In a move that should unleash harsh criticism and recriminations, the Democratic National Committee has decided against publicly releasing its long-awaited report on the 2024 election, which could end up protecting key actors inside the party from accountability over the blown but winnable contest.

The DNC has completed the report after extensive data analysis and hundreds of interviews in all 50 states. But according to a DNC official, the committee determined that releasing it would spark a media frenzy and retrospective finger-pointing that could divide the party and distract from its winning streak in recent elections.

“Here’s our North Star: does this help us win?” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement given to The New Republic and a handful of other media outlets in advance of its wider release. “If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission.”

In the statement, Martin called the completed report a “comprehensive review of what happened in 2024” and said the party is “already putting our learnings into motion.” The decision that releasing the report would work against the party, Martin suggested, emerged from “conversations with stakeholders from across the Democratic ecosystem.”

But if the report is “comprehensive” in its look at 2024, keeping it secret raises more questions about who specifically inside that “Democratic ecosystem” will benefit from its remaining under wraps.

Take, for instance, the Future Forward super PAC, which had a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars for the 2024 contest. Well before Election Day, the PAC came under harsh criticism from some Democrats who argued that........

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