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WikiLeaks: One DNC Official Instructs Another To Secretly Spread Ralston Article Slamming Bernie Sanders

By Dawn Papple
Published on: 18:39 PST, Jul 22, 2016

Luis Miranda, Communications Director at Democratic National Committee, instructed Walter Garcia, Western Regional Communications Director at the DNC, to spread an article written by Jon Ralston in May 2016, according to the WikiLeaks files released Friday. This is pertinent because DNC officials are required to remain unbiased to all candidates during the primary season.

Garcia, according to the WikiLeaks release, sent Miranda the article written by Ralston, the same writer that the New York Times and the Associated Press reportedly trusted enough to report that chairs were thrown at the Democratic Convention in Nevada. Of course, no chairs were actually thrown at that convention. The story was fabricated (perhaps unintentionally) by a journalist, then tweeted about by Ralston, and perpetuated by the mainstream media, according to reports.

The same day of the infamous Ralston tweets (that many suspect affected Sanders’ voters in the elections that week), Garcia emailed other DNC officials the disparaging article about Bernie Sanders and his so-called “small-picture people” who “want to talk about arcane rules being imposed, whether chairs were really thrown and if anyone should make a fuss out of chalk on walls and sidewalks.”

Garcia said the following section of Ralston’s op-ed was a particularly good read.

“These are small-picture people. Instead of accepting the plain facts that Clinton won the caucus and out-hustled Sanders at the state convention, they want to talk about arcane rules being imposed, whether chairs were really thrown and if anyone should make a fuss out of chalk on walls and sidewalks (even if the messages were hateful).

“These are people who think it’s fine to scream obscenities at a sitting U.S. senator, Barbara Boxer, believe it’s part of their First Amendment rights to call a state party chair corrupt and who insist they are cheated out of something that was never theirs. If this is the Sanders revolution, give me the Establishment.

“Sanders had a chance Tuesday to apologize to Lange, to concede his supporters were out of hand, to try to calm his troops stirred up by local troublemakers. That would have been leadership.”

In response to the email from Garcia, Miranda wrote back instructing Garcia to make sure the Ralston article got attention.

“Let’s get this around without attribution,” Miranda allegedly wrote.

The article accumulated more than 1,300 Facebook shares, but in the comments section of the article, Sanders still received a great deal of support. One reader even pointed out that Ralston was wrong to tweet about the thrown chairs, and called the writer out for allegedly glossing over his own responsibility in reporting the scandal that never was.

“You were the one that reported it. You were quoted in many articles around the country. Are you saying you made a mistake? I think you blew it. Please, don’t damage your precious reputation. It makes all the difference in the world. Chairs thrown made the story sound violent. It didn’t happen.”

Ralston was informed of the thrown chairs by another reporter, also considered a trustworthy source, according to news reports, and the leaked email gave no indication that Ralston was working with DNC officials. It still appears to have been an unintentional error on Ralston’s part.

The DNC WikiLeaks release includes over 19,000 emails between, to or from DNC officials and staff members.

The Washington Post reported that the leak is “providing an embarrassing inside look at Democratic Party operations on the eve of the Democrats’ national convention,” but other media outlets are saying the emails prove that the DNC broke the rules by helping Clinton’s campaign stay just ahead of Sanders’ campaign every step of the way.

Incidentally, Luis Miranda is the same DNC official who told CNN not to count Hillary Clinton’s superdelegates in the delegate math reporting until they vote in the National Convention, because until then, the superdelegates can flip their vote to Sanders.

[Photo by Lynne Sladky/AP Images File]

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