When Independent Senator Bernie Sanders announced his presidential run last May, he didn’t look far for his campaign team. The staff he assembled for this highest of offices are the same men who’ve surrounded him for the past ten to twenty years.

These are not fresh faces who might offer a different slant or inject a new perspective. They’re middle-aged white guys, and with the exception of Tad Devine, none has the policy credentials or international experience for the candidate to draw upon in his bid for the presidency.


The Sanders’ campaign touted the crew as “grassroots,” hoping to reflect a populist model. However, their lack of diversity, homegrown status and deep affiliation with the candidate should give pause to voters. Is Bernie Sanders representing the state of Vermont or all of America? Does he expect to appeal to all genders or just males; heterosexuals only or the widening sexual orientations? And, what about people of color? How can his Caucasian campaign speak authentically to a voting bloc outside their own racial identity? Primary results have already answered a couple of these questions.

An ethical issue is also connected to this team, as first exposed in a Politico article from July of last year. The story looked at Michael Briggs, the campaign’s Communications director, who also collects a paycheck for a similar position as Sanders’ communications chief in the Senate. The article notes that this arrangement is often seen with reelection campaigns but is rare and problematic when an elected official runs for higher office.

The arrangement isn’t unusual for staffers serving on Senate and House reelection campaigns. But such double duty is out of the ordinary for a high-profile presidential campaign — most other political operations rigorously separate the two responsibilities, especially for a role as public-facing as communications director. |Read the full Politico article|

Politico noted that “Sanders in particular has raised eyebrows with his near-mixing of Senate and campaign activity.”

In a similar vein, Tad Devine is compensated for his role as an advisor in the presidential campaign, and his political consulting firm, Devine Mulvey, has also received over $800,000 for its work in the campaign, according to FEC reports.

Perhaps the most troubling question has to do with the insularity of Bernie Sanders. What does it mean when a presidential candidate refuses to expand his circle of confidantes? Does this reflect a distrust of outsiders or an over-reliance upon Yes men? Is he unwilling to subject himself to the tough scrutiny of a campaign advisor who is not his longstanding friend?
For those taking a serious look at Bernie Sanders, these questions demand answers. His choice of campaign staff reveals an individual with a calcified mode, one who may lack the capacity to think beyond Vermont and outside the decades-long complaint against Big Banks and Billionaires.
Here’s a look at the top presidential campaign staff for Bernie Sanders.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) sent a letter to Bernie 2016 telling it to account for a discrepancy of over $10 million in donations. The letter is dated 30 March and cites the July 2015 Quarterly Report submitted by Bernie Sanders’ principal campaign committee.

The $10M occurs during the first months of fundraising (1 April 2015 – 30 June 2015). Susan Jackson, Treasurer of Bernie 2016, must explain the discrepancy by 4 May 2016.

Here is a snippet of the FEC letter:

The discrepancy appears to coordinate with an earlier post to this blog (See: Bernie Gets $10 Million in Mystery Donations from Washington D.C.) in which over $10M in un-itemized receipts is reported on this Schedule A-P; all are dated 30 June 2015 and marked as originating from Washington, D.C.

The FEC discrepancy noted in the 30 March letter ($10,465,912) matches the Schedule A-P referenced above and in this blog’s February post.

While the figures match, the FEC is concerned about a discrepancy between the amount reported on the committee’s Detailed Summary and its Schedule A-P. The Summary does not include that ten million in donations.

This is the latest in a series of campaign finance issues arising from the Bernie Sanders campaign committee.

Victoria Toensing and her husband and legal partner Joseph diGenova are pushing claims that anonymous State Department and CIA "whistleblowers" have been blocked and threatened by the Obama administration to prevent their testifying on the September 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. Toensing and diGenova are longtime Republican activists, and Toensing has a history of pushing dubious claims and falsehoods into the media.

Toensing And diGenova Are Pushing Claims That Obama Administration Is Threatening Benghazi Witnesses In Cover-Up

Toensing And diGenova Are Pushing Claims In The Media That Obama Administration Is Issuing Threats To Witnesses About Benghazi. According to Fox News, Toensing is now representing one of the supposed whistleblowers in her role with diGenova & Toensing, where she and her husband are partners. [Media Matters, 4/30/13; Fox News, 4/29/13; Breitbart.com, 4/29/13]

Toensing And diGenova Are Longtime Republicans

Toensing And diGenova Both Identify As Republicans. [DiGenovaToensing.com, accessed 4/30/13; DiGenovaToensing.com, accessed 4/30/13]

Toensing Served As Reagan Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Toensing served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Justice Department during the Reagan administration and was Sen. Barry Goldwater's chief counsel. [DiGenovaToensing.com, accessed 4/30/13]

Toensing And diGenova Both Served As Advisers To Romney In 2008. The two previously supported and advised the campaign of Fred Thompson. [American Presidency Project, accessed 4/30/13]

Toensing Has Donated More Than $30,000 To GOP Candidates And Causes. According to Federal Election Commission data, Toensing has donated more than $30,000 to Republican causes, including $1,000 to Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign. Toensing contributed a total of $1,150 to Democratic candidates. [FEC.gov, accessed 4/30/13; Media Matters, 7/13/10] FEC.gov, accessed 4/30/13; Media Matters,7/13/10]

diGenova Has Donated At Least $18,000 To GOP Candidates And Causes. Overwhelmingly Contributed To Republican Causes. According to Federal Election Commission data, diGenova has donated at least $18,000 to Republican candidates or organizations that support Republican campaigns. diGenova also donated at least $450 to Democratic and Independent candidates. [FEC.gov, accessed 4/30/13]

Toensing Has Been Criticized For Lacking "Impartiality, Non-Partisanship, And Professionalism"

The Pair Has A History Of Investigating Democrats And Defending Republicans Under Investigation. In a 1998 profile, The Washington Post reported:

Name a high-profile investigation in this city and chances are the prosecutorial pair is involved.

Charges that Republican Rep. Dan Burton improperly demanded campaign contributions from a lobbyist for Pakistan? DiGenova and Toensing are the Indiana congressman's personal attorneys.

Newt Gingrich's ethics problems? Toensing represents the speaker's wife, Marianne, to ensure her compliance with House ethics rules.

A House committee investigation of the Teamsters and the union's links to improper Democratic fund-raising? DiGenova and Toensing are leading the probe as outside counsel. [Washington Post, 2/27/98]

They Have Been Criticized For "Non-Stop Mugging" And For Lacking "Impartiality, Non-Partisanship, And Professionalism." In 1998, Toensing, who was working as outside counsel for the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, was criticized for her actions in connection with the Monica Lewinsky scandal. A February 5, 1998, Roll Call article (via Nexis) reported: "Rep. Bill Clay (D-Mo) launched a stinging attack on the two lead attorneys investigating the Teamsters campaign finance scandal yesterday, alleging that the attorneys have lost their objectivity because of their frequent television appearances and 'participation' in the scandal involving ex-White House intern Monica Lewinsky." The article also reported:

Clay's rebuke of former independent counsel Joseph diGenova and his wife and law firm partner, Victoria Toensing, who were hired in November by a House Education and the Workforce subcommittee, came in a letter to Chairman Bill Goodling (R-Pa) yesterday.

"Sadly, Mr. diGenova and Ms. Toensing have become so closely aligned with the President's critics and so personally identified with the scandal itself as to have relinquished the air of impartiality, non-partisanship, and professionalism required of leaders of a serious congressional investigation," wrote Clay, the ranking member of the Education and the Workforce Committee.

"Put more bluntly," Clay added, "the couple's relentless self-promotion and non-stop mugging for the likes of Geraldo Rivera - however good for business and their egos - is unseemly, undignified, unworthy of this committee, and generally detrimental to important Congressional functions."

Clay said in his letter that a LEXIS/NEXIS search found 166 citations of diGenova and Toensing commenting on the Lewinsky affair between Jan. 21 and Feb. 4. The letter came even as Republicans approved an additional $750,000 for the diGenova-Toensing investigation. [Roll Call, 2/5/98; Media Matters, 7/13/10]

Toensing and diGenova Were Criticized For Conflict Of Interest For Dual Role In Separate DOJ Investigations. Toensing and diGenova were criticized for serving as special counsel in the House Education and the Workforce Committee probe into Justice Department oversight of the Teamsters union while also representing Dan Burton, the committee's chairman at the time, in a separate Justice Department probe. A December 18, 1997, Roll Call article (via Nexis) reported: "Rep. Bill Clay (Mo), the full committee's ranking Democrat, has raised questions about the fact that the two attorneys are also representing Burton in the Justice Department's investigation of charges that the Government Reform and Oversight chairman tried to extort campaign money from a lobbyist during the 1996 election cycle." The article also reported:

Democrats believe this creates a conflict of interest because [Rep. Pete] Hoekstra's [R-MI] subcommittee plans to investigate the Justice Department's decade-long oversight of the Teamsters, specifically the agency's handling of the union's 1996 presidential election.

Clay says that diGenova and Toensing, a former chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee and a deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan Administration, should not lead a Congressional investigation of the Justice Department while the department is conducting a criminal investigation of one of their outside clients. [Roll Call, 12/18/97; Media Matters, 7/13/10]

Toensing Has A History Of Pushing Falsehoods In The Media

Toensing Attempted To Link The Resignation Of David Petraeus To The Benghazi Attack. In November 2012, Toensing wrote an op-ed for Fox News attempting to draw a link between the Benghazi attack and the abrupt resignation of former CIA director David Petraeus. [Media Matters, 4/30/13]

Toensing Pushed Media Falsehood That Plame's CIA Status Was Widely Known On D.C. "Cocktail Circuit." Toensing and co-author Bruce Sanford promoted the false claim -- popular in right-wing media circles -- that Valerie Plame's CIA status was known "on the Washington cocktail circuit" prior to its disclosure by columnist Robert Novak. Toensing and Sanford wrote in a January 12, 2005, op-ed:

Merely knowing that Plame works for the CIA does not provide the knowledge that the government is keeping her relationship secret. In fact, just the opposite is the case. If it were known on the Washington cocktail circuit, as has been alleged, that Wilson's wife is with the agency, a possessor of that gossip would have no reason to believe that information is classified -- or that "affirmative measures" were being taken to protect her cover. [The Washington Post, 1/12/05]

Fitzgerald: Plame's Status Wasn't "Widely Known Outside The Intelligence Community." In an October 28, 2005, press conference announcing the indictment of I. Lewis Libby, then chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald refuted the falsehood, stating: "Valerie [Plame] Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community. Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life." [Washington Post, 1/12/05; Media Matters, 7/13/10]
Toensing Advanced Falsehood That "Plame Was Not Covert." In a February 18, 2007, op-ed for The Washington Post, Toensing wrote: "On Dec. 30, 2003, the day Fitzgerald was appointed special counsel, he should have known (all he had to do was ask the CIA) that Plame was not covert, knowledge that should have stopped the investigation right there." [Washington Post, 2/18/07]

CIA Director: Plame "Was A Covert Agent." Rep. Henry Waxman stated on March 16, 2007, in a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, that then-CIA Director Michael Hayden confirmed to him that Plame was "a covert agent." Waxman stated: "General Hayden, the head of the CIA, told me personally that she was -- that if I said that she was a covert agent, it wouldn't be an incorrect statement." [Media Matters, 7/13/10]
Toensing And diGenova Involved In Discredited And Retracted Article About President Clinton. In a February 27, 1998, article on Toensing and diGenova's involvement in a retracted Dallas Morning News article claiming that a Secret Service agent had witnessed President Clinton and Lewinsky in a "compromising situation," The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported:

The melodrama began when Toensing was approached by an intermediary for a Secret Service agent who was said to be willing to testify that he saw Clinton and Lewinsky in a compromising situation. DiGenova passed this on to Morning News reporter David Jackson ("Joe and I exchanged a few words over that," Toensing says), and the paper published the story in its Internet edition, attributing the account to an unnamed lawyer "familiar with the negotiations." But by then the intermediary had told Toensing the agent was backing off.

Hours later, the Morning News retracted the report, saying the "longtime Washington lawyer" had said the information was "inaccurate."

The couple now say that Toensing, taking a call from Jackson hours before deadline, told the reporter: "If Joe is your source, it's wrong."

"The bottom line is, they were told not to print and they chose to print," diGenova says. "I don't know how much more helpful you can be to a newspaper than to tell them not to print."

Carl Leubsdorf, the paper's Washington bureau chief, says: "The reporter's recollection of that conversation is quite different. He was told that 'if Joe told you that, he shouldn't have.' If it had been the other way, the story of course would have been reassessed at that point." [Washington Post, 2/27/98]

Benghazi Witnesses Have Not Been Silenced

Benghazi Witnesses Have Reportedly Testified To FBI, Independent Benghazi Review, Spoken To Senator. Contrary to the suggestion that the Obama administration has prevented Benghazi witnesses from testifying, survivors have reportedly been interviewed by the FBI for its on-going criminal investigation into the attack and spoken to investigators from the State Department's independent review of the event. The Senate Intelligence committee reportedly received redacted transcripts from the FBI interviews of the survivors and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has said he's spoken with some of the survivors. [CBSNews.com, 3/11/13; Huffington Post, 12/18/12; Fox News, Special Report, 3/15/13]

CHRIS HAYES (HOST): The key part of this. I want to go back to May 2013. We were on air, we'd been on air for about a month. Big new piece on ABC: "Exclusive: Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions Scrubbed Of Terror Reference." And again, this was coming, pretty clearly, from a Republican member of Congress. Then the original full e-mail chain showed the source was completely wrong about it. And again it was the same thing. It was a full day story, three day story, four day story and then finally the actual e-mail chain came out and it was totally debunked.

ERIC BOEHLERT: We see this over and over again. Republican staffers just feeding this stuff, feeding this stuff.

HAYES: This piece was a member of Congress. The citation here is "lawmaker."

BOEHLERT: That's right, that's right, that's a good point. We saw the pattern with Benghazi. We've seen it with e-mails. If you want to get nostalgic go back to Whitewater, go back to travel-gate, go back to the Clinton pardons. This is over and over again. We create these investigations. Republicans are briefed on them and then they spin these fantastic tales to the press who types it up because they think it's a great story.

HAYES: Well if it was true it's a story. I mean if it was true --

BOEHLERT: Every time, every time when we go through it, these facts don't hold up. Then The Washington Post. They're not going to make any change in their anonymous sourcing policy according to Media Matters and according to The Washington Post. So we're just going to keep doing this. New York Times last summer, Hillary is the target of a criminal investigation.

HAYES: Famous leak. And then criminal was walked back. And then it was revised in the story.

BOEHLERT: But, once you put that in the pipeline, once you put that out there, wait, Hillary is going to be indicted? You can't walk that back. 150 agents? You can't really effectively walk that back. I haven't seen many news organizations try to walk it back in the last 48 hours.

The Boston Herald, which endorsed Mitt Romney and John McCain, published a piece today entitled, Potential indictment of Hillary could be convention wild card.

Tons of recommendations to the article followed by Sanders supporters hoping for a miracle to save Bernie's dying Campaign. :++ www.democraticunderground.com/…+

Sanders supporters have been strangely prone to link to Fox, Boston Herald and other conservative outlets that share similar dislike for Hillary Clinton.

The feeling is mutual as Republicans openly root for Bernie Sanders. Bloomberg (Jan, 2015) : Republican Operatives Try to Help Bernie Sanders

Analysts find prosecution of Clinton unlikely. www.msn.com/…

Joseph DiGenova, The "expert" quoted in the article is married to Victoria Toensing. Article on the couple: Who Are The Right-Wing Media's Benghazi Lawyers Victoria Toensing And Joseph diGenova?

Bernie supporters should stop littering left wing sites with right wing opinion.

With enemies like these, who needs friends?

Senator Bernie Sanders often boasts that he has no “super PAC” supporting his candidacy and he has vigorously tried to keep any from forming. But he has been getting some unsolicited if mischievous help from Republican groups actively promoting the Vermont senator’s surging campaign.

America Rising, a Republican political action committee, reacted with glee on social media on Tuesday to a CNN/WMUR poll that showed Mr. Sanders with a large lead over Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire, sharing the news with “BREAKING” qualifiers and links to news stories.

Karl Rove’s American Crossroads recently created an ad parroting Senator Bernie Sanders’s critiques of Mrs. Clinton’s ties to Wall Street, made repeatedly last week in the days before Sunday’s debate.

And during the debate, Republican groups were blasting out rapid emails defending Mr. Sanders’s positions, including his universal health care plan, an issue many Republicans would embrace as warmly as they would higher taxes.

All of it, of course, is intended to get under Mrs. Clinton’s skin and promote the Democratic candidate they believe would be weaker in a general election. Republican groups and super PACs have spent nearly $5 million targeting Mrs. Clinton so far this cycle. They’ve yet to spend a dollar on advertising attacking Mr. Sanders.

The Clinton campaign released a statement saying this support only furthers their argument that Mrs. Clinton is the candidate the Republicans are most afraid of facing.

“The Sanders argument falls apart when the G.O.P. spokesman is trying to help him and the Republicans run ads trying to stop Hillary Clinton in the primary,” said Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for the Clinton campaign, in a statement. She asserted that Mr. Sanders was “taking his cues” from Mr. Rove, though the senator’s Wall Street attacks predated the Rove ad.

The effort on the right to attack Mrs. Clinton from the left has actually been underway for a while, with groups like American Crossroads and America Rising targeting digital content criticizing Mrs. Clinton’s positions on the Keystone oil pipeline, for example.

“The idea is to make her life difficult in the primary,” Colin Reed, America Rising’s executive director, said last year.

After a long election cycle of championing Bernie’s cause….. Rachel took to her show to combat the two newest strategies the Sanders campaign has turned to in order to try and remain relevant in the overall competitive discussion.

It is definitely worth a watch…

bluenationreview.com/…

Rachel takes particular exception to two new talking points:

1. That the Sanders campaign will try to have the Superdelegates overturn the will of the voters when he does not achieve the majority of pledged delegates.

And

2. That Hillary is only ahead because she ran up huge margins in states Bernie didn't bother to contest. Rachel seems particularly annoyed with that narrative and provides concrete evidence it’s a load of malarkey.

Tad Devine is taking the Sanders campaign down a dangerous path that could ultimately damage whatever credit Bernie has built up in this election cycle. Both of these strategies stink of politics. That’s not supposed to be Bernie’s “brand”.

Seriously, watch it! It’s really fascinating.

To cut it short and get straight to the point, it’s because they think they have a much greater chance at defeating him in the general election. Let’s be honest here; any “dirt” on Hillary Clinton has already been “exposed,” and the general public, for the most part, has made peace with that. Bernie Sanders is a completely different story. What secrets about Bernie are we yet to find out?

Republican strategists are sitting on a treasure trove of Bernie Sanders’ quotes and goodies from the ‘70s and ‘80s. You’re naïve if you think that there won’t be 24/7 Bernie Sanders’ trashing on Fox News, accompanied by scary socialist/communist documentaries. These programs have practically written themselves. We’re talking about a man who praised Fidel Castro and went short of saying that he was an exemplary leader and that the U.S. would be a lot better off if we were more like Cuba. Do you think it really matters to the general American public if this was taken out of context or if he was only referring to their social programs? Of course not, and Fox News isn’t going to present the full story.

Fox News is just waiting to inform the public of Sanders’ personal life, multiple marriages, and his child born out of wedlock. They can’t wait to spread all around town an old quote from the ‘70s where Sanders said that women fantasize about being raped by multiple men. Again, does it really matter that it was just a silly attention-getter from an essay? It does to me; it does to you as a Bernie Sanders’ supporter, but does it matter to the swing voters when all they see is an out of context quote?

You’re probably pointing to the polls that show Sanders faring better than Clinton against Trump, but you’re forgetting that Clinton’s favorability rating won’t likely suffer any more. Sanders’ rating most certainly will.

I implore you to ask yourself, why are the Republicans spending millions of dollars in anti-Hillary Clinton ads and in pro-Bernie Sanders ads? Is it because they are feeling the bern? Or is it because they’re waiting to unleash the worst of Bernie Sanders on the general public—quotes far worse than the ones I mentioned above?

Elections Podcast: Momentum And Misogyny
FIVETHIRTYEIGHT

Our elections podcast crew discusses whether “momentum” is real and whether Bernie Sanders has it coming off of his wins in Hawaii, Alaska and Washington. Plus, how much will Donald Trump’s record of sexism on and off the campaign trail hurt him with voters if he reaches the general election in November?

ANALYSIS: A Classic Case of Casual Anti-Hillary Media Spin

A mainstream media headline about the New York primary (“Clinton Moves Goalposts Again”) is unsupported by the facts of the article.

Last July, HillaryMen warned that insidious process stories in mainstream publications constituted a risk to Hillary’s public image:

Process stories – and the potent anti-Hillary frames they deliver – were one of the single most effective weapons against Hillary in 2008, painting a nefarious image that she was unable to alter or escape. Although Hillary is subjected to the most vitriolic language imaginable, the majority of negative coverage she endures comes in this form: a seemingly innocuous news article, editorial or blog post that manages, paragraph after paragraph, to deliver character-destroying frames.
The overarching point was that these articles are more harmful because they are less obviously negative:

To the casual reader, it may not be entirely obvious how damaging this type of reporting is for Hillary’s candidacy. But in aggregate, articles like this that appear regularly in major media outlets paint a portrait of a scheming, unprincipled politician. That portrait is often reflected back in polls and interviews – and ultimately at the ballot box.
Eight months later, with Hillary closing in on the Democratic nomination, we get this:

cnn spin

Here’s what the article says:

When Hillary Clinton lost the New Hampshire primary to Bernie Sanders in February, Robby Mook, her campaign manager, took the long view and declared the nomination would “very likely be won in March, not February.” The campaign is now taking an even longer view, with April now being the month they hope to put Sanders away.
How exactly does that support the headline Clinton Moves Goalposts Again? It doesn’t say she moved the goalposts twice. The subheader only shows one projection change. So the accurate title would be Clinton Moves Goalposts.

But why even frame this piece so negatively? “Moving the goalposts” is a term typically reserved for someone who is losing and making excuses for their loss. Hillary is clearly on track to win the nomination.

If anything, Bernie Sanders has gone from revolution and momentum to trying to flip superdelegates. If anyone has moved goalposts, it’s the Sanders campaign. But I can’t seem to find a headline about Bernie “moving the goalposts again.”

The reflexive media urge to paint everything as bad news for Hillary continues unabated. It is best illustrated by the pervasive myth of her so-called “enthusiasm gap,” a demonstrably false frame that has been repeated incessantly and now passes for truth.

The damage done to Hillary’s image by these types of stories is hard to measure. It is a testament to her tenacity and her supporters’ dedication that she continues to win.