Sen. Bernie Sanders blasted the Democratic National Committee shortly after the debate for shielding his opponent, Hillary Clinton, from scrutiny in the presidential primary.
“I think there is a desire on the part of the leadership of the DNC to protect Secretary Clinton,” Sanders told WMUR, a local New Hampshire outlet.
“I think everybody understands that Hillary Clinton, who I have a lot of respect for, is the establishment candidate,” he added.
Sanders said he thought the timing of the Democratic debate, which took place late in the evening on the Saturday before Christmas, was an “intentional” move to limit viewership of the event.
The Vermont senator also criticized the DNC for its handling of a data breach earlier in the week in which a campaign staffer, who was quickly fired, improperly accessed Clinton campaign data through a security hole left open by a DNC vendor.
DNC leaders responded by shutting Sanders out of his own campaign data, a move critics saw as an overreaction to what seemed like an isolated incident.
