Why Bernie Sanders Will Fight On To Convention Despite Hillary Clinton’s Coronation

Hillary Clinton’s media coronation as the “presumptive nominee” right before the California’s primary election on Tuesday did not come as a surprise to Bernie Sanders and his legions of supporters. The mainstream press has renewed the push for the Senator to suspend his campaign, admit defeat, and lend his support for the former Secretary of State.

However despite calls for “party unity,” Sanders said he will fight on to the Democratic National Convention in late July no matter the primary outcome.

According to the New York Times, Sanders defiantly vowed to continue his campaign well past today’s final primary contests and into this summer’s convention. A California win could sway many of the superdelegates and give cause for them to switch allegiances.

“It is extremely unlikely that Secretary Clinton will have the requisite number of pledged delegates to claim victory on Tuesday night,” Sanders said before the Associated Press announcement of Clinton “clinching” the nomination. “Now, I have heard reports that Secretary Clinton has said it’s all going to be over on Tuesday night. I have reports that the media, after the New Jersey results come in, are going to declare that it is all over. That simply is not accurate.”

History in hand, Clinton faces voters as presumptive nominee, by @jpaceDC and @KThomasDC:https://t.co/EYRF7ce9jp

— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) June 7, 2016

The former Secretary of State did not have the prerequisite number of pledge delegate to actually sure up the election when AP made the call early Monday night. But 34 minutes since announcing Hillary “clinched” the nomination, the Associated Press walked back the announcement and changed her status to “presumptive” instead, according to the Bern Report.

For Clinton to win the primary election outright, she would need to greatly expand her pledged delegate count from 1,812 to 2,383 with only 714 delegates remaining in the contest. She will need to win nearly 80 percent of the remaining pledged delegates to reach that “magic number.”

So why the early call?

The AP reported that Hillary picked up additional superdelegates, who don’t actually vote for over another month from when the last primary vote is cast. Also, crowning Clinton early gives the added effect of suppressing California’s vote, thereby stifling Sanders’ building momentum, which he needs heading into the convention.

If Bernie wins most of the upcoming state’s primaries but fails to convert superdelegates, there is still one very likely reason why Sanders absolutely must stay in the race through the convention.

According to the Huffington Post’s H.A. Goodman, Bernie will be the only Democratic candidate left standing if the FBI recommends indictments of Hillary Clinton to the Department of Justice.

“It’s a crime under the Espionage Act to willingly, or inadvertently, transfer 22 Top Secret emails from secure State Department servers, to an unguarded private server,” Goodman writes, who is an ardent Sanders supporter. “This is essentially what Hillary Clinton paid Bryan Pagliano to do (when linking her private computer server to secure State servers) and is likely the reason he was granted immunity.”

In a Fox News report, a former member of President George W. Bush’s White House staff, Bradley Blakeman, said that the FBI “deliberately waited to interview Hillary Clinton until after the primary because they did not want to interfere” with the Democratic primary elections.

“If a grand jury is empaneled, or if she were to be indicted before the convention, the Democrats would have to let her go,” Blakeman said in a Fox News interview.

He warns that if Hillary were to be indicted after the convention and the states have certified their ballots, the DNC will not be able to replace her in time for November.

Therefore, it is imperative that Bernie Sanders maintain his campaign course, discard all calls to suspend operations, and take himself into the DNC convention for the good of the party and prevent a Donald Trump presidency.