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From US Uncut

Leaked email: Clinton campaign caught collaborating with DNC to minimize Bernie Sanders in debates

In an email written by Charles Baker of the Dewey Square Group dated April 27, 2015, goals for the Democratic primary debate schedule are discussed with top-level Clinton campaign officials. Recipients included campaign chairman John Podesta, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, and Ron Klain, chief of staff for Vice President Joe Biden. Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri is CC’d on the correspondence.

Baker shared a Democratic National Committee draft press release on the debate schedule with top Clinton campaign staffers, saying he had “internal discussions” about the debate schedule with Mo Elleithee — executive director of the Georgetown University Institute of Politics — and former Obama White House communications director Anita Dunn, who are both referred to by Baker as the DNC’s “communications operation.”

According to Baker, discussions about when the debates should be scheduled “in our interest” had six goals in mind. The Clinton campaign’s stated goals included limiting other candidates’ exposure to voters, especially during the critical first primaries and caucuses, and that Clinton would be prevented from any one-on-one debate with a single candidate (like Bernie Sanders) if at all possible.

Here's the text of the email:

Beginning in February 2015, the DNC, through its communications operation (Mo Elleithee and Anita Dunn) began discussing with representatives of potential Democratic candidates, the establishment of a "sanctioned" schedule of debates. The DNC is now close to rolling that proposal out publicly.

Background. The RNC early in the cycle announced a formal schedule of debates for their primary candidates. That schedule, as of today, consists of 12 separate debates beginning in August 2015. The RNC debates are logistically spread around the country with no more than 1 debate in any state. As part of establishing that schedule the RNC has insisted that the candidates and networks who participate in those "sanctioned" debates must agree not to participate in "unsanctioned" debates.

Through internal discussions, we concluded that it was in our interest to:

1) limit the number of debates (and the number in each state);

2) start the debates as late as possible;

3) keep debates out of the busy window between February 1 and February 27, 2016 (Iowa to South Carolina);

4) create a schedule that would allow the later debates to be cancelled if the race is for practical purposes over;

5) encourage an emphasis on local issues and local media participants in the debate formats; and

6) ensure a format that provides equal time for all candidates and does not give the moderator any discretion to focus on one
candidate.

Through discussion of these goals with the DNC their current plan is to begin a debate schedule that would commence in early October, with one debate a month, one each in the early primary and caucus states, and the remaining 2 post South Carolina (we will need to push them to post March 1 and then the later 2 debates would be cancelled if the race ends). The DNC's current plan is to release the attached press release (which lacks this specificity but confirms the number and start window for the debates). The other campaigns have advocated (not surprisingly) for more debates and for the schedule to start significantly earlier. Mo and Anita believe that this announcement prior to the actual entry into the race of other candidates will strengthen their hand as they lock a schedule in with local media partners and state parties.

One remaining issue is the criteria for participation: we believe it is important to the extent possible to keep the debates "multicandidate" and to eliminate the possibility of one on one debates; the most likely standard that would achieve this result is to allow any announced candidate who is: 1) a Democrat and, 2) who meets some threshold of viability (1 percent) in either a national or state specific (e.g. Iowa, NH) to participate.

This Politifact link is in the US Uncut piece:

Democratic debates set to 'maximize' exposure, Wasserman Schultz claims, but evidence is dubious