The presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders is accusing the Democratic National Committee of “actively attempting to undermine” its bid and assist Hillary Clinton after the committee suspended its access to a voter data system six weeks before primary voting begins.

The DNC instituted the penalty after it says it discovered that members of the Sanders campaign had “inappropriately and systematically” accessed Clinton campaign data following a breach in the system operated by an outside vendor.

But in a press conference on the steps of his campaign headquarters in Washington Friday afternoon, Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver contended that the punishment was an “inappropriate overreaction” that shuts down his team’s ability to tap critical information that is “the lifeblood of any campaign.”

“The Democratic National Committee is now actively attempting to undermine our campaign. 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,” Weaver told reporters.

Weaver said this move, coupled with the DNC’s scheduling of two of six Democratic primary debates on Saturday nights, shows a disturbing pattern of conduct.

“It looks like they are trying to help the Clinton campaign,” he said.

It’s an arresting charge to make on the eve of the third Democratic debate, which will take place Saturday night in Manchester, New Hampshire, just six days before Christmas. The last debate also took place on a Saturday evening, one night after the Islamic State group’s terrorist attacks in Paris. Both Sanders’ and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s campaigns have complained that the number of debates have been limited and scheduled during obscure time slots to shield Clinton from unwanted exposure.

“Closeting the Democratic debates appears to be part of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s knavish service to the Clinton campaign, rigging the rules to shield the front-runner from frequent or widely watched debates that might give oxygen to her opponents,” wrote Robert Borosage, the president of the liberal group Campaign For America’s Future.

Nonetheless, Saturday night’s debate will offer a platform for Sanders and O’Malley to puncture Clinton’s double-digit polling lead. While the timing means the DNC’s feud with Sanders is likely to arise in the questioning, it’s unclear if the candidate himself will lob the same charges his top advisers have. Sanders did not appear at the press conference on Friday and has so far been reluctant to dive into the weeds of campaign minutae, preferring to stick to the substance of his economic platform.

The details of the data breach are quite technical and tedious.

The DNC uses a single technology company -- NGP VAN -- to house data on voters that individual campaigns accumulate. A firewall is in place so that competing campaigns can’t see one another’s data. But earlier this week, for about 45 minutes, the firewall failed and members of the Sanders campaign had access to Clinton’s file. The Sanders’ campaign acknowledges this much, called its snooping “unacceptable” but “isolated,” has fired one staffer and is reviewing the conduct of others potentially involved.

“In the heat of these campaigns, sometimes young people make mistakes,” Weaver said.

But he maintains that the campaign has made certain none of the compromised information was utilized and that it does not currently possess any of Clinton’s voter data.



DNC chair Schultz said in a statement that until the DNC can verify the Sanders’ campaign full accounting of events, she had ordered NGP VAN to suspend Sanders’ access to the system.

“When we receive this report from the Sanders campaign, we will make a determination on re-enabling the campaign’s access to the system,” Schultz said. Time reported Friday that the Sanders breach may be even more serious than originally detailed, with a source claiming that Sanders’ team created at least two dozen new voter lists “consisting entirely of data pulled down from the Clinton campaign’s database.”

The Clinton campaign said in a statement that it had been informed that data from 25 searches had been saved into the Sanders campaign account, and through a spokesperson asked the Sanders campaign and the DNC to “ensure that our data is not in the Sanders campaign’s account.”

Still, the DNC’s disciplinary action, according to Weaver, “is taking our campaign hostage.”

He argued that Schultz’s suspension of their account makes it even more difficult for the Sanders campaign to conduct the thorough review the DNC is demanding. But more practically, he said it hamstrings the campaign’s efforts to reach its supporters and volunteers.

“When we have people come to our campaign headquarters to call volunteers or to call voters to talk to them about Bernie Sanders’ campaign to transform America, we can’t generate phone numbers to do that. It’s impossible to mobilize the kind of grassroots campaign we have without access to that data,” Weaver explained.

But when asked by U.S. News if Schultz’s move makes it impossible for Sanders to be successful, Weaver said the punishment may serve to light new fire under his candidate’s movement.

“It does not make it impossible to win because I think people across this country -- and I think we’re beginning to see it now already online -- are outraged by this conduct by the DNC, which is clearly a heavy-handed attempt to undermine this campaign,” he said.

The liberal political action group Democracy For America launched an online petition telling the DNC to “stop blocking Bernie’s voter file access now.”

MoveOn.org, another progressive ally, said that since it was the DNC itself that failed in its responsibility to secure the voter data file, it should restore Sanders’ access as it audits the practices of its own vendor.

Weaver said he was prepared to take the DNC to court as early as Friday if the committee did not relent, a prospect which looked unlikely.

But the entire episode will only harden the animosity between the hardcore progressives of the party backing Sanders’ insurgency and the establishment powers, which have always been more inclined to protecting Clinton.