I don't understand, I thought that was the biggest surprise out of that trove of emails? It was a surprise to me, anyways.
"The leaks resulted in allegations of bias against Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, in apparent contradiction with the DNC leadership's publicly stated neutrality,[6] as several DNC operatives seemed to deride Sanders' campaign and discussed ways to advance Hillary Clinton's nomination. Later reveals included controversial DNC–Clinton agreements dated before the primary, regarding financial arrangements and control over policy and hiring decisions" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Commi...
"A new leak of internal emails from the Democratic National Committee appears to support the long-held suspicions of some Bernie Sanders supporters that the DNC was working against him." - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikileaks-dnc-bernie-sanders_...
I'm not meaning to be partisan about this. My point was that everyone is trying to manipulate the American public - both political parties, big companies, other countries, etc.
First, it wasn't really a surprise. Bernie Sanders isn't a Democrat, and doesn't have many/any allies in the party. So the notion the party, of which he isn't a member, would be derisive of him isn't controversial.
Second, if you read past the headlines, and look into the individual emails, you'll see the contents aren't all that shocking either, nor do they paint the elaborate picture of conspiracy against his campaign the headlines infer.
Of the thousands of emails that were leaked, only a handful of conversations even mentioned him, and none are evidence of any specific actions taken to thwart his campaign. Some idle chatter, sure, but nothing to the degree of "rigging!" that was often claimed at the time.
The whole story amounted to "The Democrats didn't like the not-Democrat that ran, and a few said so."
I think it was a bit more than what you describe, based on what the former chair of the DNC, Donna Brazile, wrote in her book:
“The agreement — signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and [Clinton campaign manager] Robby Mook with a copy to [Clinton campaign counsel] Marc Elias— specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised,”
“[Clinton’s] campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.”
We found out about this thanks to Guccifer, and to a lot of people what the DNC did was a big deal.
My original point was that everyone is trying to pull a fast one over on the American public, not just the Russian's. Republican's also, in case you are offended that we are talking about Democrats at the moment.
