"“Don’t forget what happened to the DNC,” I suddenly blurted out. Words started rushing out. I summoned that strength that comes from down deep. I had held it. I had taken all the hits. Hearing her voice was the first moment I understood how tired I was of taking it. What about the Russians? They had tried to destroy us. Was she going to help? I wanted to file a lawsuit. We needed to sue those sons of bitches for what they did to us. I knew the campaign had over $3 million set aside in a legal fund. Could she help me get this lawsuit started? And don’t forget the murder of Seth Rich, I told her. Did she want to contribute to Seth’s reward fund? We still hadn’t found the person responsible for the tragic murder of this bright young DNC staffer. You’re right, she said. We’re going to get to that. But she really had to go. She had made the call and checked it off her list, and I accepted after we said our good-byes that I might never hear from her again."

"I got to the office before noon on Sunday carrying a box of items I brought from home to make my office more personal. I had so much on my mind, I barely remember the drive there. When I turned onto South Capitol Street, I started to cry, but not about the situation the party was in. This would be the first time I entered the building since Seth Rich was murdered on the streets of DC on July 10, and seeing the building brought back grief about his death. He had been walking home from a local bar—and barely a block away from his apartment in Washington’s Bloomingdale / LeDroit Park neighborhood—when he was shot in the back in what police said was a robbery attempt. The police were there within minutes, and Seth was still alive and talking when they arrived, but he died later that morning at the hospital. I had just left Kai for the first time in six weeks to fly to the West Coast when I got the call that Seth had been gunned down. I started to cry when I heard the news and I had a hard time holding the tears in for the next two days. I called his parents right away to express my grief. On that Sunday after the convention, when I drove into the parking lot at the DNC, I felt that loss again. This was another thing I wanted to do while I was chair: pressure the mayor’s office to find out who killed Seth Rich."

"She didn’t press me too much as we sat on the deck. I think she wanted to leave the space open for me to start when and where my thoughts led me. I started with Seth. Only to Elaine could I say that I felt some responsibility for Seth Rich’s death. I didn’t bring him into the DNC, but I helped keep him there working on voting rights. With all I knew now about the Russians’ hacking, I could not help but wonder if they had played some part in his unsolved murder. Besides that, racial tensions were high that summer and I worried that he was murdered for being white on the wrong side of town. Elaine expressed her doubts about that, and I heard her. The FBI said that they did not see any Russian fingerprints there, but they promised to look into the case. I didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask more than that first question, but his death continued to tear me up inside."

"He said I needed to have more systems to protect myself. I needed motion-sensitive lights and a power backup system in case there was an outage so that I could be protected even if someone cut the power. He wanted me to prepare for the worst. There was a tone in this conversation that put me right back into the fearful world I had been trying to avoid with this escape to Cape Cod. He was not telling me everything he knew, but he was implying that whatever I was experiencing now was sure to get worse. He didn’t want to be too explicit over the phone, he said. We agreed to meet when I got back to Washington, DC. Knowing that I needed all of these things made me feel that I needed to also do things like this to protect the DNC. I was not just worried about myself but about the kids. Seth Rich was never very far from my mind."

"I remember the day I jotted down that advice in the sage green notebook I used for my cyberbriefings. At the top I put a gold-and-purple logo sticker from LSU, my alma mater, and at the left corner below, a midnight blue circle with white letters that said VOTE FOR SETH RICH. When I shut that cover after the conference call, I stood up from my desk to look out over the railroad tracks that first drew me to this room. Maybe I shouldn’t have my desk in front of this window, I thought. The space from here across the tracks was open. What if there was a sniper hiding in those trees across the way? For the first time since I moved in, I closed the blinds. That was what this election was doing to us: making us doubt the things that steadied us."

"Bernie and I took a walk away from the venue. He put his hand on my back as we walked, a gesture that drew me closer to him. I was thinking that he would ask me about the hacking and that statement by DHS, but he surprised me when he started talking about Seth Rich. A few weeks earlier, a Dutch television interviewer asked Julian Assange about Seth’s death. On the tape I saw of the interview, Assange fueled a conspiracy theory. He dropped his smirk and said, “Our sources take risks.” Assange was implying that Seth was a source for WikiLeaks! When the interviewer pressed him on his relationship with Seth, Assange left it vague, responding, “We do not comment on our sources. We have to understand how high the stakes are in this case.” I had been saddened by the crazy conspiracy theories that ignited on Twitter and Reddit. They wounded Seth’s family. I knew this accusation was not true. As Bernie and I walked, with his steady hand on my back, he asked me about Seth’s family, about his work at the DNC, and about his murder. I told him that after the second debate I was going to Nebraska to visit Seth’s family and help them plan the memorial and scholarship fund. This talk with Bernie was important to me. Bernie is no-nonsense. He asks good questions, and he’s always very grateful to people who tell him the truth. Sometimes when you are explaining something to a good listener you understand it better yourself. I told him my visit with Seth’s family was in three days. He asked me to send them his regards, and I promised I would."

"Several of my siblings said they wanted to come stay with me just until Election Night to make sure I was safe, but I told them no. All I could think about was Seth Rich. Had he been killed by someone who had it out for the Democrats? Likely not, but we still didn’t know. If they came after me like that, I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. This became a very heated conversation. I wanted to maintain my autonomy and not to cause anyone harm, but my colleagues were genuinely concerned for my well-being. Anne mentioned several people who had agreed to escort me, but I instructed her to thank those people and reaffirm that I would travel alone."

"Several of my siblings said they wanted to come stay with me just until Election Night to make sure I was safe, but I told them no. All I could think about was Seth Rich. Had he been killed by someone who had it out for the Democrats? Likely not, but we still didn’t know. If they came after me like that, I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. This became a very heated conversation. I wanted to maintain my autonomy and not to cause anyone harm, but my colleagues were genuinely concerned for my well-being. Anne mentioned several people who had agreed to escort me, but I instructed her to thank those people and reaffirm that I would travel alone."

"Every day I thought about Seth Rich. I had his picture on the wall of my office, along with our poster offering money to anyone who would help us find his killers. People in the office mentioned him to me frequently, some because they still missed him terribly and others because his death had made them feel unsafe. In the precious few days before the election, I did not want to increase the staff’s anxiety about their personal safety. This was why I had the technician come very early on a Sunday, before anyone would be at their desks. He could get in and out before anyone besides me and a handful of the senior staff knew what he was up to."

Continued below...