How the DNC Rigs the Primaries

A First-Hand Account

By Niko House, Columnist, The Kennedy Beacon

There’s always a learning curve, and my experience during the 2016 Democratic Primary educated me on the down-and-dirty politics behind an election.

People seem to be under the impression that high-level political corruption is only something you see in a movie or show like House of Cards. Perhaps the idea that the most powerful people in the country would cheat us out of our sacred practice of democracy strikes fear in the hearts of those of us who’ve trusted in this system for so long. But I can tell you from first-hand experience that not only does the DNC rig its primaries against independent-minded outsider candidates like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, Andrew Yang & others, but that process is much more intricate and complex than one might imagine. How the DNC dominates and corrupts campaigns from state-level to student & volunteer organizations through a network of insiders is something I learned the hard way.

During my senior year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I held the titles of President & Founder of Carolina Students for Bernie Sanders, President of North Carolina Colleges for Bernie, and I was a senior advisor to the Kenneth Spaulding campaign for North Carolina’s Governor. I was also named the acting state director for North Carolina until the Sanders campaign could afford to pay a state director full-time. It was a heavy workload and sometimes overwhelming, but it gave me a unique perspective. From this vantage point I witnessed how the DNC rigged the Democratic Primary election, not only against Bernie Sanders, but also against other “outsider” candidates all over the country.

Like many at that time, I suspected the DNC was not playing fair. But it wasn’t until the arrival of my replacement as state director, Aisha Dew, that the picture became clear. Under Dew’s leadership, “miscommunication” between students, community organizers, and the campaign became all too frequent. Events were suddenly being canceled left and right due to lack of preparation on Dew’s part. And despite instructions from the campaign to include me in meetings, which was a necessary component to maintain the massive organizational cooperation established by my team, I was intentionally left out. I was still running two of the organizations the Bernie campaign needed to win North Carolina, and Dew’s decision undermined the foundations of consistency and trust that I and others had worked hard to build. 

Understanding that in political organizing sometimes events get canceled and miscommunication is not uncommon, I tried not to read too much into all of the problems we had experienced in the roughly two weeks since Dew took over as state director. But four major red flags completely changed my view of her performance. And I went from assuming it was run-of-the-mill campaign incompetence to seeing it as something nefarious and deliberate. 

After working with Kenneth Spaulding’s gubernatorial campaign for several months, Spaulding and the head of his campaign opened up to me and explained why they had kept their campaign team so small, despite having ample people willing to volunteer. It was because from the beginning their campaign was derailed by moles reporting back to the campaign of the current governor of NC, Roy Cooper, and the NC DNC. 

Once I understood the lengths to which the DNC would go to protect its interests in a gubernatorial race, I knew it wasn’t out of the question for them to go to greater lengths for their preferred candidate in the presidential primary, especially in states of great importance like North Carolina. 

The next red flag appeared after UNC for Bernie was invited to a popular event called HKonJ, or “Moral Mondays,” held by renowned activist Reverend William Barber. This was a tremendous opportunity for us to expose the campaign to activists and local media, and perhaps even bring more national attention to the already popular grassroots movement we’d been building for Bernie Sanders in North Carolina. 

But a few days before the event, Dew informed us that Dr. Barber wanted no campaign attire or gear at the event. Although it had been represented to us as a chance to bring awareness to everyone’s respective campaigns, we respected his wishes to keep “Moral Mondays” an event that transcended politics. Then, two days before the event, Dew informed us that Dr. Barber did not want the Bernie campaign there at all and that it was strictly an activism event free of political promotion.  

Obviously, many of us found the last minute cancellation of our invitation strange and regrettable, after having dedicated time and resources to prepare for our participation, and arrange transportation for students from all over the state. It was only after the event that we learned Hillary Clinton’s campaign was in attendance, fully decked in HRC campaign gear. It was a demoralizing blow for our team, leaving many confused and hurt. After all, Reverend Barber was an open Bernie Sanders supporter, so it made zero sense that he would ban Bernie’s team from attending his event while allowing Clinton’s team to freely promote her campaign.

A couple weeks later, Dew canceled another event we'd spent weeks working on, and she did that without consulting state leadership. And this time she claimed it was because the official Bernie campaign did not want us stepping on their toes. But we weren’t spending their money, using their speakers, or taking any labor off the ground around the state to host the event. Another red flag. 

But Dew was hired by the campaign as the state director. So, she had the final word and the event was canceled, which turned out to be another huge blow to Bernie in North Carolina, just weeks before the state’s Democratic primary election. 

In March of 2016, the moment many of us had been waiting for had finally arrived––Sanders was coming to NC to make his big pitch to the state. The only problem: Dew was aware of Bernie’s plans at least a week in advance, but withheld that information from me until two nights before. In fact, when she did choose to tell me, it was during a phone call to confirm that I was going to be out of town for Spring Break. I had made it abundantly clear weeks before that I would postpone my trip as needed for any major events. Nothing meant more to me than Bernie coming to North Carolina! So, of course, this once again raised my suspicions. 

When I called the VP of North Carolina Colleges for Bernie, who had been working closely with Dew, trying to figure out why I had been informed so late about an event so important, she couldn’t give me a straight answer. So, I told her that I would call Altriese to get answers. Alteriese was a prominent organizer for Bernie’s official campaign and she and I had privately spoken about our frustrations and concerns regarding Dew’s loyalty. We kept our communications airlocked, knowing we could use this to our advantage if there indeed was a mole in the campaign. As it turned out, doing that yielded results. Because when I told the VP that I was going to talk to Altreise, she immediately interrupted me to say that Altriese was “fired” and that it was illegal for me to communicate with her about the campaign in the future. When I asked her who gave her that information, she said, “Aisha told me today.” So of course I called Altriese to confirm what I already knew — that she had not been fired. And I was right. 

When the mole is the state director…

It was during this sequence of events that I decided to put out a video online, asking anyone who had information regarding similar occurrences within their local Bernie organizations/events to please reach out to me. This video led to me learning that Dew had blocked the local NAACP, NC Black Caucus leadership, and other community leaders from speaking to Bernie’s camp about pressing issues while Bernie was in North Carolina for his final event. We even received a photo of Dew at a Clinton event with then DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, taken just a couple of weeks before she came onboard as state director for Bernie’s North Carolina campaign.

I also learned that the Michigan State director of Bernie’s campaign at the time had received money from one of Clinton’s super PACs almost immediately before joining Sanders' campaign. And his job performance, like Dew’s, undermined volunteer efforts in that state, too — efforts that were the hallmark of the Sanders campaign, particularly among the youth.   

Ultimately, that videotaped appeal connected me with Jared and Elizabeth Lee Beck, who were putting together an investigative team to gather evidence to start the DNC Fraud Lawsuit. That lawsuit eventually made it to the Supreme Court in 2020, but was dismissed right after Biden’s primary victory, once it reached the one Republican SCOTUS member who possibly owed his career to Joe Biden - Justice Clarence Thomas.

It was during a dismissal hearing for this case that the DNC’s own attorney, Bruce Spiva, said on the record that the DNC could choose their candidate amongst themselves in a smoke-filled room and it would be perfectly legal under federal law and under the DNC’s own charter. No member of the DNC rebuked his statement.

Even the former treasurer for the North Carolina Democratic Party reached out to point me in the right direction to help me figure out how Hillary Clinton and the DNC could keep so many people paid while instructing them to undermine progressive candidates all over the country. The investigative effort we discovered, and publicized, was the Hillary Clinton Victory Fund scandal, a story that was eventually picked up by mainstream media. 

The Hillary Clinton Victory Fund was her most prominent super PAC, and it sent hundreds of thousands of dollars into state Democratic Parties across the country (especially the ones that were low on funding). 

In brief, the process used by the super PAC worked as follows: Clinton’s campaign and vast network raised money for the super PAC. Then the PAC would divert those funds to state parties with the understanding that those parties would do whatever was needed to ensure a victory for Clinton and any of her allies running for office in the respective states. 

Honestly, this information may be difficult for many to accept. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The reason you do not hear too many intimate details about the depths of DNC corruption is simple. As a former Clinton Foundation and CAA talent agency executive, Darnell Storm, said in an email after finding out Tulsi Gabbard would not support Hillary Clinton in 2016, the “hammer” will be dropped on anyone who exposes the DNC for what they are: A criminal “gang” posing as a political party to advance the interests of themselves and the elites they serve.

Every Democrat in the country lost out on a fair primary because of how the Clinton campaign and those running the DNC conducted themselves. But I believe no constituency of voters was more disenfranchised and disenchanted by how party politics functioned than the youth.  

Niko House was President and Founder of Carolina Students for Bernie Sanders.