DNC chair Donna Brazile
© ABC NewsDNC Chair Donna Brazile
Yesterday, Donna Brazile, the new DNC Chair, appeared on ABC's "This Week" and declared that pay for play like "someone who is a donor...saying I want access" is just an attempt to "criminalize behavior that is normal." Specifically, when asked about pay for play allegations against the Clinton Foundation, Brazile responded as follows:
"First of all, Martha, the way I look at it, I've been a government official. So, you know, this notion that, somehow or another, someone who is a supporter, someone who is a donor, somebody who's an activist, saying I want access, I want to come into a room and I want to meet people, we often criminalize behavior that is normal. And I don't see what the smoke is."
Brazile also took the opportunity to ramp up the rhetoric against Julian Assange saying that the DNC was a "victim of a cyber crime led by thugs" seeking to "destabilize our democracy."
"There was Russian involvement in this to destabilize not just our institution, the Democratic Party, but our democracy itself."
When asked whether she was concerned about recent TV interviews where Julian Assange had promised additional Hillary disclosures, Brazile said:
"The smoking gun is that we're interviewing somebody who's involved in a cyber crime and not calling him a criminal."
Just to clarify Brazile's position, trading "access" to the Secretary of State in return for donations from questionable international characters and misappropriating DNC funds is in no way criminal but revealing such information to the public is. So as long as we're kept in the dark there is no crime. Got it. Thanks.