Clinton and Sen. Tim Kaine at rally in Annandale, Va., on July 14.

Andrew Harnik / AP

TAMPA, Fla. — Hillary Clinton has made Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine her running-mate, lending the Democratic ticket a seasoned, steady vice presidential nominee with extensive domestic and national security credentials, and a link to a key state.

Eight years after Barack Obama nearly picked the 58-year-old father of three as his own running-mate, Kaine is expected to join Clinton on Saturday at a campaign rally in Miami, making his first appearance as the potential next vice president.

Clinton announced the decision in a text message to supporters late on Friday afternoon, nearly 24 hours after Donald Trump officially accepted his party’s nomination.

The first-term U.S. senator has been cast by some as Clinton's "safest" choice, even a "boring" one. Kaine, though, perhaps more than any other contender for the no. 2 spot, also reflects a balance of the qualities Clinton has said she wants in a partner: He is an authority on foreign and military affairs in the Senate, where he serves on the Armed Services Committee; he offers the experience of a governor and mayor; he is a versatile, solid campaigner, popular in his crucial home state of Virginia; and he comes to the ticket as a well-liked party servant, with the potential if not to excite, then inspire trust.

During her search for a vice president, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta offered the candidate one key piece of advice: "It needs to be someone who, whenever they walk into a room, you are glad to see them and want to have them as part of any conversation," he told her, according to a campaign official who briefed reporters on the process.

At the end of the process, it was Kaine who fit the bill for Clinton.

Clinton, the official said, made her final decision on Friday, and called Kaine with the news at 7:32 p.m., before calling Obama at 7:48 p.m., shortly after a rally here in Tampa.

Clinton’s priority, campaign aides have said, was a candidate whose domestic and international resumé made them prepared without question for the presidency — particularly as she attacks Trump as inherently unqualified and unfit for the job.

In 2008, Obama opted for Joe Biden over Kaine, who at the time was still governor of Virginia, boasting little foreign policy experience. Eight years later, Kaine has become a forceful voice on defense and international affairs in Washington, emerging at times as a critical voice against the president’s approach against the terrorist network ISIS.Kaine, a former Democratic Party chairman, is not without his detractors on the left.

Kaine, a former Democratic Party chairman, is not without his detractors on the left.

Amid intense speculation this week that he had edged to the top of Clinton’s list, progressives formerly aligned with Clinton’s primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, criticized Kaine’s support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and highlighted two recent letters he wrote in support of easing some rules on smaller banks.

One of Sanders' strongest allies in the primary, Democracy For America, said on Thursday that the letters should "disqualify" Kaine as a finalist for the job.

Clinton, who hopes to turn the Senate back to Democrats this fall, was also said to be concerned about what could happen to Kaine's seat should he vacate it. Virginia Gov. Terry McAullife, a longtime Clinton ally, has the power to appoint a Democratic successor, but the seat would open up again for a special election in 2017.

Barack Obama, joined by Bill Clinton and Tim Kaine, at a rally in 2012.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Friday's announcement ended a three-month, tightly guarded search, led by Clinton and a small group of advisers, including longtime allies John Podesta and Cheryl Mills.

Against the backdrop of this week’s hectic Republican convention, Clinton’s campaign officials said they were aiming for a clean and contained roll-out. Trump’s deliberations by contrast, unfolded almost entirely in public. His choice, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, leaked in the press early. And up until his announcement — even after his campaign made it official — there were reports that Trump might still waver on the decision.

In the days leading up to Clinton's final selection, Kaine remained largely quiet about his prospects. ”I’m glad the waiting game is nearly over," Kaine told the collection of reporters trailing him on Thursday. "But I don’t have any idea of what will happen.”

Clinton began her search by casting a wide net, compiling a long list of politicians, military figures, and business people, with an open mind to the idea of an all-female or even a bipartisan ticket, according to a person familiar with the process.

In April, after the New York primary, the search intensified. Podesta, Clinton's chairman, visited Clinton at her home in Chappaqua, bringing with him a Duane Reade bag filled with two dozen binders of vetting material, one for each candidate on the list.

By the end of June, a handful of key names remained in the mix: agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack, labor secretary Tom Perez, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, housing secretary Julián Castro, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, and four-star navy admiral and NATO commander James Stravidis.

In the final days, the search narrowed to Kaine, Vilsack, and Booker.

The campaign viewed her rally with Kaine on Thursday, June 14, as an opportunity to try-out the ticket on the stump. Clinton enjoyed their rapport and was impressed by what a campaign official described on Friday night as a low-key, relaxed campaign style.

After the rally, Clinton invited Kaine back to her house in Washington for a 90-minute meeting, departing around 10 p.m. that evening. The pair were initially joined by aides, then broke off into a one-on-one discussion. The next day, a Friday, Clinton met with several other contenders, but told her aides that she wanted to see Kaine again, and this time with the families, the official said. That Saturday, Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton, joined Clinton, her husband, daughter Chelsea, and son-in-law Marc Mezvinsky.

Other VP contenders might have provided the Democratic base, and progressives, a more appealing or exciting ticket. The 47-year old Booker, for instance, was seen as a leader from a new generation with the potential to inspire enthusiasm. He would have been the first black presumptive vice presidential nominee in U.S. history.

Clinton has also said she is heightened to the complications that come along with a vice president who might one day want to pursue the Oval Office. The former first lady privately cites the internal challenges associated with Al Gore’s presidential ambitions. Kaine is seen as someone more likely to fully embrace the job of vice president.

Bill Clinton, according to the New York Times, also favored Kaine. The couple doesn’t have a long relationship with him, compared to finalists like Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary and Iowa Democrat who has been close to the couple for decades.

Kaine comes from a working-class Catholic family in Kansas City. His father was a welder. Kaine and his wife Anne met at Harvard Law School before moving to Richmond, where he began on the city council, rising to mayor of the majority-black city. It is not uncommon to spot Kaine around town at a minor league baseball game, in Trader Joe’s, or at the predominantly black Catolic church he’s been going to for years.

Kaine, as former aides describe him, can just as easily connect with voters in rural southwest Virginia (he plays harmonica at the Bristol Rhythm and Roots Festival), as on a tour of Hispanic businesses in Northern Virginia (he speaks fluent Spanish), or a trip through the military bases at Hampton Roads (his oldest son, Nat, is a Marine).

So the “boring” trope, said Beau Cribbs, Kaine’s body man from 2008 to 2010, irritates those who know him well, including a network of fiercely loyal former staffers.

“I just hate it,” Cribbs said. “I think boring is a code for white and male, frankly.”

His style as a campaigner is not unlike that of his new boss. Kaine, like Clinton, is not known best for the rousing speeches so often associated with Obama. He excels in small groups, or one-on-one — a hard worker known for 14- or 15-hour days on the trail.

During his Senate race in 2012, Kaine held more than 100 roundtables.

The small-scale discussion-driven style of event has also become a campaign staple for Clinton. Perhaps it was no surprise this week then, when CBS News’s Charlie Rose asked about Kaine’s joke that he is in fact “too boring,” that Clinton replied with enthusiasm.

“I love that about him!”

Scyther5 / Getty Images

Just months before a trove of Democratic National Committee emails were hacked and published online, a DNC communications director mocked a BuzzFeed News report in May that questioned the effectiveness of its cybersecurity.

Wikileaks on Friday published more than 19,000 emails from seven senior DNC staffers sent between January 2015 and May 25 this year. Some of the emails show DNC staffers criticizing the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Buried in the trove was one email from deputy communications director Eric Walker sent to what appeared to be a broad communications team mailing list on May 5. The email shared a BuzzFeed News report, published on the same day, in which cybersecurity experts questioned the online security of both the Democratic and Republican national committees.

"The dumbest thing I've ever read: Buzzfeed: These Experts Think The DNC And RNC Are Both Horrible At Cybersecurity," Walker wrote in the subject line, referencing the title of the story.

BuzzFeed News

The article, by cybersecurity correspondent Sheera Frenkel, featured quotes from analysts who critiqued both parties for handing out thumb drives to reporters.

"Thumb drives are known within the cybersecurity world for their fundamental security weaknesses," Frenkel wrote, "because when someone plugs a thumb drive into their computers they are opening up their system to anything on that drive — from the best hotels to stay in during the Republican National Convention to a virus that silently uploads itself onto the hard drive."

“Those thumb drives are the number one way to infect a computer," Ajay Arora, CEO of cybersecurity firm VERA, told Frenkel. "It is borderline stupidity to give them out to people, or for people to even think of using them.”

In addition to describing it as "the dumbest thing [he had] ever read," Walker derided the "thesis" of the story.

"The thesis: we hand out thumb drives at events, which could infect the reporters/attendees' computers. So that means that we're bad at cybersecurity. Okay," he wrote.

Wikileaks / Via wikileaks.org

Walker did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.

Wikileaks has not revealed the source of the leak, but the DNC said in June it had been breached by Russian hackers. It is not known if the hackers relied on thumb drives in order to breach the DNC's cybersecurity.

LINK: Leaked Emails Show DNC Staffers Plotting Against Sanders Campaign

Alex Wong / Getty Images

At a rally introducing her new running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Clinton declared the senator was a "progressive who likes to get things done."

Kaine has a liberal record as a senator — but when he was running for governor of Virginia in 2005, he brandished his conservative beliefs on "issues of personal responsibility." The ads can be seen and downloaded on his gubernatorial election page.

In one radio, Kaine declares his social conservatism on issues like same-sex marriage and parental consent for abortion, and banning late-term abortion. (Kaine's position overall has been that he personally opposes abortion as a Catholic, but will support abortion rights.)

"I'm conservative on issues of personal responsibility," Kaine said. "As a former Christian missionary, faith is central to my life. I oppose gay marriage, I support restrictions on abortion — no public funding and parental consent — and I've worked to pass a state law banning partial-birth abortion."

In another ad, titled "conservative," Kaine says he will enforce the death penalty (which became an outsize issue in the 2005 campaign) and how he is "conservative on personal responsibility, character, family and the sanctity of life. These are my values, and that's what I believe."

Kaine's issues page reveals support for so-called covenant marriage legislation, "enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial-birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother," and support for Virginia's fiscal conservatism.

"Virginia has a long and storied history of fiscal conservatism and responsibility that has often been a model for the rest of the nation," his issues page reads.

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"I'm Tim Kaine, I'm running for governor and I'm not afraid to tell you where I stand. My opponent Jerry Kilgore has just come out with even more negative ads. Once again he's hiding behind a slick radio announcer to distort my record. I'm conservative on issues of personal responsibility. As a former Christian missionary, faith is central to my life. I oppose gay marriage, I support restrictions on abortion — no public funding and parental consent — and I've worked to pass a state law banning partial birth abortion. Jerry Kilgore knows this the real difference is Attorney General Jerry Kilgore promoted a law banning partial birth abortion that he knew was unconstitutional. He played politics with abortion and as a result Virginia still has no ban. As governor, I'll always put principle over politics and you'll always know where I stand. That's who I am and what I believe. I'm Tim Kaine, candidate for governor and this ad was paid for by Kaine for governor."

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"I'll enforce the death penalty as governor and I'm against same-sex marriage. I'm conservative on personal responsibility, character, family and the sanctity of life. These are my values, and that's what I believe."

We can dream, though. We can dream.

The internet was faced with a shock on Friday when these photos made the rounds on Twitter: Could it be? Did Bernie Sanders have a framed picture of Harambe, the gorilla who died, in his living room?

The photo comes to us from a tweet by Twitter user @PrayForPatrick, which has been retweeted more than a thousand times.

Twitter / Via Twitter: @prayforpatrick

Naturally, parody Twitter accounts soon picked it up, spreading the photo far and wide.

Twitter / Via Twitter: @dory

That's when it really took off.

Twitter: @sophia_rosanne

Twitter: @stawp_calling

View Entire List ›

Noah Berger / Reuters

Organizations in the Movement for Black Lives took part in actions around the country and abroad Thursday as part of #FreedomNow, a day of action planned in the wake of high-profile videos of police killing black men and police being targeted that drew the attention of President Obama and gripped the country.

In Cleveland, a group of young people sat in a semi-circle in a studio just west of the Republican National Convention, and spoke about the shooting’s effect on them and about the American Dream.

In Washington, D.C., women from Black Youth Project 100 and BLM DC occupied the legislative office of the National Fraternal Order of Police on Capitol Hill.

In Oakland, demonstrators chained themselves to the door of the police department headquarters, holding a sign that read “no one is free until we are all free.”

Lead organizers inside believe the movement to be squarely at an intersection: Activists can’t allow there to be a public perception that they advocate violence against police officers, while a lack of action could spell the end of the movement altogether.

In interviews with nearly 20 organizers, leaders described Thursday’s demonstrations as a method to avoid characterizing the movement broadly as anti-police — or even hostile or violent towards officers. But leaders also described exasperation at how fatal police shootings aren’t decreasing and that there has not been mass action to reduce them, saying #FreedomNow was also a way to put the weight of the movement to bear on local-, state- and federally-elected officials to do something tangible.

Leaders spoke less about tactics and more about honing in a specific message to activists leading up to #FreedomNow. The movement’s messaging experts logged long hours in the days leading up to the action, providing talking points, catching up on specific cases where a police officer had killed someone, and even posting on Medium a statement that the movement has never called for attacks on police and questioned the outcry after a police officer is killed versus when a black person is killed.

“This movement has never called for the execution of law enforcement officers. Never. Still, many want to place the blame at our feet,” the post reads.

At turns hopeful, frustrated, and professorial in his address memorializing the five fallen officers in Dallas, Obama attempted to defuse some of the tension between police officers and the movement. “But even those who dislike the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter,’ surely we should be able to hear the pain of Alton Sterling’s family,” Obama said adding that “we have to do what we can, without putting officers' lives at risk, but do better to prevent another life like his from being lost.

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

“With an open heart, we can worry less about which side has been wronged, and worry more about joining sides to do right.”

The movement had hoped to also get Obama’s attention with actions on Thursday. Movement organizers were highly critical of the town hall on race hosted by ABC News, and questioned the treatment of Erica Garner, a high-profile activist and the daughter of Eric Garner, a New York man who was killed when he was choked and brought to the ground by an NYPD officer.

Activists who spoke with BuzzFeed News say they feel his legacy should include taking meaningful steps “and not just presiding over the conversation” as one activist put it.

“For people who had been in the streets, the frustration with Obama and other elected officials was there are things they can do to transform our communities and they’re not doing it,” said Mervyn Marcano, a spokesperson for the Movement for Black Lives coalition. “Around the country, if you look at some of these budgets and start thinking about policy, folks felt like this was the time to start talking about divestment.”

But organizations tethered to the nationwide, diffuse web of organizations referred to as Black Lives Matter or the Movement for Black Lives, many have, in some form or another pushed for a broad reduction in spending on police that rankles police unions and elected officials and local find specious, if not implausible. But organizers like to say that resources that come from a decrease in police spending could be redirected into programs and institutions that reduce crime and invest in the black communities where the police are often viewed as an oppressive, sometimes militarized, force.

They’re not alone, though, in thinking that too much authority has been directed toward the police.

When Dallas Police Chief David Brown said, “We're asking cops to do too much in this country,” it struck a chord with movement activists. Since the founding of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter in 2012 — and a definitive wave of protests after the August 2014 killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Mo. — grassroots organizing has seldom included law enforcement sitting at the table. Activists have all sorts of ideas about reducing the police presence in communities, spending less on police, and forcing the police to cede types of authority.

But in recent months, another idea has entered the consciousness: Could the answer be working closer with police jurisdictions locally?

“Maybe (that’s the answer), to be honest,” said one activist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to they could speak openly about such an arrangement. “What Chief Brown said was really important to us. Police are doing too much. They're called upon to be social workers and deal with situations they are not trained to handle and they shouldn’t be.”

“In the wake of these tragedies, we echo Police Chief David Brown in that police officers tasked with protection and service to our communities are overburdened with too many of the challenges faced by our society."

Another well-known activist shaken by the shooting of officers told BuzzFeed News that if working with police on the ground results in less dead civilians, movement activists should consider that as a model. The focus, the activist said, should be on solutions and not on finger-pointing police as the problem.

Peter Haviland-Eduah, the policy director of the prominent, New York-based Million Hoodies Movement for Justice, told BuzzFeed News that Dallas exposed a need for more investment in communities where police presence is seen as a cure-all. Haviland-Eduah said over-policing and hyper-aggressive policing tactics as the rule of law inside communities block chances at restorative justice through education and economic opportunity.

“In the wake of these tragedies, we echo Police Chief David Brown in that police officers tasked with protection and service to our communities are overburdened with too many of the challenges faced by our society,” Haviland-Eduah said. “It is not the job of law enforcement to fill the porous gaps in our policies and practices that disproportionately impact communities of color and our country’s most marginalized populations. It is in this spirit that we renew our call to invest in our communities across the nation in order to prevent these ills from transpiring again the future.”

In a lengthy interview with BuzzFeed News, Thomas L. Glover, Sr., the president of the Black Police Association of Greater Dallas (BPAGD), said he was eager to see how the killing of officers transformed the movement and its relationship to law enforcement. Glover said he believed that white officers should “understand that [people] can dissent and disagree with enforcement without being anti-law enforcement,” Glover said. The message from activists, he said, should be: “We’re all pro-police, but against police misconduct and police brutality and that it’s okay for us to co-exist with two different opinion.”

“We should welcome any citizen group, whether they dissent with the views of a majority of police officers or they concur,” Glover said. “Our organization wants to bridge the gap between the police and the community and have been since we were founded 40 years ago.”

Glover said he believes there should be a national standard for police use of deadly force, echoing a recent push by Campaign Zero activists Samuel Sinyangwe, Johnetta Elzie, Brittany Packnett, and DeRay Mckesson. In a meeting at the White House, Mckesson asked the president if he would consider it. (Obama directed the Justice Department to look into what could be done on a national standard, and the department is pushing for national and consistent data on lethal use of force to promote transparency, but department officials did not provide an update on the status the president’s directive.)

“The people in the community with the complaints should be the ones telling us what we should do to straighten it out,” Glover said. “And if it’s within guidelines, we should do it. If it’s not within the guidelines, we should determine why it’s not. But whether it’s a policy change or a law change, let’s do it. If we can’t get it done let’s vote for people in office who can.”

“The people in the community with the complaints should be the ones telling us what we should do to straighten it out. And if it’s within guidelines, we should do it."

Activists who promote the right leadership with credibility both inside communities and with the police are gaining traction with the Dallas Police Department after the killing of the five officers.

Antong Lucky, co-founder of Urban Specialists, says the glaring dearth of leadership of activists with credibility both law enforcement and the movement and communities, has created an "us versus them deal" that's going to take us into a dark, dark place as a nation."

Lucky, whose work has received the support of House Speaker Paul Ryan (the two met during a Dallas stop of Ryan's anti-poverty tour) believes that the mischaracterization of Black Lives Matter as a hate-group and the subscription by some in the movement that police killings of black people are part of a calculated, shadow campaign by law enforcement has created the atmosphere between the two sides that has showed its effects this summer.

"I do believe that the issues that Black Lives Matter is addressing is relevant, I just think that without he necessary instruction and guidance it's easy for other people in the media to blackball them, or label them a terrorist or hate group," Lucky said. "Some people use that hashtag to spew some pretty loose rhetoric and it's unedited and unfiltered and it's doesn't really stand for policy reform and police accountability. We know that's not what it stands for and it's unfair for us as Americans to just watch that happen and not doing anything about it.

"In my heart I don't think believe the true activists have a hatred for police," Lucky continued, "but when the media and other people keep grabbing that narrative, it makes for good ratings but not progress."

The day before the Dallas memorial, the group Urban Specialists met with the Dallas Police Department’s community relations office with the message that they believed Micah Xavier Johnson, the shooter of the five officer, had subscribed to the belief that the shootings were part of a concerted effort on police departments to kill black people. A spokesperson from the department said it was a useful meeting, a dialogue it will continue.

Adam Bettcher / Reuters

The Urban Specialists believes that it’s an insidious narrative — one that, cultivated in the mind of the wrong person, as we've seen, could have devastating results. Instead, Urban Specialists are making friends inside the Dallas Police Department: Urban Specialists wants to take officers that walk the beat in urban areas and pair them with an organizer with credibility in the streets and the department.

“We can’t let the wrong people take this narrative and keep bumping heads because the outcome is real,” Abdul Chappell, an activist with Urban Specialists. “I’m out here in full support because I know what they’re doing is real.”

The group is recruiting people who are credible in the streets in communities. “A lot of people have passion but they don’t have the strategy,” Chappell said. “So our job is to take the validity of their passion and match it with the right course of action.”

Whether that model, or more collaboration between officers and activists is the key to achieving concrete changes, activists and law enforcement agree that something has to change in a summer that no one knew was coming.

“It really opens your eyes to what the real target is,” Glover said. “And it’s not each other.”

Andrew Harnik / AP

By selecting Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate, Hillary Clinton chose one of the few Democratic governors who has put people to death. In his four years as governor of Virginia, Kaine carried out 11 executions.

Over the course of the 2016 campaign, Clinton has said that she has concerns about how the death penalty is implemented in the states, and that she would "breathe a sigh of relief if either the Supreme Court or the states themselves began to eliminate the death penalty."

But Clinton has reiterated that she supports the death penalty being an option for the federal government in cases like terrorism.

Of current governors, the only Democrats to have carried out executions are Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and one of Kaine's successors, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

Although Kaine carried out 11 executions, his stance on the death penalty is much more complicated than that. Before he became governor in 2006, Kaine served as a civil rights lawyer, and represented several capital defendants.

In 1987, he told the Washington Post that "[m]urder is wrong in the gulag, in Afghanistan, in Soweto, in the mountains of Guatemala, in Fairfax County ... and even the Spring Street Penitentiary."

Kaine was attacked for his work as a pro-bono attorney for death row defendants when he ran for governor. His opponent, Jerry Kilgore, wanted to expand the use of the death penalty — and ran attack ads with families of victims in cases Kaine represented.

"Tim Kaine says that Adolf Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty," one victim's father said in one of the ads.

Kaine, a devout Catholic, responded in a follow-up ad.

"My faith teaches that life is sacred," Kaine said in the ad. "That's why I personally oppose the death penalty. But I take my oath of office seriously, and I'll enforce the death penalty ... because it's the law."

Once in office, Kaine did so, declining to grant clemency and allowing his first execution to proceed as governor in his third month on the job, April 2006.

Kaine commuted only one death sentence as governor, citing inmate Perry Walton's mental deficiencies. Walton had pleaded guilty to killing three people in 1997.

"One cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it," Kaine said in a statement at the time.

Kaine believed there was "significant evidence that Walton had schizophrenia," and that "there was more than a minimal chance that Walton no longer knew why he was to be executed or was even aware of the final punishment he was about to receive.”

Of the 11 people — all men — executed under Kaine, six were black.

In a 2012 interview after he had left the governor's office, Kaine told the Washington Post he was conflicted over the executions.

“I really struggled with that as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty,” he said. “But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation.”

“I hope I can give a good accounting of myself on Judgment Day."

Ambassador Chris Stephens in 2012.

Mahmud Turkia / AFP / Getty Images

The mother of the US ambassador killed during the 2012 attack in Benghazi has pleaded with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to refrain from using her son's name during his election campaign.

"As Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens’s mother, I am writing to object to any mention of his name and death in Benghazi, Libya, by Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party," Mary F. Commanday of Oakland, California, wrote in a letter to the New York Times which was published on Saturday.

Stevens, then the top US diplomat in Libya, was among four Americans killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack by militants against the Benghazi compound. The Trump campaign has frequently faulted Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time, for what they say was her failure to provide enough security to the outpost and for first saying the assault was the work of people angry at a crude YouTube film which mocked Islam.

"I know for certain that Chris would not have wanted his name or memory used in that connection," Commanday wrote to the newspaper. "I hope that there will be an immediate and permanent stop to this opportunistic and cynical use by the campaign."

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Commanday's comments stand in contrast to the emotional Republican National Convention speech delivered this week by the mother of another man killed during the attack.

Patricia Smith told the Cleveland audience on Monday night that she personally blamed Clinton for the death of her son, Sean Smith.

“The last time I talked to Sean, the night before the terrorist attack, he told me, 'Mom, I am going to die,'” Smith said. “All security had been pulled from the embassy, he explained. And when he asked why, he never received a response. Nobody listened. Nobody seemed to care."

“Hillary Clinton is a woman, a mother, and a grandmother of two,” Smith said. “I am a woman, a mother, and a grandmother of two. How could she do this to me?”

“That’s right. Hillary for prison. She deserves to be in stripes.”

Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images

Clinton's handling of the Benghazi attack has been a central issue in the 2016 presidential campaign.

A Republican-led congressional investigation into the incident did not find any new evidence of wrongdoing on Clinton's behalf, but criticized her handling of the state department.

LINK: The Long-Awaited Benghazi Report Is Out

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

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During his 2005 run for governor, Hillary Clinton's running mate Tim Kaine stated on his issues pages he would "not propose any new gun laws," as governor of the state of Virginia. In radio ads, he boasted the same message and even cited the NRA's Charlton Heston.

At the same time, Kaine, then the state's lieutenant governor, signaled his support for gun rights on a number of his issues. That year, Kaine answered the Virginia Defense League's survey for candidates.

Kaine's survey reveals some interesting answers on gun rights out of step with the modern Democratic Party. He signaled he supported so-called reciprocity, where states recognize other state's concealed carry permits. Kaine signaled he supported repealing the requirement for fingerprinting to get a concealed carry permit. He also said he opposed the government-mandated use of trigger locks.

In 2013, Kaine voted against a Senate amendment in support of reciprocity.

The survey:

1. Current Virginia law includes penalties for anyone carrying a gun while under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs. However, since 1995, Virginia's concealed carry law has prohibited lawful concealed carry by permit holders (even if they aren't drinking) in ABC licensed restaurants and clubs. For nearly 100 years prior to 1995, permit holders faced no such restriction and there were no problems. Because of this recent (1995) change in Virginia's concealed weapons law, 1) violent criminals know that restaurant patrons are defenseless prey, 2) law-abiding citizens may be at risk not only at dinner, but when walking to and from their car in a dark, secluded parking lot, and 3) law-abiding citizens may be forced to unnecessarily handle and unsafely store their loaded firearm in an unattended vehicle while in a restaurant. In addition, 36 other states with over 2.6 million permit holders do not have this "restaurant ban" and haven't experienced any problems.

Will you SUPPORT legislation to repeal this "restaurant ban" on carrying of concealed handguns by permit holders?

2. Many states have "reciprocity" arrangements where they recognize each other's concealed carry permits. Increasingly, states are unilaterally recognizing all other states' concealed handgun permits or adding a simple provision to their law that automatically recognizes the permits of any state that recognizes their permits. These states have experienced no problems due to the their unilateral recognition of other states' permits. Therefore, as Virginia recognizes more states' permits, more states will recognize Virginia's permits resulting in Virginia concealed handgun permit holders being able to legally carry concealed in more states.

Will you SUPPORT legislation recognizing all other states' concealed carry permits?

3. Virginia law provides for fingerprinting of concealed handgun permit applicants as a local option. Most localities do not require fingerprinting -- only 25% require it. Of those localities that do require fingerprinting, some require it only for the initial application while others require it for both the initial application and for renewals too. This establishes a non-uniform application procedure throughout the Commonwealth.

More importantly, the process of fingerprinting of concealed weapon permit applicants treats law-abiding citizens like common criminals and results in FBI registration of applicants. No matter what the Virginia code requires, the FBI never destroys a finger print record once it is received.

75% of Virginia localities and many other states (Pennsylvania, for example, with over a half million permits issued) do not require fingerprinting of concealed weapons applicants and have not experienced any problems.

Will you SUPPORT legislation to repeal the fingerprint language in Virginia's concealed handgun law?

4. Virginia law generally bans the carrying of guns in both public and private K-12 schools, except for the police (including off-duty, vacationing LEOs from other states). So, an off duty, vacationing game warden from New Jersey can carry a gun into a Virginia school, but a Virginia citizen with a concealed handgun permit may not! This ban 1) infringes the rights of law abiding Virginians, 2) grants special privileges to citizens of other states who know little or nothing of Virginia law, and 3) makes it almost certain that children and school personnel would remain helpless in the face of a Columbine type of attack by a deranged student or stranger who will ignore the law against bringing a gun in the school.

Even the draconian federal Gun Free School Zone Act specifically exempts concealed handgun permit holders from its restrictions and allows permit holders to carry their firearms into classrooms.

Will you SUPPORT legislation to more closely conform school gun policy with federal standards by allowing concealed handgun permit holders to have a gun on their person while on school grounds?

5. Virginia law prohibits the carrying of firearms in courthouses, on K-12 school property, the terminals of certain airports, and in places of religious worship while a religious service is in progress. Other than these restrictions, Virginia does not have any law prohibiting law-abiding citizens from legally carrying a firearm in a public place in open view (open carry). Thus, no permit is required in Virginia to open carry. However, Virginia does require a permit to carry a firearm concealed.

Two states have what is frequently referred to as "Vermont-style carry" for both open and concealed carry -- Vermont and Alaska. These two states recognize that every citizen has the right to carry a gun, openly or concealed, except to commit a crime. Thus, with no government bureaucracy or permit system, the citizens of Vermont and Alaska can legally carry the tools for self-defense.

Will you SUPPORT Vermont-style carry legislation which would eliminate all requirements to pay fees and register gun owners and simply allow law-abiding citizens to carry firearms openly or concealed (at the individual's discretion) for any reason except for the commission of a crime?

6. Gun control advocates frequently attempt to discourage gun ownership by creating a patchwork of differing local government ordinances. Most recently, efforts have been made to authorize Roanoke, Richmond, Norfolk, and Fairfax County to enact ordinances restricting the carrying or possession of firearms in certain municipal facilities.

Will you OPPOSE any bill that allows localities to restrict the carrying or possession of firearms by law-abiding citizens in recreation centers, libraries, or other local government facilities?

7. Most firearms experts recognize that mechanical devices, such as trigger locks, create an extremely dangerous condition, whereby a gun can be fired accidentally. These dangerous "lock up your safety" devices may render a handgun ineffective when most needed and leave an individual or family defenseless and vulnerable to attack. Additionally, trigger locks create a false sense of security similar to that created when child safety caps were mandated which resulted in a significant increase in child poisonings when parents came to rely on the "safety" caps rather than education to protect their children.

Will you OPPOSE government mandated use of trigger locks or other such hazardous "safety" devices which have the effect of making it difficult, if not impossible, to have a gun available to defend your home and family?

8. Everyone is concerned for the safety of our children, and education is one of the best means of protecting them. The NRA`s Eddie Eagle gun-safety program is aimed at pre-school children and elementary kids up until third grade, and promotes four simple steps children should take if they see a gun -- Stop. Don`t Touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult.

Will you SUPPORT legislation requiring that all 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade students receive the NRA’s gun neutral “Eddie Eagle” gun safety program?

9. Most experts agree that "ballistic fingerprinting" is not a valid fingerprinting of firearms but rather just a snapshot in time because the markings on the shell and bullets change over time with use, parts replacement, and/or intentional modifications. Two studies done for the California Department of Justice concluded that ballistic fingerprinting is not a viable methodology. Most recently, a Maryland State Police report on Maryland's ballistic fingerprinting program called it expensive and ineffective. In addition, the head of the Maryland State Police testified before a Maryland House committee that the mandate to collect ballistics information hasn't helped solve any crimes.

Will you OPPOSE any legislation designed to impose these useless "feel good" ballistic fingerprinting schemes in the Commonwealth?

10. Gun control advocates have made a concerted effort to demonize gun shows as a place where criminals have ready access to firearms. In Virginia, the State Police maintain strict control over all gun shows and dealers are required to ensure that all their firearm sales are approved by the State Police whether the sale is consummated at a gun show or at the dealer's place of business.

Will you OPPOSE any legislation designed to limit or curtail gun shows in Virginia?

11. In 1993, Governor Doug Wilder led an emotional and irrational stampede that limited the number of handguns law-abiding citizens may purchase to one every 30 days -- with police permission required for multiple purchases. Today, most Americans realize that: 1) criminals will always find ways of obtaining weapons whether legally or illegally and 2) limiting the legal activities of honest citizens reduces popular support for laws in general and undermines our legal system.

Will you SUPPORT legislation to repeal Virginia's "one-gun-a-month" rationing law?

12. Gun control advocates have attempted to ban various classes of firearms and related items such as semi-automatic copies of military rifles and carbines (strictly due to their cosmetic appearance when they are, in fact, identical in function to standard semi-automatic hunting rifles), inexpensive and affordable handguns (derisively called "Saturday Night Specials"), high-capacity magazines, .50 caliber rifles, etc.

Will you OPPOSE ALL gun bans?

13. During the 2003 Legislative Session, the House of Delegates passed a bill (100-0) to provide criminal and civil immunity to anyone who used a firearm in his own home to protect himself or his family from a violent intruder. The bill later died in the Senate.

Will you SUPPORT legislation to give homeowners immunity from criminal prosecution and civil suit if they use a firearm in their own home to protect themselves or their families from a violent intruder?

Kaine's answers:

Virginia Defense League

Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images

Russian figures are secretly maneuvering to damage the Democratic party and assist Donald Trump presidential chances, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager said Sunday.

Speaking to CNN's Jake Tapper, Robby Mook said he was "disturbed" by the publication of hacked Democratic National Committee emails on the eve of the party's Philadelphia convention, scheduled to begin Monday.

Prior to the publication of the more than 19,000 emails on Wikileaks on Friday, the DNC said in June that its servers had been breached by Russian hackers. Some of the published emails show DNC staffers criticizing the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders.

"Experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, and other experts are now saying that the Russians are releasing these emails for the purpose of actually helping Donald Trump," Mook said on CNN.

"I don't think it's coincidental that these e-mails were released on the eve of our convention here, and that's disturbing, and I think we need to be concerned about that."

"If the Russians in fact had these emails, I don't think it's very coincidental that they are being released at this time to create maximum damage on Hillary Clinton and to help Donald Trump."

Mook also said "pro-Russian" changes were made to the Republican Party platform at last week's conservative convention.

"We saw [Trump] talking about how NATO shouldn't intervene to defend...our Eastern European allies if they are attacked by Russia," he added.

"If you put all this together, it's a disturbing picture and I think voters need to reflect on that," he said.

Mook said the assertion was not necessarily his own, but said rather that "a number of experts are asserting this."

"I think we need to get to the bottom of these facts, but that is what experts are telling us," he said.

Mook repeated the claims on ABC's This Week program.

Donald Trump's campaign, however, dismissed the claims as absurd.

Speaking with Tapper after Mook's interview, Donald Trump Jr., the candidate's oldest son, criticized the Clinton campaign manager for not making the claims himself, but rather relying on "experts."

"It's disgusting. It's so phony," he said.

"I can't think of bigger lies, but that exactly goes to show you what the DNC and what the Clinton camp will do. They will lie and do anything to win."

"I don't mind a fair fight, but these lies and the perpetuating of that kind of nonsense to try to gain political capital is just outrageous and [Mook] should be ashamed of himself.

"If a Republican did that they'd be calling for people to bring out the electric chair," Trump Jr. said.

Speaking on ABC, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort also said the claims were a "pure obfuscation on the part of the Clinton campaign."

Manafort has spent much of his recent career working for pro-Russian forces in Ukraine, and doing complex deals for an oligarch with close ties to President Vladimir Putin.

LINK: Sanders “Outraged” By Leaked Emails Showing DNC Staffers Criticizing Him

LINK: Trump Adviser’s Ties Raise Security Questions

LINK: Before Hacking, The DNC Mocked A Report Questioning Its Cybersecurity

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn retweeted an anonymous account that often posts racist comments, adding that the “Democratic machine” is corrupt.

Michael Flynn, a retired US General and supporter of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, sparked controversy Sunday when he retweeted an anti-semitic post.

Flynn speaking at the RNC in Cleveland.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

"CNN implicated. The USSR is to blame! Not anymore, Jews. Not anymore,” read the tweet.

Twitter

Flynn took the tweet down two hours later and issued an apology.

View Entire List ›

Dake Kang / AP

PHILADELPHIA - Hillary Clinton’s pollster believes Donald Trump has irreparably damaged himself with the Hispanic electorate — but he won’t yet say the campaign thinks it can reach dramatically higher percentages of its support, either.

“I think 75% is a difficult number to reach. I think it’s possible, but it’s not essential,” Joel Benenson told BuzzFeed News in an interview before Clinton picked Tim Kaine, whose Spanish fluency the campaign believes will help them reach Latinos, as her running mate.

Benenson instead pointed to recent polls like Univision’s that show Clinton with a nearly 60-point lead on the question of who would represent the views of Hispanics better and nearly 75% of voters finding Trump’s attack on the Mexican-American federal judge Gonzalo Curiel as racist.

“It may be very difficult for a Mexican-American Republican to be enthusiastic about him after his comments about Curiel,” Matt Barreto, who joined the campaign from Latino Decisions as a consultant, said.

“Nothing Trump is saying any day he’s out there improves his numbers on those issues, on those character dimensions,” Benenson added.

Barreto, meanwhile, said he’s confident the campaign is going to improve on Obama’s 71% number with Latinos and Trump is not going to reach the 27% that Romney did in 2012.

With Sanders headlining the first night of the convention Monday, both noted that bringing over young Latino voters energized by his policies and rhetoric will be key to consolidating Hispanic support. Barreto argued that Clinton and Sanders working together on a plan to eliminate college tuition for families making under $125,000 a year was a step in that direction.

“College affordability is one that rings high and climate change issues have a lot of salience among younger Latinos,” he said, along with immigration, because they are peers and friends of DREAMers, whose parents would have been DAPA recipients.

“The debate here is in part about the soul of America,” Benenson said. “Will we be a country that embraces diversity? The alternate vision of Trump and Pence divides, dismisses and demeans people. Younger Latinos, black millennials, that whole cohort — as a generation they believe in tolerance.”

How Clinton performs will be best embodied in two states: Florida (a state that is part of the Obama coalition legacy) and Arizona (where a win would be cataclysmic, and almost certainly indicative of a landslide victory).

In Florida, the Clinton campaign sees a Latino electorate that has been changing demographically and becoming more Democratic every cycle, with even newer generations of Cubans becoming less conservative. The Cuban-American community is still high-profile in the state, Barreto said, but now only makes up about a third of the Latino vote in Florida.

“Five cycles ago, the majority of Florida Cubans were voting Republican,” he said. “But that has changed with Puerto Rican migration to Florida over the last four years or so. Puerto Ricans have historically voted Democrat at high rates.”

Besides demographics, the pollsters believe Trump will be a driving force for Latinos, the way polls show he is for other groups like blacks, Mormons, and women.

“We think that Trump and his hateful rhetoric is putting more states into play,” Benenson said. “Arizona is one of those states — but Utah is one of those states, too.”

Andrew Burton / Getty Images

Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced she would leave her leadership position after the Democratic National Convention ends this week, amid a controversy over leaked DNC emails.

Wasserman Schultz had been criticized by the Bernie Sanders campaign for appearing to favor Hillary Clinton throughout their Democratic primary.

Hackers this week also posted thousands of emails from party staff members, some of which showed DNC staffers criticizing the Sanders campaign and questioning his faith.

Earlier Sunday, Sanders had called for Wasserman Schultz to resign her position.

“I asked and demanded Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s resignation many, many months ago and I state that again,” he told CNN. “I don’t think she is qualified to be the chair of the DNC — not only for these awful e-mails, which revealed the prejudice of the DNC, but also because we need a party that reaches out to working people and young people and I don’t think her leadership style is doing that.”

In a statement, Wasserman Schultz said she was proud of the party's inclusive platform and would continue to support Clinton in her campaign.

"Going forward, the best way for me to accomplish those goals is to step down as Party Chair at the end of this convention," she said. "As Party Chair, this week I will open and close the Convention and I will address our delegates about the stakes involved in this election not only for Democrats, but for all Americans."

Scott Audette / Reuters

Wasserman Schultz, a US representative from Florida, has served as the Democratic party chair for more than five years. She said she will continue to serve as a campaign surrogate for Clinton in addition to her work in Congress.

"I’ve been proud to serve as the first woman nominated by a sitting president as Chair of the Democratic National Committee and I am confident that the strong team in place will lead our party effectively through this election to elect Hillary Clinton as our 45th president," she said in a statement.

The Clinton campaign announced that Wasserman Schultz would be honorary chair of its 50-state program. In a statement, Clinton described Wasserman Schultz as a longtime friend and a fighter.

"I look forward to campaigning with Debbie in Florida and helping her in her re-election bid — because as President, I will need fighters like Debbie in Congress who are ready on day one to get to work for the American people," Clinton said.

Following Wasserman Schultz's announcement, Sanders again stressed the importance for a political party to stay impartial during the primary process.

"Debbie Wasserman Schultz has made the right decision for the future of the Democratic Party. While she deserves thanks for her years of service, the party now needs new leadership that will open the doors of the party and welcome in working people and young people," Sanders said in a statement. "The party leadership must also always remain impartial in the presidential nominating process, something which did not occur in the 2016 race."

President Obama said he called Wasserman Schultz Sunday afternoon to thank her personally for her efforts in his re-election as well as supporting his policies.

"Her critical role in supporting our economic recovery, our fights for social and civil justice and providing health care for all Americans will be a hallmark of her tenure as Party Chair," Obama said in a statement. "Her fundraising and organizing skills were matched only by her passion, her commitment and her warmth. And no one works harder for her constituents in Congress than Debbie Wasserman Schultz."

DNC vice-chair Donna Brazile, a political analyst, will take over as the party's chief in the interim, a DNC spokesman said on Twitter.

On Twitter, Republican nominee Donald Trump mocked Wasserman Schultz.

LINK: Sanders “Outraged” By Leaked Emails Showing DNC Staffers Criticizing Him

Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images

CLEVELAND — When GOP volunteers who took a week off work to help with the communications team at Republican National Convention arrived in Ohio, they were handed koozies that jokingly read "Trailer Trash" for all the time they would be spending in the media trailers.

By the end of the week, for some, the joke felt a little too real.

In interviews, several operatives who volunteered and were involved with the convention’s communications operation described a war room operation that was falling apart during the convention. The event is the Republican Party’s best and biggest chance each presidential cycle to put on a positive, televised message. But in Cleveland, based on at least eight sources, the staff struggled early in the week due to technical difficulties with a crucial task: booking campaign supporters, or surrogates, to make the rounds on local and national TV throughout the week to talk about the party and the nominee.

At the end of the convention, the team had done "almost 1,000 local TV interviews alone" and "nearly the same for national radio, national print, as well as hundreds of national TV bookings," according to a memo sent by Kirsten Kukowski, communications director for the convention. Those numbers are short of the more than 2,100 regional media interviews; 1,551 radio interviews; and more than 400 network cable interviews the team booked in 2012.

In an email, Kukowski said that the numbers weren’t final and that comparing this year’s interview numbers to 2012’s was an “apples to oranges” comparison because it was set up differently.

“It was an unconventional convention and as with any large event with millions of viewers and tens of thousands of participants, there are challenges — things change and you have to call audibles, technology doesn’t always work the way you want it to, the campaign has priorities that we all adjust to, and we all fill in gaps as people move from entity to entity,” she said.

Before the convention even ended, several volunteers had fled Cleveland at their own expense because of what they described to BuzzFeed News as a communications staff in disarray.

The volunteers — many of whom are staffers who work in the House and the Senate — weren't each given credentials to even enter the Quickens Loan Arena, where the convention was taking place, making it logistically complicated for them to get surrogates on TV. "We had to check credentials in and out like we were in elementary school," said one of the volunteers.

They also said they weren’t sure of what their assignments were, what their shifts were, and were given little direction.

Some of the volunteers are now putting together a memo with their feedback for the GOP with specifics on the disorganization.

One of the biggest issues was that the technology system that was supposed to be used to book interviews broke down on the first day, leaving volunteers to start from scratch. Volunteers also say there was also no list of regional media contacts — typically a big focus for coverage during the convention — and they were asked to google names and put one together last-minute. (Convention organizers maintain there were comprehensive lists available for every state.)

With the technological problems, volunteers started relying on their own contacts to book interviews with top Republicans. That move was criticized by deputy director of media affairs Ninio Fetalvo, because it did not follow a process put in place to ensure that the surrogates were Trump supporters. Fetalvo became essentially in charge of media affairs when the director Pam Stevens took on different role for the convention. (A gif of a Saturday Night Live skit in which Chris Farley is a professional wrestler called El Nino was emailed around by volunteers and later shared with BuzzFeed News as a joke when Fetalvo came up.)

Still, some Republicans maintained that the media operation did what it was intended, and there is a natural element of chaos.

“I think the overarching story is despite a couple of hiccups, people were able to step up and pick up the pieces,” said Lyndsay Keith, deputy director of communication for the RNC’s Committee on Arrangements Organization.

Although TV viewership for the event was down, convention organizers are touting their "digital footprint.” The convention reached 18 million views on Facebook Live and 4.5 million on YouTube.

Volunteers who have worked on past conventions described the extent of this year’s issues within the communications staff as something they haven’t experienced before. And those who have run communications for past conventions declined to comment on specifics, but said an event of this scale is bound to be chaotic.

"The question is what is being done to manage the chaos and feed a voracious media appetite,” Matt Burns, who served as communications director for the 2008 convention, in an email.

"Anytime you are working with 300 communications professionals — many of whom are Type A and think they are the next Dana Perino or Ari Fleischer — you'll have second-guessing. The bottom line: There is very little separating success from shit show when it comes to convention media management. And as long as national political conventions are planned, there will be a market for cigarettes and Diet Coke.”

James Davis, who was in charge of communications in 2012, said the creation of media row — an added space next to the convention center for interviews — was a positive development this time around. “Each convention works to build off the successes from the past conventions. The expansion of Radio Row to Media Row was a great idea, one that I am sure will be used again in 2020.”

And Mark Pfeifle, who ran communications in 2004, said polls would soon show if the event was a success: “All the hemming and hawing really doesn’t matter. The proof is in the pudding. If Donald Trump gets a positive poll bounce out of Cleveland, that’s a win.”

Correction: Ninio Fetalvo has been an RNC staffer for three years. A previous version of this story misstated his most recent role.

Courtesy Astrid Silva

PHILADELPHIA — The Democrats will be presenting a starkly different immigration message this week during their convention — especially around the issue of undocumented immigration.

At the RNC, Donald Trump described a violent America, which featured the suffering of innocents at the hands of vicious undocumented immigrants; the convention also featured people whose son or daughter had been killed by an undocumented immigrant.

In Philadelphia, the Democratic National Convention will present three faces from Nevada by way of Mexico: a young woman, Astrid Silva a DREAMer activist; and Karla and Francisca Ortiz, a 10-year-old U.S. citizen girl and her undocumented mother, who will all speak at the convention Monday.

In October 2013, after a lawyer repeatedly accepted money from the Ortiz family but didn't help them, immigration agents came to detain Karla Ortiz' father. His status, and her mother's, are perilous. They were given an order of deportation but were granted a stay after Sen. Harry Reid and former Rep. Steven Horsford intervened.

During the lead up to the February Nevada caucus, Karla Ortiz was in the audience for a Clinton event with DREAMers, including Silva, and their parents. It wasn't planned for her to ask a question, but she did, and the moment was captured by videographers that trail Clinton.

Karla Ortiz began to cry, asking Clinton to protect her parents. A glassy-eyed Clinton told the young girl she was being very brave and to let her do the worrying. From the experience, the campaign produced an ad titled "Brave" that was effective, particularly in Nevada.

After, in a note Karla Ortiz wrote to Clinton, obtained by BuzzFeed News, she said that growing up she went to court a lot and never knew why her parents were always crying.

"One day my heart hurt and they took me to the doctor," Karla wrote. "The doctor said that my heart speeds up and that he thought it was because I was afraid all the time. The doctor told my mom that she had to take care of my heart because fear could make me sick."

The moment on Monday will be striking. Karla Ortiz will speak, but so will her mother — in Spanish, with her daughter translating for her, a reality that many children of immigrants have dealt with for decades and continue to deal with.

"When you become the voice of your parent, you are thrown into being an adult when you are a kid," one Clinton staffer said.

Silva, the second DREAMer to speak at the DNC, will be one of the headliners Monday. Lorella Praeli, an activist turned staffer who is running the Latino vote program for the campaign, said DREAMers have been normalized in a way parents haven't been yet, which represents progress for the immigration movement.

She said Karla and Francisca Ortiz are excited and nervous. "They can’t really believe it’s happening, they see themselves as bringing us closer to the solution," she said.

Erika Andiola, an activist and Praeli's opponent on the Bernie Sanders side during the primary, agreed.

"I think definitely it’s a step forward," she said, noting that she also wanted people who are not eligible for Obama's immigration actions and an unaccompanied minor to speak.

"I’m glad that we have folks who are affected by immigration system that are actually speaking, telling their stories about them and their families," she said.

Alida Garcia, a 2012 Obama campaign veteran who works for Mark Zuckerberg's immigration advocacy group FWD.us, said that both Karla and Francisca Ortiz speaking was a sign of growth for the movement "and a more accurate reflection of who we’re fighting for when we talk about comprehensive immigration reform."

Out of the 11 million undocumented, DREAMers are only around 2 million of those, she said.

"Having a parent on stage is affirmation of who we’re fighting for when we want to pass immigration reform," she added.

In February, Karla Ortiz told Clinton she was afraid her parent's were going to be deported. Now she will share that message from the Democratic convention stage.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

PHILADELPHIA — The Bernie Sanders campaign considered demanding a private plane staffed and funded by the Democratic National Committee as part of negotiations with Hillary Clinton heading into this week’s convention, according to a Sanders memo obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The plane was to be used “for a series of fall rallies in battleground states,” according to the “Bernie 2016” memo, which was drafted in the days before Sanders’ sound defeat in the June 7 California primary, the contest that effectively ended his insurgent bid.

“This plane would be paid for by the DNC,” it reads.

The document reveals a campaign in its final days, considering whether to fight on with a “divisive critique” of Clinton, yet attuned to diminished influence inside the party.

Aides believed a tour of the battleground states would help keep Sanders center stage. The memo, titled “End Game,” also suggests that the Vermont senator’s campaign for Senate Democrats to “help deliver a majority and take credit for it” — one of several references throughout the four-page document showing the extent to which aides remained aware of opportunities to take “credit” amid decreasing “leverage.”

“As time goes on our leverage will diminish,” the memo reads.

“The more Sen. Sanders campaigns the more credit he can take for a Democratic victory and continue to keep his movement energized and in place.”

A copy of the memo was shared with BuzzFeed News after it was found on June 5 in a Los Angeles hotel, a DoubleTree where Sanders and his aides stayed that night. The document details the ways the campaign hoped to keep their candidate relevant and further his “political revolution” ahead of the convention kicking off here Monday.

Senior officials from the Sanders campaign declined to comment. The Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

The memo begins with a pressing question: Should Sanders concede defeat and endorse Clinton, appeasing the Democratic establishment? Or should he fight through the convention and “force a roll-call vote for the nomination,” re-opening “a divisive critique of Clinton” and casting the party’s controversial superdelegate system in a negative light?

The campaign concedes that the latter scheme would require a robust plan “beyond the scope of this memo,” but acknowledges that regardless of a delegate strategy or convention floor operation, Sanders would face “two difficult challenges”: attacking Clinton “on viability and substance,” and engaging “in divisive committee and floor battle over rules and credentials.”

In the end, of course, Sanders chose not to fight on much longer after California, conceding the nomination and endorsing Clinton several weeks after being defeated in the state’s primary.

Afp / AFP / Getty Images

Many Sanders supporters wanted the senator to fight on until the bitter end, but the document suggests the campaign never devoted much effort to planning for a process like that.

“Leaders who have remained neutral will likely start to endorse Clinton. The AFL-CIO and Senator Warren being the most prominent,” the memo reads. (The major union and the progressive senator both held off on endorsing Clinton until the end of the primary.)

“Some Sanders supporters/endorsers will also begin to call for a concession and some may goes as far as moving their support to Clinton.”

The memo is devoted largely to plans for a Sanders concession.

On the list: holding sway over powerful convention committees, crafting a “progressive platform” for the party, and the question of whether to remove chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Sanders is cast in the memo repeatedly as a kind of youth-whisperer for the Democratic Party and for Clinton, who struggled in the primary to win over young progressive voters.

On July 12, Sanders formally ended his campaign and endorsed Clinton at a carefully staged rally in New Hampshire, designed to showcase unity between two at times embittered campaigns. Some die-hard supporters refused to go quietly, and security guards reportedly stepped in to take away “Still Bernie” signs. For the most part, though, the crowd stood and cheered as Sanders and Clinton put aside their differences and joined forces.

The event was far different than the one proposed in June.

The memo describes a unity rally to be held “on or before June 27” — a month before the start of the Democratic convention, and two weeks before the eventual New Hampshire event. The Sanders team suggested sites for the rally aimed at showcasing Sanders’ strengths with younger voters in college towns like Ann Arbor, Mich., Bloomington, Ind., or Madison, Wis.

Even before the end of the California primary, the campaign was taken up with planning for what Sanders wanted to accomplish at the convention. Pro-Sanders forces succeeded this month in crafting a party platform that Sanders has praised as a victory. But the campaign was not able to unseat many of the convention leaders it wanted to remove, according to the memo, such as Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy and former congressman Barney Frank.

On Sunday, however, under fire from last week’s DNC email leak, longtime Sanders campaign enemy Wasserman Schultz stepped down as the party’s chair.

The rest of the memo is devoted to planning how to use Sanders in the fall campaign.

Sanders commanded large numbers of voters Clinton strategists desperately want to turn out in the fall in the campaign against Donald Trump, such as active progressives and younger voters. In the “End Game” document, Sanders aides hoped to use his connection with those voters to leverage a special role on the surrogate circuit for Clinton and Democratic candidates.

The memo notes that a plane would allow Sanders to keep up a robust campaign schedule.

The arrangement would have allowed a lifestyle similar to the one he became accustomed to during the latter months of his candidacy, when a large private jet, motorcade, and retinue of security and traveling staff were a part of his everyday routine.

It would also be a break with Sanders’ pre-campaign persona, when he was best known by his supporters and those in Washington as the guy who flew the middle seat in coach.

Read the full memo:

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

During his 2005 run for Virginia governor, Hillary Clinton's running mate Sen. Tim Kaine compared his position on abortion to that of then-President George W. Bush's.

Kaine's opponent in the race, state Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, attempted to paint Kaine as too liberal on the issue of abortion. To push back on these claims, Kaine's campaign blog cited an American Prospect article, in which Kaine compares his views on abortion to Bush's.

Kaine, whose voting record in the Senate is considered liberal, ran to the right during his 2005 race on issues like abortion, guns, religion, marriage, and fiscal issues. Kaine’s position was and is that while he personally opposes abortion as a Catholic, he will uphold and enforce laws protecting abortion rights.

"Is there moral unease about [the death penalty]? Sure there is. But remember, when you take an oath, the honesty principle, I think, is the first principle," said Kaine to the Prospect. "It is the same position President Bush has often stated about abortion. He is against abortion. He says, ‘The voters know my heart.’ But he has not done a single thing really to overturn Roe v. Wade."

"I feel like I am in exactly the same position as he is. I tell people what my heart is. I tell them I am good to my word when I take the oath," Kaine added. "Does it pain me that there are executions and that abortion is common? Yes, it pains me. But I believe the system of government we have —which is rule of law, not of men — is the best system there is on this planet, and it is very important that the leaders who run to lead and execute the laws of the state be able to say that they will do it, and to say it honestly.”

In the article, Kaine said he would support the right of women to make reproductive decisions early in the pregnancy.

"The law in Virginia right no is that the death penalty is the law of the land for the most serious crimes, and on abortion, the law of the United States is that women have the freedom to make their own reproductive decisions early in pregnancy, and I will honor those laws," he said. "If someone says, ‘Well, that’s wishy-washy,’ I say, ‘No, it’s not — it’s being true to my oath.’

The Clinton campaign has pointed to his Senate voting record when asked about Kaine's past comments.

During the 2005 race, NARAL's Virginia chapter said in a statement that they could not endorse Kaine because of his support for certain restrictions.

"There is no question that Republican Jerry Kilgore is an extremely anti-choice candidate who would sign a bill eliminating the right to choose in Virginia, and who might even sign legislation curtailing access to contraception for Virginians," they said in a statement.

"Tim Kaine, the Democrat, has said he would not sign such legislation, but he embraces many of the restrictions on a woman's right to choose that are opposed by NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia," it continued. "We cannot therefore offer any endorsement in this year's race for governor. Having said that, Tim Kaine has listened closely to our concerns during his campaign, while Kilgore's office did not even respond to requests for meetings on the issue. Between these two men, we see more hope for the women of Virginia in Kaine's candidacy and we are eager and willing to work with him on these important issues should he be elected."

In a statement in support of Kaine this weekend, NARAL noted they often disagreed with Kaine as governor, but praised his Senate voting record (100% with the group's scorecard).

"When he was Governor, Tim Kaine took positions we disagreed with and actively campaigned against. We’re pleased that since then, his votes and public statements have been consistently in favor of trusting women to make our own decisions. And as with all of our allies, we weren’t afraid to voice disagreement with him then and we will not be afraid to disagree, if needed, with him as Vice President."

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WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement officials are investigating the supposed Russian-led intrusion into the Democratic National Committee computer servers, the FBI told BuzzFeed News Monday.

"The FBI is investigating a cyber intrusion involving the DNC and are working to determine the nature and scope of the matter," an FBI spokesperson said in an email. "A compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously, and the FBI will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace."

The FBI would not say for how long they’ve been probing the intrusion, which was first reported by the Washington Post more than a month ago. An FBI cybersecurity official who left the bureau since the hack was revealed told BuzzFeed News he was unfamiliar with the incident.

It's the latest development in a bizarre story that has shaken the DNC on the eve of its historic convention in Philadelphia, sending its leader packing and reigniting furor over the party's nomination process. The intrusion skated under the radar until last Friday evening, when Wikileaks dumped a trove of nearly 20,000 DNC emails on its website. Republicans, including just-minted GOP nominee Donald Trump, said the documents revealed corruption in the DNC. The Clinton campaign, including campaign manager Robbie Mook, meanwhile, said the timing of the release was an attempt by Russia to meddle with American politics, and further stack the deck in favor of Trump.

The emails rolled an effective grenade into an already wild election cycle — but until Monday morning, Washington was oddly quiet.

Government officials both on the Hill and off remained confused over whether federal investigators were even involved in the case when asked by BuzzFeed News ahead of the FBI's announcement. No one was sure who had been given briefings or who hadn't, who was involved and who wasn't.

One intelligence official, whom BuzzFeed News talked to before the FBI announced their investigation, didn’t understand why the Bureau hadn’t gotten involved back when the intrusion was first reported.

The lack of clarity on the FBI's investigation “fascinated” the U.S. intelligence official, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive cybersecurity incident. Why the Democratic National Committee had sought a private investigation from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike rather than immediately request law enforcement support perplexed him, he told BuzzFeed News, especially after the results of that investigation pointed towards Russian hackers. If there really was hard evidence of state-sponsored involvement, ”the FBI would almost certainly have been involved" from the get-go, he said.

The Bureau has frequently jumped out ahead of large-scale cyber intrusions, especially those suspected of coming from a foreign government. When Sony Pictures’ systems were breached by North Korean-sponsored hackers in 2014, it took only a week for the FBI to get involved. In contrast, the FBI stayed on the sidelines for more than a month in this case, despite the hackers supposedly having access to DNC networks for up to a year.

Part of the disconnect appeared to be that Washington’s lawmakers and their staff are on their annual summer recess — a traditionally slow time within the Beltway — and were having a hard time getting on the same page.

“It’s tough for committee members to get to secure locations for classified briefings while they’re back in their districts, so [House Intelligence Committee] staff in DC is looking into it,” one intelligence committee staffer said.

Sanders “Outraged” By Leaked Emails Showing DNC Staffers Criticizing Him

Before Hacking, The DNC Mocked A Report Questioning Its Cybersecurity

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PHILADELPHIA — Hillary Clinton’s campaign dismissed the “Lock Her Up!” shouts that rang out from a pro-Bernie Sanders march here on day one of the Democratic convention, echoing chants heard from Republicans last week in Cleveland.

"I don't think that's a consensus sentiment at all," said Clinton national press secretary Brian Fallon, asked about whether Democrats can expect to the same vitriolic language that overtook much of the Republican National Convention.

The chants came on Monday morning during a march in downtown Philadelphia, organized independently of the Vermont senator's former campaign.

Supporters were sporting "Hillary For Prison" t-shirts and signs.

Sanders endorsed Clinton at a carefully managed rally in New Hampshire on July 12, and the two campaigns have made an effort to collaborate ahead of this week's convention, aimed at contrasting a unified Democratic Party with the GOP.

But amid this week's ongoing controversy over leaked emails from the DNC, culminating Sunday in the resignation of party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Sanders diehards have reignited to efforts air concerns about Clinton favoritism.

Some Sanders activists have launched the so-called Bernie Delegates Network, boasting 1,250 Democratic delegates, and told reporters Monday they believe they can mount a challenge to Clinton's vice presidential pick, Sen. Tim Kaine.

Fallon, speaking to reporters after a press briefing here, dismissed the idea that in the end, Sanders voters will flock to Donald Trump: "There’s been a way overwrought narrative about the idea that Bernie Sanders supporters are in play for Donald Trump." Sanders and his aides, Fallon argued, "would dispute that notion."

Last month, a Bloomberg Politics national poll found that 40% of Sanders supporters said they wouldn't vote for Clinton, and 22% would vote for the GOP nominee.

"Everything that Donald Trump stands for is antithetical to everything that the Sanders movement was all about during this primary," Fallon said.

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Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry last week defended Donald Trump's controversial comments on NATO, saying he doesn't a have a problem having a discussion about the United State's role in the organization.

Last week, Trump told the New York Times, as president the United States, he would not automatically defend the Eastern European Baltic states if they were invaded by Russia. Trump’s comments shocked many, and led to a series of tweets from Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the Estonian president, about how his country fulfilled its NATO obligations.

In an interview with Fox News radio's Kilmeade and Friends, Perry said, "Well, I don't have a problem having a conversation about NATO, our role in NATO, and what our NATO allies have not been doing."

"And, I think that's really what Donald Trump's talking about there from my perspective, is, we should have a conversation,” he continued. "If you're gonna be in NATO, here's your responsibilities, if you don't live up to those responsibilities you need to get out."

Perry said there should be a conversation about if NATO is an organization the U.S. should be involved with.

"We need to clearly send a message to these NATO partners that, here's the rules, here's the way you're gonna operate within NATO, and if you can't do that, then we really need to have a conversation, 'is NATO the organization that we need to be engaged with and what is everybody's responsibilities gonna be.'"

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As a member of Richmond, Virginia's city council in 1997, Tim Kaine proposed barring non-resident drug offenders from entering the city for a period of time as part of their sentence, according to local news reports at the time.

Kaine argued at the time that his proposal, which would have targeted those convicted of drug offenses inside Richmond's city limits, would be prohibitive enough to deter illegal activity.

As the senator from Virginia, Kaine has pushed for legislation addressing what he has called a policy of over-incarceration and has been outspoken about addressing the problem of heroin addiction in his state. But, like his Democratic ticket-mate Hillary Clinton, Kaine was much more aligned in the 1990s with the so-called "tough on crime" movement, pushing for longer sentences and tougher punishments for drug and violent crime offenders.

Crime measures passed during this time are widely viewed to have disproportionately impacted black Americans, and Clinton herself has had to answer for comments she made and proposals she pushed for on this issue during the 1990s.

Kaine's proposal on the Richmond city council came at a time of soaring homicide rates in city, which the city's police chief attributed to a power vacuum caused by the jailing of established drug dealers. Kaine's solution was to ban "outsiders" who, according to the Richmond Times Dispatch, he referred to as ''people coming in and treating the city as their toilet.''

The Times Dispatch wrote an editorial criticizing the plan as unconstitutional because it would potentially violate the first amendment guarantee of a person’s right to peaceably assemble.

In a letter to the editors of the newspaper dated April 21, 1997, Kaine pushed back on the criticism, saying the Times Dispatch misinterpreted his proposal.

“I simply asked whether we can impose as a sentencing condition on outsiders who commit drug crimes in the city a mandatory period where they may not enter Richmond for any purpose,” Kaine wrote. "This, along with jail time for users, would make the consequences of drug use prohibitive."

He continued, "Many of these non-Richmond criminals earn their livelihoods within the city's boundaries. Threatening to disrupt that livelihood might deter their illegality."

In response to criticism, Kaine wrote that he had asked the Richmond city attorney to study the idea, but there is no evidence it developed into anything other than just a proposal. Despite Kaine’s defense, in a year-in review the Times Dispatch declared his proposal as a “1997 Raspberry,” an title bestowed by the paper on some of the worst stories of the year.

In response to a request from BuzzFeed News, the Clinton campaign did not comment on Kaine's proposal.