Representatives of Vice President Joe Biden's team met this week with the Democratic National Committee, an indication that he is moving closer to challenge Hillary Clinton for the party's presidential nomination.
"I think it means he's running," a source told
The New Yorker magazine, which reported the development on Thursday.
Biden has not yet announced whether he will make a White House run.
Committee staffers briefed Biden's aides on the rules Biden needs to understand should he run, according to the report. Similar briefings were held with Clinton and the four other declared candidates.
The session provided specifics that only a serious candidate would be interested in, the New Yorker reports.
This includes data on how to get on the ballot in various states — whether by letter of the secretary of state or via a petition, for instance.
The New Yorker report comes after a Denver-based philanthropist and Clinton supporter, Scott Miller, donated to the effort to draft Biden for the White House.
Miller, a gay-rights activist, and his husband, Tim Gill, each gave $25,000 to the Ready for Hillary super PAC last year and have backed her candidacy,
Politico reports.
The pair is close to Biden, however, and they have now donated $50,000 to the Draft Biden effort. They have given the same amount to pro-Clinton groups, too.
In May, Miller was appointed to the board of Correct the Record, another pro-Clinton super PAC.
"To the extent that you are ever personal friends with a politician, I would put the vice president in that category," Miller told Politico. "When I joined Correct the Record earlier this summer, I had no inclination that the vice president was even considering this."
He said that his ties to the Draft Biden group were "exactly the same as it was with the Ready for Hillary people from a financial standpoint," Politico reports.