In the face of all evidence to the contrary, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell claimed on Thursday that allegations that Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile leaked town hall questions to the Clinton campaign have been “completely knocked down.”
Mitchell was discussing references Donald Trump made on Thursday to leaked debate and town hall questions. Trump claimed on Twitter that questions from Wednesday’s debate, moderated by Fox News’ Christopher Wallace, were provided to the Clinton campaign.
On Thursday, he referred to the scandal involving Brazile and her apparent leaking of a CNN/TV One town hall question asked of Clinton in March.
“That was completely knocked down. She was a panelist,” Mitchell said in defense of Brazile, who was a contributor to CNN and ABC before taking over the DNC in July.
“From time to time I get the questions in advance,” Brazile wrote in the March 12 email to Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri.
The email was hacked from the Gmail account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and released by Wikileaks.
In her email to Palmieri, Brazile included a question about the death penalty which was asked verbatim the next day in the CNN/TV One town hall.
Brazile initially claimed that she was referring to questions she had received in advance of an appearance on a talk show panel. But the death penalty was not discussed in any of her appearances the next day. TV One’s Roland Martin asked the question of Clinton.
CNN and its anchor, Jake Tapper, who co-moderated the town hall with Martin, vehemently denied leaking the question to Brazile.
Martin has not given a straight answer on the issue. Brazile initially told The Daily Caller that the idea she leaked a question to the Clinton campaign was “a stretch.”
She claimed on Wednesday that her emails may have been doctored by the hackers who infiltrated Podesta’s email account. In a heated interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, Brazile refused to confirm or deny that she sent the email. Instead, she said that she was being “persecuted” by the line of questioning. (RELATED: Donna Brazile Claims She’s Being ‘Persecuted’)
She did say that CNN did not leak any questions to her. She did not say the same about TV One or Roland Martin.
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