The head of the Democratic National Committee is distancing herself from the effort to raise money for her party's 2012 convention in Charlotte, which fell millions short despite breaking a pledge to forgo cash from special interests.
At a campaign event Thursday in North Carolina, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz said she knows nothing about the sources for the $24 million raised by the convention's host committee, an amount well short of its $36.7 million goal.
To make up the gap, organizers spent $5 million donated by corporations to rent the convention hall and borrowed $8 million more from a credit line underwritten by a corporate partner.
Wasserman Shultz pledged in Charlotte last year that the convention would be paid for without money from corporations, lobbyists or political action committees.