Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said he was "disappointed but not surprised" by the contents of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee that showed DNC officials had been trying to undermine his bid to secure the party’s nomination for president.

DNC officials claimed publicly that they were not picking sides in the primary, since party rules prohibit them from backing one candidate over another.

"The Chairperson shall be responsible for ensuring that the national officers and staff of the Democratic National Committee maintain impartiality and even-handedness during the Democratic Party Presidential nominating process," the rule says.

Sanders claimed months ago that the system was rigged and that party Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her staff were secretly working for Hillary Clinton.

The release of the emails last Friday prompted Wasserman Schultz to resign as head of the party, but that doesn’t change the fact that the system was not what it purported to be.

One oft-cited clue was the schedule of debates, which were few in number and timed, Sanders’ supporters claimed, to attract the fewest possible number of viewers and limit Clinton’s exposure.

The emails show there was more to it than that.

DNC officials also coordinated with Clinton lawyers on messaging and strategy and an email from DNC Chief Financial Officer Brad Marshall showed an attempt to make Sanders’ religion a campaign issue: "It might make no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist."

It’s not likely that the DNC role was decisive in Clinton winning the nomination, but the emails show that the party that likes to think it owns the moral high ground on issues is as phony as the other party when it comes to the sordid business of politics.

Of course, there are a couple of simple explanations for why the DNC was secretly working to swing the party’s presidential nomination to Clinton.

The first is that the end justifies the means. Getting Hillary Clinton elected was the goal, and breaking the rules didn’t matter to the DNC. Besides, as the country learned from Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state in violation of State Department regulations, rules don’t apply where Hillary Clinton is concerned.

Of course, "the end justifies the means" was also the rationale Richard Nixon’s henchmen used to justify the Watergate break-in and series of political dirty tricks leading up to the 1972 election.

It’s also a safe bet that DNC officials never thought they would get caught. Then again, neither did the creeps who worked for Nixon’s Committee to Re-elect the President (which made for the wonderful acronym CREEP.)

The Clinton campaign’s response to the emails was to engage in typical "hey-look-over-there" misdirection. Robbie Mook, the campaign manager, blamed the Russians for hacking into the DNC system.

He might be right, but we doubt that Sanders’ supporters would care if the hackers were from Mars.

The fact remains that the Democratic establishment never wanted Sanders, but now they desperately need his legion of supporters – the same people they derisively dismissed as "BernieBros" in their emails.