CBS NEWS: Data dispute rips open Democrats’ race before debate.
There’s a civil war inside the Democratic Party.
Hillary Clinton is accusing Bernie Sanders’ campaign of theft, saying the Vermont senator’s aides stole millions of dollars’ worth of voter data held by the Democratic National Committee.
The breach of information led to a suspension for the Sanders campaign, which then sued the DNC, but late Friday night, a deal was reached to clear up the mess ahead of Saturday night’s Democratic debate.
CBS News’ Julianna Goldman reports this dispute has laid bare tensions between the DNC and the Sanders campaign that had been simmering for months.
The Sanders campaign is accusing party officials of trying to undermine his campaign and to help Clinton.
Well, that’s because they are. I think Bernie should mount an independent run.
UPDATE: And I guess Hillary’s worried about that too: DNC, Sanders Reach Deal Restoring Access To Voter Data.
Related: Dem Rivalry Takes Nasty Turn.
The long-simmering notion among many grassroots liberals that the national party is in the tank for Hillary Clinton spilled into public view on Friday, as a nasty fight between Bernie Sanders and the Democratic National Committee tore into the open.
Some liberals have long held that the DNC’s sanctioning of fewer debates this cycle, with half of those debates taking place over a weekend, was an attempt by the national party to shield Clinton from scrutiny and ease the path to the nomination for the prohibitive front-runner.
But the Sanders campaign and supporting liberal activist groups didn’t start making that case publicly until Friday, when controversy erupted over the DNC’s handling of revelations that a Sanders staffer had been fired for inappropriately accessing Clinton voter files housed on a central party server.
Some Democrats believe that bringing the hammer down on Sanders — his campaign has been shut off from its own database of voter files until the situation is ironed out — hands grassroots liberals the ammunition they needed in a war they’ve been agitating for.
It’s clear that the DNC is just an arm of Hillary’s campaign.