BOSTON – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is taking a break from her Twitter war with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in order to blast her own political party and Washington’s most prestigious think tanks.
In an interview on Sunday with WCVB-TV, Warren, a darling of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party establishment, called the Democratic National Committee email scandal an “embarrassment to the party.” The leaked emails, which revealed party officials’ plans to undercut Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, led to the resignation of Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schulz, from the chairmanship of the DNC. On Sunday, Warren commended Wasserman Schultz’s decision to step down, saying the incriminating emails should never have been written. Hillary Clinton has since tapped Wasserman Schultz for a position on her staff, a move Warren said she does not “understand.”
The senior senator from Massachusetts also fired shots at what she calls the “thinly disguised lobbying” effort of corporate donors to Washington’s so-called independent “think tanks.” Her comments were featured in a New York Times article that accused the nation’s most prominent research institutes, including the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, of accepting donations tied to particular research outcomes. Warren alleges that corporations offer to fund particular research projects in return for a report that favors their interests.
The article points to the example of Rachel Stohl, a Stimson Center researcher who alleges that potential donors asked her what her conclusions would be before agreeing to fund the research.
Warren, a longtime critic of Wall Street, serves on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs. Warren recently endorsed Clinton for president after many months of refusing to publicly commit to a candidate and repeatedly criticizing the former Secretary of State’s ties to the investment baking industry. In an interview last week with WGBH’s Greater Boston, Warren said she now supports Clinton because of the Democratic nominee’s stated commitment to strict financial regulation of big banks and the Democratic Party’s socially progressive platform.
(AP photo) 
