On May 5, 2016, Florida Rep. and then-DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz sent an email to two of her Congressional staffers as well as two DNC employees -- newly-hired director of Jewish engagement Aaron Weinberg and senior communications director Ryan Banfill.
"We need to do a statement from the DNC. Is there a reason we haven't?" Wasserman Schultz asked in the email, which had the subject line "Yom Hashoah statement." Yom Hashoah, which is also known as Holocaust Memorial Day, began the evening of May 4 and ended the followed evening, May 5.
Banfill forwarded Schultz's email to another DNC staffer, Kate Houghton. "Flagging for you. The chair is asking for a statement on Yom Hashoah," Banfill wrote.
"We aren't going to do statements for every Jewish holiday unless she wants to do them for every religious holiday and trust me, this Catholic can give you a list of them," Houghton replied. "Also when she does an official statement it makes very little sense to have two statements out there in her voice."
Banfill appeared to send a tongue-in-cheek response: "This is about remembering the Holocaust. Never forget."
"Yup... or Darfur or Armenia or Rwanda or Bosnia (which PS is where my husband served)," Houghton replied. "Does she want us to do one for each other those remembrance days as well?"