Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders have filed a legal action suit against the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and its chair for fraud and negligence in selecting a presidential nominee.
A class action lawsuit was filed earlier this week in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida by the Miami law firm of Beck & Lee against the DNC and chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, local news outlets reported Friday, citing attorney Jared beck, noting that the legal case makes six claims on behalf of its 121 claimants, beginning with fraud.
It further alleges that Schultz lied to both the DNC as well as the Vermont senator's supporters over her “neutrality,” while actually favoring former First Lady Hillary Clinton.
Citing the DNC charter, the suit underlines how the party's chair is bound to exercise and maintain “impartiality and even-handedness” during the presidential nominating process.
Pointing to internal email and memos that have been leaked by someone claiming to have obtained them from Russian hackers that accessed DNC computer files, the plaintiffs also insist that in fact “the DNC was biased in favor of one candidate – Hillary Clinton – from the beginning and throughout the process.”
The legal complaint further quotes from a leaked 2015 memo that states the DNC’s “goals in the coming months will be to frame the Republican field and the eventual nominee early and to provide a contrast between the GOP field and [Hillary Clinton].”
“Despite there being every indication that the 2016 Democratic primary would be contested by multiple candidates, including Sanders, the DNC Memo makes no mention of any Democratic candidate except Clinton, and builds the DNC’s election strategy on the assumption that Clinton will be the nominee, with no doubts attached,” the plaintiffs argued, according to the court documents.
The DNC has already acknowledged being hacked by Russians, but has not confirmed the authenticity of any of the documents leaked out to the press following the breach.
Clinton managed to win the party’s nomination by grabbing 2,811 delegates, while Sanders only took 1,879 and could not reach the 2,383 needed.