After Wikileaks revealed that CNN commentator and leading Democrat Donna Brazile on at least on two occasions transferred debate questions to Hilary Clinton’s team before the debates with Bernie Sanders took place, there were calls for an independent investigation of the matter.
Brazile, who has been temporarily suspended by CNN this week, is serving as interim chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the headquarters of the Democratic party.
Two weeks ago Wikileaks released mails by Brazile in which she leaked to Clinton’s press advisor a question regarding capital punishment policy in the US that was going to be asked at the televised debate which took place in Columbus,Ohio in March. At that point, Sanders was challenging Clinton in primaries for the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party.
In this case Brazile had received the question from a commentator on the African American channel, TV One, and not from CNN. However this week another mail was published in which Brazile provided to the Clinton camp one of the questions to be asked in another debate with Sanders which also took place in March.
This time the question was from a woman in Flint, Michigan – the city where the debate took place – whose family had suffered health problems due to lead seeping into the municipal water system. The two adjudicators at that debate were members of CNN.
Additional mails were leaked in which Brazile promised to transfer other questions from the Ohio debate to Clinton aides.
After the second leak was revealed, CNN fired Brazile from her position as a commentator. However critics are now demanding that CNN appoint an independent investigator to clarify the matter. John Concha, a reporter for The Hill, demanded that an external company conduct an investigation in order to locate the “cancer” which has affected the media network.
CNN head Jeff Zooker blasted Brazile’s interaction with Clinton campaign as “disgusting” and “unethical”, while the former head of CNN, John Klein said in an interview with Fox News that “nothing is taken more seriously at CNN…than issues around the integrity of the place.” and maintained that CNN had already investigated the incident effectively.
