Hitchcock, the Committee's Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council director until he was terminated, filed the suit in April 2007 seeking monetary damages. In June 2007, DNC counsel Joe Sandler issued a statement explaining that the "DNC strongly believes that Donald's charges have no merit and the DNC is committed to defending its position vigorously in court."

Contacted by PageOneQ for comment, Hitchcock's attorney Lynne Bernabei said that due to confidentiality agreements signed before mediation, she could not comment.

A source close to the case says that documents placed under a confidentiality agreement by the DNC and Hitchcock's lawyers will be released as part of a jury trial, should the case proceed. The documents, the source claims, will be damaging to the defendant's case.

Hitchcock told PageOneQ yesterday that he "cannot comment on the mediation due to a confidentiality agreement. As I have stated before, and now with a judge refusing to throw out the case for lack of merit, the DNC and its agents have to face the facts, take responsibility, and be held accountable."

The Washington Blade reported on the lawsuit in June of 2007:

A former gay outreach adviser for the Democratic National Committee has sued the organization, alleging discrimination.

In a lawsuit against the DNC, its chair, Howard Dean and two party officials, Donald Hitchcock says he was the target of discrimination, retaliation and defamation during and after his tenure as director of the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council.

The lawsuit was filed April 17 in D.C. Superior Court. Responses were filed May 31.

Hitchcock, who joined the DNC in June 2005, was fired May 2, 2006. The termination came days after Hitchcock's domestic partner, Paul Yandura, a longtime party activist, sent an open letter to gay Democrats saying Dean failed to adequately defend gay rights.

Yandura's letter, sent in April 2006, criticized Dean and the party for not getting involved in state ballot measures seeking to ban gay marriage. It also suggested that gays should temporarily withhold donations to Democrats.

In a March 2008 update to the case, the Washington Post's Mary Anne Akers wrote about depositions in the case:

Until now, for the most part, the lawsuit, which Dean's spokeswoman calls "absurd," had remained safely out of the mainstream press.

Hitchcock filed his suit against the DNC last spring, a year after he was fired, alleging the DNC discriminated against him because he's gay and retaliated against him because his life partner, well-known Democratic activist Paul Yandura, publicly criticized the Democratic Party for not doing more to fight anti-gay ballot initiatives. Hitchcock is asking for unspecified damages and severance pay.

The lawsuit and Dean's deposition, a copy of which was obtained by the Sleuth, has dredged up long simmering tensions between the DNC and gay Democrats.

The suit charges that a campaign of infighting, discrimination and retaliation led to the illegal firing of Hitchcock after his partner, former Clinton appointee Paul Yandura, criticized the Party for what he claimed was a lack of support for LGBT causes, especially on the issue of defeating anti-gay ballot measures.

Hitchcock was fired less than a week after Yandura's criticisms became public. According to Hitchcock, the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council, of which he became the director in June of 2005, was created specifically to raise funds from LGBT supporters. The Party, he says, had no interest in being politically involved in LGBT issues otherwise.

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