Democratic National Committee interim chairwoman and former CNN contributor Donna Brazile appears to have leaked more than one debate question to Hillary Clinton's campaign team during the primaries.
In an email dated March 5, 2016, Brazile sent a note to Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, and the Democratic nominee's director of communications, Jennifer Palmieri, titled "One of the questions directed to HRC tomorrow is from a woman with a rash."
The body of Brazile's email read, "Her family has lead poison and she will ask what, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the [people] of Flint."
"Folks, I did a service project today. It's so tragic. And what's worse, some homes have not been tested and it's important to encourage seniors to also get tested," she wrote.
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On March 6, during a Democratic primary debate in Flint, Mich., Clinton fielded a question from Lee-Anne Walters, one of the city's first residents to report having issues with water contamination.
"After my family, the city of Flint and the children in D.C. were poisoned by lead, will you make a personal promise to me right now that, as president, in your first 100 days in office, you will make it a requirement that all public water systems must remove all lead service lines throughout the entire United States, and notification made to the — the citizens that have said service lines," Walters asked Clinton.
The former secretary of state responded, "Well, I agree completely. I want to go further though. I want us to have an absolute commitment to getting rid of lead wherever it is because it's not only in water systems, it's also in soil, and it's in lead paint that is found mostly in older homes. That's why 500,000 children today have lead – lead in their bodies."
Brazile seemingly leaked more than one debate question to the former secretary of state's campaign team.
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On March 12, Brazile reached out a second time to Palmieri to give advance notice of a certain question that would be asked the next day at a town hall hosted by CNN.
"From time to time I get the questions in advance," Brazile, then a CNN as a political analyst, wrote. "Here's one that worries me about [Hillary Rodham Clinton]."
Brazile included in her email the following question:
DEATH PENALTY
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, "Yes, it is one she gets asked about. Not everyone likes her answer but can share it."
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Clinton, who was at the time running a tough campaign against the surprisingly successful Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was asked about the death penalty during a March 13 town hall in Columbus, Ohio.
At the time of both email exchanges with the Clinton team, Brazile served as DNC's vice chair under Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who stepped down later after emails surfaced suggesting various Democratic officials has conspired to ensure the former secretary of state won the primary. The emails, which allegedly come from Podesta's personal account, were published online by the hacking group WikiLeaks.
Brazile has denied outright that she fed questions to the Clinton campaign ahead of debates.
"As it pertains to the CNN Debates, I never had access to questions and would never have shared them with the candidates if I did," she said in a statement earlier this month, addressing the leaked death penalty question correspondence. "As a longtime political activist with deep ties to our party, I supported all of our candidates for president. I often shared my thoughts with each and every campaign, and any suggestions that indicate otherwise are simply untrue."
Brazile did not respond to the Washington Examiner's request for comment.
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This article has been updated.
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