The people and groups laying the groundwork for a 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential candidacy have taken great pains to present a united front over the last year, but that facade was torn up with news Monday that one group’s leader was resigning from another’s board while making allegations of negative leaks to the press.
David Brock, founder of the pro-Clinton groups American Bridge, Correct the Record and Media Matters, resigned Monday from the board of Priorities USA, the super PAC that backed President Obama in 2012 and had reoriented itself to support Clinton in 2016, Politico reported.
In his resignation letter, Brock accused Priorities USA officials of “an orchestrated political hit job,” according to Politico. It was an apparent reference to a New York Times story last week that detailed how one of Brock’s leading fundraisers, Mary Pat Bonner, operates.
“Current and former Priorities officials were behind this specious and malicious attack on the integrity of these critical organizations,” Brock wrote in the letter to Priorities USA co-chairs Jennifer Granholm, a former Michigan governor, and Jim Messina, Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, per Politico.
“Frankly, this is the kind of dirty trick I’ve witnessed in the right-wing and would not tolerate then,” he wrote. “Our Democratic Presidential nominee deserves better than people who would risk the next election – and our country’s future – for their own personal agendas.”
The Brock groups, paired with Priorities USA and the grassroots organizing group Ready for Hillary, had made up the proto-Clinton 2016 campaign that had been preparing for her eventual bid. Officials from all three groups appeared at Ready for Hillary’s financial meeting in New York City in November, and they strived to appear unified publicly.
But there were always questions about the alliances. The 2008 primary between Clinton and Obama was notoriously fierce — not to mention the infighting within Clinton’s camp alone — and the current infrastructure brings together all of those personalities.
Messina is heading Priorities USA with Granholm, a longtime Clinton backer. Brock has been an ally of the Clintons since his conversion from conservatism, while Ready for Hillary is getting substantial help from the outside firm founded by Obama veterans Mitch Stewart and Jeremy Bird.
For the most part, the operation appeared to run well as Clinton waited to formally announce her widely presumed candidacy. Ready for Hillary gathered signatures, Correct the Record pumped out talking points and Priorities USA had started meeting with donors after the 2014 midterms.
Brock’s resignation and letter is the first public fissure and it is a significant one. He alleged a “serious breach of trust between organizations that are supposed to work together toward common ends has created an untenable situation that leaves me no choice but to resign my position.”
A Priorities USA spokesperson denied Brock’s allegations to Politico. Brock and a spokesperson did not immediately respond to TPM’s request for comment.
