But, then there's that other agreement Clinton had ...

In a letter to DNC members, Chairman Tom Perez noted that the party reached joint fundraising agreements with both Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. "The joint fundraising agreements were the same for each campaign except for the treasurer, and our understanding was that the DNC offered all of the presidential campaigns the opportunity to set up a [joint fundraising agreement] and work with the DNC to coordinate on how those funds were used to best prepare for the general election."

That may be true — but two Democratic officials tell NPR that Brazile and Perez are referring to two different things. In addition to that joint fundraising agreement the DNC reached with both campaigns, the party and the Clinton campaign struck that separate memorandum of understanding giving the campaign staffing and policy oversight.

That document was signed on Aug. 26, 2015 — before, among other things, Vice President Joe Biden ruled out a run for president.

The DNC has not denied this characterization or timeline. ...

Sanders and his supporters have long alleged that the DNC tipped the scales in the 2016 primary. A frequent piece of evidence cited for this was the decision to hold debates on weekends when viewership would be lower. Emails released by WikiLeaks on the eve of the 2016 Democratic National Convention showed that some DNC staffers favored Clinton and were vocal about it. U.S. intelligence believes those leaked emails originated with Russia's efforts to disrupt the 2016 campaign.

Interesting "strategy" of the DNC that, to hold debates on week-ends so as not to invite too much of that Bernie support (recall after each and every debate, his numbers went up and hers went down). But Brazile's hands aren't exactly clean.

Brazile herself was eventually at the center of that controversy. Emails hacked from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and released by Wikileaks showed that Brazile, a former CNN commentator, passed along details about questions Clinton would receive at a primary debate and a candidate forum hosted by the network. Following those revelations, CNN ended its relationship with Brazile.

http://www.npr.org/2017/11/03/561976645/clinton-campaign-had-additional-signed-agreement-with-dnc-in-2015

I would have preferred Bernie to run as an independent (that is, after all, what he really is in that no democrat since B. Clinton would be recognized as anything other than a Liberal Republican by a genuine Democrat). But then I would also prefer to live in a country where the entirety of our body politic wasn't owned by the Banker/Big Pharma/Big Insurance/Big Oil/MIC class. But such is not the case.

The DNC didn't like that "an outsider" could come into their primaries and remind their base (who never has anywhere else to go) what a real Democrat looks like. It didn't help matters that the DNC and all established democrats since 1992 were repugnant enough to real Democrats that Bernie's camp felt no compulsion to help this other wing of the Plutocrats Party survive. So, they got angry with him. He was showing them up and worse, wouldn't bail them out financially. They, therefore, had no difficulty with allowing his competitor's campaign (herself a tried and true member of the oligarchical wing of the democratic party) to control "strategy, messaging and personnel." That all makes sense. The DNC was trying to save itself and had Bernie won (and therefore have had control of the DNC) then all the corporate shill lackeys that have had control of the democratic party since B. Clinton would be out on the streets. To make matters worse, they were hosting him in their primaries and the ungrateful bastard wouldn't pay them off. And they'd grown very accustomed to being paid off.

So, was the nomination rigged in the sense that votes were changed? I don't think so. But I do think, and am confident the evidence suggests, that the DNC did not want this outsider transforming its party back into the party of Roosevelt. I do think when decisions had to be made about how many and when to have debates, this anti-Bernie bias played into the decision making. How much that affected the ultimate outcome, I don't believe anyone can say.

The Superdelegates were supposed to keep an outsider (read: non-corporate shill) from having any chance of winning the nomination. It's worked pretty well so far. But 2016 looked like it might actually be a year in which the superdelegates alone could not keep a Progressive at bay.