High-ranking Democratic National Committee staff debated whether to bar a Bernie Sanders supporter from attending a fundraiser because she had written tweets “throwing shade” on party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Tennessee activist Amanda Kruel had sent “multiple tweets throwing shade on DWS,” Alan Reed, compliance director for the DNC, noted in a May 19, 2016 email released through the massive WikiLeaks disclosure. Reed added that Kruel was a “staunch Bernie supporter and campaign staffer” who had been elected a delegate in Tennessee’s party meetings.
In tweets last year, Kruel often took aim at Wasserman Schultz. For example, last August, Wasserman Schultz tweeted, “Democrats are fighting for progress for all Americans.” Kruel responded: “@TheDemocrats were fighting for progress for all Americans. Now @DWStweets is fighting for progress for Hillary & crew.”
Kruel donated $50 to the party to attend a June 2 event in Knoxville featuring Wasserman Schultz. “Finance asked us to vet this DWS attendee for her trip to TN,” Reed wrote in the May 19 email sent to “all.” “I lean no. Below is a sampling of her social media posts. She also donated $50.00 to the event which I can refund if she is denied.”
Below that, Reed included: “Amanda Kruel — (1) multiple tweets throwing shade on DWS; (2) staunch Bernie supporter and campaign staffer; was elected delegate for TN-2 at the DNCC.”
“My first reaction is no,” responded DNC chief financial officer Brad Marshall, “but on further thought, Kruel could turn this back on us and say she was denied attendance by the big bad establishment.”
DNC communications director Luis Miranda sided with Marshall. “If most others vet it’s hard to see how telling her she can’t come and refunding her $50 doesn’t turn into a story,” Miranda wrote. “It may not be worth the trouble to deny her, and it might be what she’s looking for, any excuse to rail against us.”
“Agree with Luis,” added Wasserman Schultz’s chief of staff, Tracie Pough, the next day, May 20. “We need to make sure we don’t have an incident with signs, posters, shouting matches. Not a good look, either.”
But there were additional concerns. After the discussion, on May 21, yet another DNC official, finance chief of staff Scott Comer, sent a note saying of Kruel, “She bought another ticket late last night. We could collect phones at the door. That way they wouldn’t film and post any stunts they try to pull.”
A couple of hours later, Pough sent a terse message to Comer: “Call me please.”
In the end, the DNC allowed Kruel to attend. Sanders supporters protested outside, and Kruel joined them until the event began, at which time she went inside. Despite the fears of party officials, Kruel didn’t make a scene.
Fast forward to today, and Kruel has been surprised to see herself discussed at such length in the DNC’s internal correspondence. In an email conversation, Kruel told me she had attended another party event last fall at which Wasserman Schultz appeared, and there was no problem.
“I don’t know why they decided to vet me,” Kruel told me. “My support for the Bernie campaign was not just publicly available information, but common knowledge to anyone in the area.”
“Though my tweets to DWS over the fall were a bit vitriolic, they died down as I got busier working on the campaign.”
When Kruel learned that Wasserman Schultz was coming to Knoxville June 2, she wanted to attend — “not in going to to protest, but, really, going as an act of principle.” She noted that while Sanders was running as a Democrat, “the entire DNC appeared to back Clinton,” and she “wanted to show that there were people active in the party who supported Bernie but were also willing to be civil and friendly with people in the party who supported HRC.”
Kruel conceded that she not only took part in but helped organize the protest outside, but told me that when she entered the event itself, “I was perfectly friendly and polite — and I didn’t really meet any animosity.”
Kruel even got a chance to talk to Wasserman Schultz. The conversation was mostly small talk, but Kruel noticed that Wasserman Schultz seemed worried about a Bernie-ite challenger in her Florida congressional district. “I kinda felt sorry for her,” Kruel told me. “I thought I was seeing a more human side of her — she had always been this figurehead in the minds of Bernie supporters, and here she was, expressing insecurity and fear. Before I met her she’d always been this looming figure — this tyrant who would do anything to get her way and keep her power, but I was really surprised to see she was short — about my height, 5′ 0″.”
Kruel told me she left the event with a good feeling and was happy to have a picture with the chairwoman:
Now, seeing the photo in light of the WikiLeaks disclosure, Kruel feels differently. “Looking at that picture with what I know now, I get the feeling that they told [Wasserman Schultz] she had to be nice to me, and I think her face clearly shows that she did not find that easy. In the back, the guy with the man-bun is Ray, the security guy. I joked after the event that he seemed to have been ‘assigned’ to me, as he was never far from me. That joke may have been a fact.”
Kruel said she spent a lot of time working on her tweets last year and was “repeatedly crestfallen” when they failed to attract much attention. Now, she’s amused (among other feelings) to learn that one place where they were noticed was Democratic National Committee headquarters.
But she is also disappointed. “In the coming week I’m supposed to work and cooperate with these people, and now I find out that they have had discussions specifically about strategies to exclude me,” Kruel told me. “So I’m suspicious, and I believe the possibility of a peaceful convention has since gone down substantially due to this.”
Finally, there is disillusionment. “I think this leak was the nail in the coffin of the Democratic Party as it currently stands,” Kruel wrote. “They’ve been losing credibility, and learning that they tried to hide their nefarious tactics really makes me want to give up. Six months ago, I would have been happy to join and work with the party, but I really feel betrayed now.”
Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs declined to comment on Kruel’s case, but pointed to Sanders’ appearance on news programs Sunday morning. On ABC, Sanders said of Wasserman Schultz, “I think she should resign, period. And I think we need a new chair who is going to lead us in a very different direction.”
Few Bernie Sanders supporters managed to attract the personal attention of DNC officials the way Amanda Kruel did. But how many Sanders voters feel the way Kruel does about the DNC and its chairwoman? That’s something Democrats will learn in Philadelphia this week.
