Donna Brazile Apparently Tipped The Clinton Campaign Off To A Town Hall Question

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Donna Brazile, a former CNN contributor and Bill Clinton campaign adviser, apparently emailed a Hillary Clinton campaign staffer a question that was expected to be asked at the CNN Democratic presidential town hall debate in March.

In an email titled, "From time to time I get the questions in advance," Brazile appeared to tip off Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri to a question about the candidate's stance on the death penalty.

"Here's one that worries me about HRC," read the email sent by Brazile, who is currently serving as the acting chair of the Democratic National Committee.

19 states and the District of Columbia have banned the death penalty. 31 states, including Ohio, still have the death penalty. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, since 1973, 156 people have been on death row and later set free. Since 1976, 1,414 people have been executed in the U.S. That’s 11% of Americans who were sentenced to die, but later exonerated and freed. Should Ohio and the 30 other states join the current list and abolish the death penalty?

Palmieri responded by saying the question is "one she gets asked about. Not everyone likes her answer but can share it." (Palmieri didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Palmieri also instructed Bestaida Alcantara, Clinton's director of media planning, to send the candidate's answer on the death penalty.

A CNN spokesperson said the network never gave questions out in advance.

"To be perfectly clear we have never, ever given a town hall question to anyone beforehand," the spokesperson said in an email to BuzzFeed News.

According to the official Democratic Presidential Town Hall at Ohio University on March 13 transcript, the question asked was:

"I came perilously close to my own execution, and in light of that, what I have just shared with you and in light of the fact that there are documented cases of innocent people who have been executed in our country, I would like to know how can you still take your stance on the death penalty in light of what we know right now."

Over the past several days Wikileaks has release emails from the account of John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman. The US government, in a statement last week, blamed Russia for a series of hacks on Democratic Party officials, stating, “the recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.”

CNN suspended Brazile's contributor agreement in July when she took over for Debbie Wasserman Schultz as acting head of the Democratic National Committee.

Brazile told BuzzFeed News she is preparing a broader statement regarding the Wikileaks emails release.

When asked if she sent the Clinton campaign the death penalty question in advance, Brazile told BuzzFeed News, “I don’t read Wikileaks. I refuse to play the Wikileaks game.” She denied the email, saying, "I did not tip off anyone."

On Monday, the New York Times reported that Brazile forwarded the Clinton campaign a January 2016 email obtained from the Bernie Sanders campaign.

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