In what is evidence of a more significant story that we don’t know about yet, the DNC has yanked access to its databases from the Sanders campaign and the Sanders campaign is accusing the DNC of actively undermining his campaign.

What happened, in a nutshell, is this. The DNC has a contractor that runs a master list of Democrat voters. It rents the list to Democrat candidates. The candidates have the ability input data onto the list that is hidden from other candidates behind a password protected wall. So Sanders, for instance, can input canvassing information and Clinton’s operatives can’t see it. Well, the best laid plans of mice and men…

Officials with the Democratic National Committee have accused the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders of improperly accessing confidential voter information gathered by the rival campaign of Hillary Clinton, according to several party officials.

Jeff Weaver, the Vermont senator’s campaign manager, acknowledged that a staffer had viewed the information but blamed a software vendor hired by the DNC for a glitch that allowed access. Weaver said one Sanders staffer was fired over the incident.

 

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NGP VAN, the vendor that handles the master file, said the incident occurred Wednesday while a patch was being applied to the software. The process briefly opened a window into proprietary information from other campaigns, said the company’s chief, Stu Trevelyan. He said a full audit will be conducted.

In retaliation, the DNC has suspended the Sanders campaign’s ability to access the voter file which now includes all the information they have collected. In short, all the work Sanders staff have done canvassing is now off limits to them.

The Sanders campaign responded Friday by calling the staffers’ actions “inappropriate” but threatening to sue the DNC for what it calls “a heavy-handed attempt to undermine our campaign.”

“Rather incredibly, the leadership of the DNC has used this incident to shut down our ability to access our own information, information which is the lifeblood of this campaign,” said Sanders campaign chief Jeff Weaver.

“We are announcing today that if the DNC continues to hold our data hostage, and continues to try to attack the heart and soul of our grassroots campaign, we will be in federal court this afternoon seeking immediate relief,” he said.

Sanders is right. It is just sort of surprising that he is only now coming to the conclusion that the DNC is merely an arm of the Hillary Clinton campaign.