July 25, 2016 – CBS News

by Reena Flores

Fending off criticism over leaked Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails and on the heels of a public shaming at a Florida delegate breakfast during the party’s convention, embattled DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz could now face a formal legal complaint over some of the information in the hacked emails.

Tim Canova, Wasserman Schultz’s primary challenger for her Florida House seat, said Monday that he intends to launch a legal complaint over what he believes is evidence that the congresswoman misused DNC funds for her own re-election campaign.

“The Wikileaks emails indicate that Debbie Wasserman Schultz used DNC resources to assist her reelection campaign in violation of federal law,” Canova, a law professor, said in a statement. DNC officials, he added, used “party resources to monitor, respond to, and impede my campaign on numerous occasions.”

“The DNC was actually tracking our campaign down here,” Richard Bell, a Canova spokesperson, told CBS News. “That in and of itself is problematic — perhaps more for optics than anything else.”

“When [DNC members] start participating in those conversations and they start strategizing about our campaign, that becomes an issue,” Bell said. “Debbie’s campaign does not pay for those people…This would amount to an in-kind donation.” [READ MORE]