by Steve Timmer

May 21, 2016, 2:00 PM

Not just her thumb . . .

Sanders supporters have accused DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz of having her thumb or finger on the scale for Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination.

Personally, I think it’s a different part of her anatomy, because she is sitting on the scale. Cooking up the money laundry service known as the Hillary Victory Fund, which I have written about here and here, is to me, Exhibit A.

To recap the scheme, Hillary’s extra larger donors give a bunch of money to the HVF, which in turn gives a little of it to the Clinton campaign, a larger amount to the DNC — contributions to both are limited by federal election law — and the rest, that is most of it, to state Democratic party units, where the dollar limitations don’t exist. However, usually the very same day, the local party unit gives the same amount of money to a Hillary SuperPac. In Minnesota, nearly a quarter of a million dollars made touch and go landing with the DFL before being sent off, the same day, to an entity or entities supporting Hillary Clinton.

But if you ask, the HVF, the DNC, DWS, and the local Dems would tell you, perhaps even with straight faces, this is uncoordinated, and the most marvelous serendipity evah!

Clinton supporters have performed some amazing feats of legerdemain justifying the program.

It’s not money laundering and the bernie campaign could play, too! https://t.co/iNWDNGANzY

— John Cole (@Johngcole) May 19, 2016

John Cole neglects a few facts, of course.

One of them is that Bernie Sanders doesn’t have a SuperPac. He doesn’t want one. Second is that Bernie doesn’t have a cadre of large corporate donors, like the charming Alice Walton, who write big checks. Third, Bernie doesn’t have local party units in the bag.

Fourth, and probably most important, Bernie’s been a persistent critic of campaign finance and its abuses; it’s stunts like the Hillary Victory Fund that separate Bernie Sanders from Hillary Clinton.