© AP Photo/Evan VucciRep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, said although she wasn't privy to details about the particular case, she "was not surprised" by former Democratic National Committee head Donna Brazile's remarks that the Clinton campaign exercised considerable power over the DNC during the 2016 election.
However, Gabbard, who resigned from the DNC in February 2016 in order to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said she was shocked that the story went public.
"I was not surprised to read about what she wrote. I was surprised to see that it had been written about," Gabbard said in an interview with the Young Turks on Thursday.
"I wasn't privy to many of the detailed things that she talked about while I was serving there as vice chair," she added. "It was something that, you know, had been spoken about in kind of vague terms that, 'Hey this is a potential course of action that may be taken.' But to have it laid out in such stark, blunt terms - again, I was not surprised that that happened, but I was a little bit surprised that it was put out there as it was today."
She was reacting to an excerpt from Brazile's upcoming book published by Politico on Thursday.
Brazile cited "proof" on an agreement she discovered between two Clinton campaign funds and the DNC, in which money would be exchanged for control over DNC finances and strategy. She also said the move was "unethical."
The DNC was embroiled in controversy last summer when then-Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida exited her role after emails published by WikiLeaks showed she and party officials conspiring to tip the Democratic primary in Clinton's favor.
Brazile, who had been a vice chair like Gabbard, was then tapped to become interim chair up until February when Tom Perez, former President Barack Obama's labor secretary, was elected.
Perez brushed off Brazile's bombshell on Thursday in relation to the organization now under his reign. "Hey, we're moving forward," he said when asked about Brazile's charge. "We're building, you know, I've been asked that question a number of times since I started."
Gabbard told the Young Turks that, during her time at the DNC, she heard from party executives who refused to sign on to the joint fundraising effort that Brazile has spoken of and said that there was an air of secrecy that kept her and other DNC vice chairs out of the conversation.
"There was not openness, there was not communications, there was not discussion about a lot of these major issues that she raised with the five vice chairs," she said.
Gabbard wasn't the only liberal-leaning Democrat to rebuff the DNC in light of Thursday's big reveal.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is often compared to Sanders in progressive circles and is seen as a potential 2020 contender, said Thursday that, "yes," she believes the DNC was rigged to favor Clinton.
Both Sanders and Warren ended up campaigning for Clinton during the general election. Gabbard reluctantly admitted she would vote for Clinton "given the remaining choices."
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