Thursday (09-12-24), we learned that an anonymous ABC whistleblower plans to reveal this weekend how the network rigged the Trump-Harris presidential debate by giving Harris the questions in advance and assuring her that only Trump would be fact-checked.

The following day, Mark Penn, once a top aide to Bill Clinton and now chairman of the Harvard CAPS Harris Poll, called for “an independent outside” law firm to investigate whether ABC rigged the debate.

“I actually think they should do a full internal investigation, hire an outside law firm. I don’t know how much of this was planned in advance,” Penn told the John Solomon Reports podcast.

“I don’t know what they told the Harris campaign. I think the day after, suspicion here is really quite high, and I think a review of all their internal texts and emails really should be done by an independent party to find out to what extent they were planning on, in effect, you know, fact-checking just one candidate and in effect, rigging the outcome of this debate. I think the situation demands nothing less than that,” he added.

Judging from another of his posts on X/Twitter, Penn obviously is unhappy with Kamala Harris because she was selected, rather than elected — because of how she was shoved onto millions of Democrats rather than letting them vote on her, and because she has refused to talk to the media or even to explain her policies.

Penn previously posted this on X:

One interview. One debate. Some rah rah stump speech you read over and over. And voila you have a 50 per cent chance of being president. Good gig if you can get it. No 3 debates. No 2 years of primaries, coalition building, no detailed policy development, and no daily press briefings. Or tests of leadership. It’s only the most important job in the world with a $6 trillion budget and thousands of nuclear weapons. The right thing would be 3 debates, real detailed policy briefings, and full availability to answer questions so the electorate could vote on an informed basis. That’s what real democracy demands.

That’s quite a fit of indignation, I’d say.  And even if Penn has ulterior motives, kudos to him for being forthright about the obvious shenanigans at ABC.

I’m eager to see the whistleblower’s information, and to hear how Kamala and ABC respond.  What can they say?  Maybe Kamala will try to change the subject.  It’s worked for her up to now.

But what’s going on here?

I’ve covered enough political campaigns in five decades as a journalist to know it’s highly unusual for party operatives to trash their own party.  But there is a longstanding strategy that when something really horrid happens, it’s best to “get in front of it” to better control the story, rather than wait and have to react defensively.

So it’s likely that Penn and no doubt other important party figures want to limit the fallout from whatever is about to be revealed.  Or not.

There are other possibilities.

There’s a definite split in the Democrat party between the Biden-Harris people and the Barack Obama people.  I’ve read about spats within the Harris campaign team pitting the two factions against each other, and about each side finger-pointing and blaming the other guys for Harris’s problems, such as not having formulated a position paper or being willing to talk to the press.

My hunch is that these internal disagreements have more to do with a struggle between the two factions for control than they have to do with policy or even strategy.

It’s widely assumed that Biden was merely a puppet for Obama, who decided what the administration would do.  Now it is generally accepted that Obama with other party bosses forced Biden to abandon his re-election campaign.

Is there an internal war among Democrats to see which faction will control Harris?  She is clearly puppet material.  But who will win the battle to see who gets to pull the strings?

It could get real ugly.  In three and a half years, Harris’s staff had many of her aides quit, leaving behind unattributed stories of how terrible she was to work for.

Are the long knives coming out?  As Harris disappoints, with nearly no gains from her convention and even from the debate, and as Trump continues to amaze by holding his narrow edge in the polls, Democrats are likely to panic.

And there’s nothing quite like panic to create campaign chaos that spurs bad decision-making as the clock ticks down to Election Day.

Stay tuned. There’s sure to be more.

Mark Landsbaum is a Christian retired journalist, former investigative reporter, editorial writer, and columnist.  He also is a husband, father, grandfather, and Dodgers fan.  He can be reached at mark.landsbaum@gmail.com.

Image: Mobilus In Mobili via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped).