Sanders Campaign Calls for Committee Leadership Changes at Convention

The Bernie Sanders campaign is calling to remove Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy and former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank from leadership positions on Democratic committees at the national convention, arguing that their allegiance to Hillary Clinton will compromise their neutrality.

In a letter to the Democratic National Committee, Brad Deutsch, counsel to the Sanders campaign, called Malloy and Frank “aggressive attack surrogates for the Clinton campaign.”

"The appointment of two individuals so outspokenly critical of Senator Sanders, and so closely affiliated with Secretary Clinton's campaign, raises concerns that two of the three Convention Standing Committees are being constituted in an overtly partisan way designed to exclude meaningful input from supporters of Senator Sanders' candidacy," Deutsch wrote in a letter to the co-chairs of the DNC rules and bylaws committee, which the Sanders campaign posted on its website.

Malloy is co-chairman of the platform committee, and Frank is head of the rules committee.

Neither Malloy's office nor the Democratic National Committee responded to requests for comment.

DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced this week that five Sanders supporters would serve on the platform committee, which is responsible for managing the process of drafting the party's platform. In a release announcing the committee members the DNC said 75 percent of the committee's seats have been allocated to the two presidential campaigns, awarded proportionally according to vote tally, "in an effort to make this the most representative and inclusive process in history."

Concerns about discontent from the Sanders campaign at the convention increased after Nevada's state convention, where Sanders supporters grew rowdy after Clinton received more delegates and maintained the process was usurping democracy.

Sanders told The Associated Press earlier this week that the convention could be "messy," but that it is all part of democracy.

"People in America have the right to demonstrate. It's kind of what the constitution of the United States is," Sanders said on ABC's "The View" earlier this week when asked about concerns of violence at the convention in Philadelphia.

"It goes without saying that I will condemn any and all forms of violence," he said. "Secretary Clinton and I have different points of view on many of these issues. I don't see anything wrong with a vigorous debate."

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