A 700-megabyte document leak from the Democratic National Committee must have party officials kicking themselves over their failure to invest in proper network security.
Already, hackers have forced the premature resignation of their party chairwoman. The leaks from earlier this year have also created deep resentments among supporters of Bernie Sanders, who believe, with good reason, that the DNC stacked the primary process to help Hillary Clinton and defeat challengers.
The new leak, from a hacker known as Guccifer 2.0, shows a bit about the stomach-turning sausage-making process in which Democratic donors have been rewarded with high-ranking government appointments.
Among the new trove of leaked documents is a spreadsheet of the biggest Democratic fundraisers and the amounts they gave or raised. Look to the top, and you will see who scrounged up enough money to qualify for a federal office.
At the very top of the list is Matthew Barzun, whose $3.5 million got him the ambassadorship to the United Kingdom, sometimes known as the Court of St. James; Julius Genachowski, who raised $3.49 million and became chairman of the Federal Communications Commission; and Frank Sanchez, whose $3.41 million was only good enough for undersecretary of commerce. Poor chap!
Of the top 57 fundraisers on the DNC list, 18 secured ambassadorships in Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
To be sure, presidents have long used certain unimportant appointments to reward political donors and allies. Usually it doesn’t create much fuss; after all, it’s hard to go horribly wrong appointing an ambassador to Luxembourg or New Zealand.
But President Obama’s administration has, characteristically, been worse in this regard than anyone before. It is a measure of his parochial lack of genuine interest in fostering American influence overseas. He has appointed a greater share of unqualified donors than any of his immediate predecessors, and he has appointed them to much more important positions where their lack of qualifications might actually matter.
When Hungary’s democracy seemed under threat due to the ruling party’s meddling with that nation’s constitution, Obama appointed Colleen Bell, a soap opera producer, as an ambassador. At her confirmation hearing, her lack of knowledge about the country where she was to represent the U.S. shone through: She was unable to name a single strategic American interest in Hungary. Her only qualification was that she’d raised half a million dollars to help finance Obama’s re-election.
When Argentina was in the midst of a political and economic crisis, and its government had been creating legal problems for American companies, Obama appointed Noah Mamet as ambassador there. Mamet had never even visited Argentina, and apparently no one bothered to ask him during his vetting whether he spoke Spanish. But he’d raised half a million dollars for Obama’s re-election campaign, and that’s what really counts.
More recently, a series of emails released under the Freedom of Information Act helped reveal Hillary Clinton’s direct involvement in the selling of at least one office that was intended for a real expert. The emails show her staff panicking when the press started asking questions about Rajiv Fernando, a generous donor to the Clinton Foundation and to Clinton’s 2008 presidential race.
Fernando was appointed, apparently at Clinton’s personal recommendation, to the International Security Advisory Board, an obscure panel of top experts that handles top secret national security and nuclear strategy. He had no qualifications for the position, none, and the exposure of his purchase of the position was enough to shame him into resigning.
Part of the reason voters, young voters especially, are flirting with third parties this year is that major-party politics seems so cynical and corrupt. It really brings that fact home when you see so many top appointees’ names at the top of a fundraising list.
As much as Donald Trump has dominated the headlines this year, this is an area where the Democratic Party has really outdone itself in 2016 with its choice of nominee.
