Tennessee D P $64,100
Democratic State Cmte of Massachusetts D P $64,100
Georgia Federal Elections Cmte D P $64,100
Idaho State Democratic Party D P $64,100
Michigan Democratic State Central Cmte D P $64,100
Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party D P $64,100
Missouri Democratic State Cmte D P $64,100
Rhode Island Democratic State Cmte D P $64,100
West Virginia State Democratic Exec Cmte D P $64,100
Wyoming State Democratic Central Cmte D P $64,100
Democratic Party of North Carolina D P $64,000 Democratic State Central Cmte/Louisiana D P $64,000 Indiana Democratic Congressional Victory Cmte D P $64,000 Democratic Party of Arkansas D P $63,000 Maine Democratic State Cmte D P $59,800 Democratic Party of Virginia D P $43,500

Source: FEC

Euroyankee

EuroYankee is a dual citizen, US-EU. He travels around Europe, writing on politics, culture and such. He pays his US taxes so he gets to weigh in on what is happening in the States.