Sanders feels burn over big-bucks Clooney fundraisers in SF, LA

Hillary Clinton continues to suffer political fallout from her big-bucks fundraisers this weekend in San Francisco and Los Angeles, which sparked pot-banging protests in SF’s Nob Hill neighborhood.

Attorneys for Bernie Sanders wrote to the Democratic National Committee Monday to complain about its joint-fundraising efforts with the Clinton campaign. Sanders maintains that contributions raked in from rich contributors appear to be financing fund-raising appeals to the small-dollar donors who are the lifeblood of the Vermont senator’s campaign.

“Bernie 2016 strongly believes that these serious apparent violations should cease immediately,” wrote Brad Deutsch, an attorney for the Sanders campaign.

Sanders charges that the Clinton campaign paid for $7.8 million in direct-mail solicitations and $8.6 million in online ads, using money raised through the Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee with the DNC and 32 state committees. That helped bring in nearly $12 million worth of donations of less than $200 over the course of three months.

The Clinton campaign said it has done nothing wrong — adding that the Sanders campaign also has a joint fundraising committee with the DNC that the campaign elected not to use. President Obama did the same thing in both of his presidential bids.

The former Secretary of State’s campaign portrayed the Sanders complaint as another in a series of destructive attacks by a candidate who sees his prospects of emerging as the party’s presidential nominee dim.

“The race seems to be turning against (Sanders), and he has decided on a new strategy of false attacks like this on Secretary Clinton’s character that we think have dangerous implications for the race ahead,” said Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook.

Polls show the former U.S. Senator from New York winning tomorrow’s primary in her adopted home state — an important primary that Sanders, a Brooklyn native, hoped to win. Mook called it a “mathematical fact” that Clinton will emerge as the Democratic presidential nominee, and called on Sanders to return to an issues-based campaign.

“His campaign needs to decide if, for its own benefit, for fundraising, it is going to make casualties of … the Democratic party and ultimately of Secretary Clinton,” Mook said in a late-Monday call with the press.

Sanders did not respond to an email seeking comment.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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