Donald Trump provided the crowd with a rundown of WikiLeaks’ recent document dumps at a Wednesday rally in Florida, claiming they offered hard evidence that Hillary Clinton was as “crooked” as he has argued.
Within moments of taking the stage in Ocala, Trump asked the crowd if they had seen WikiLeaks’ latest leaked documents. Referring to an email exchange between the campaign and Donna Brazile, then a CNN contributor and Democratic National Committee vice chair, the day before a Democratic primary town hall, Trump claimed that the DNC fed Clinton a question as part of its effort to ensure her victory against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
“The DNC vice chair was feeding information, so much information to the candidate,” Trump said. “Oh man, why can’t the Republicans do that? Why can’t Reince feed me information prior to a debate? I am so angry at the Republicans. I want to be fed information like Hillary gets.”
“The Republicans are not doing their job,” Trump added, apparently joking. “They should be able to get me all of the questions prior to the debate.”
The leaked emails show Brazile sending a question regarding to the death penalty to Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri the day before a March town hall, saying “here’s one that worries me about HRC.” A similar question was asked during the town hall the following day, but Brazile has denied feeding questions to the candidate.
“I never had access to questions and would never have shared them with the candidates if I did,” Brazile told Politico in a statement, noting that she “often shared my thoughts with each and every campaign.”
While party committees do not determine questions for primary debates, either, Trump’s comments seemed to conflate the primary and presidential debates. The three presidential debates are organized by the non-profit, independent Commission for Presidential Debates and moderators are tasked with coming up with questions that they alone see before the debate.
Yet Trump suggested in Ocala that Clinton was currently being “fed information” by the DNC, and went on the attack against the debate commission.
“I have no respect for that group by the way, I’m done,” Trump said, noting that co-chair Mike McCurry used to work for Bill Clinton.
Though the Republican nominee said this was further proof that the system was “rigged” in Clinton’s favor, the other co-chair, Frank Fahrenkopf, used to work for Ronald Reagan.
