Data breach sets off charges of theft in ’16 Democratic race

“After discussion with the DNC it became clear that some of our staffers irresponsibly accessed some of the data from another campaign”, Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager said in a statement.

That tension spilled into the open on Friday after the DNC cut off Sanders from a crucial voter database, saying the campaign wrongly accessed data gathered by Hillary Clinton’s team.

Throughout his insurgent bid for the White House, Sanders has cast himself as being above politics as usual. But officials said the vendor that runs the system, NGP VAN, ran a software patch on Wednesday that allowed all users on the system to access data belonging to other campaigns. “This is unacceptable. Individual leaders of the DNC can support Hillary Clinton in any way they want, but they are not going to sabotage our campaign – one of the strongest grassroots campaigns in modern history”.

Weaver says the campaign will file a lawsuit in federal court Friday demanding access to the database if the party does not restore it.

The DNC suspended the Sanders campaign from accessing the system-a punishment that has left them with no way of knowing where they are in the outreach process, just weeks before the first primary contests begin.

For instance, if the Clinton campaign’s data includes notes about certain voters who are easily persuaded to vote for a different candidate, the Sanders campaign could reach out to that voter and urge them for their vote.

It’s the latest dust-up involving the DNC and the three major Democratic presidential campaigns.

The now-former Sanders staffer would not comment on whether other members of his team were involved in testing the breach.

A summary of computer logs show that four aides to Vermont Sen.

NGP VAN is best understood as a giant portal through which the Clinton and Sanders campaigns can access their data on voter information.

The DNC maintains an extensive database of voter information, which it rents to campaigns.

Midway through the interview, Blitzer took a call from Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Clinton’s campaign, who called the Sanders campaign’s moves “an act of theft”. “We believe this audit should proceed immediately, and, pending its findings, we expect further disciplinary action to be taken as appropriate”, her campaign said in a statement. The candidates will debate Saturday starting at 8 P.M., and Clinton opponents have questioned why their debate is occurring on the last Saturday night before Christmas, when viewing is likely to be low. Across town, Bernie Sanders’ team was also working the phones and urging supporters to tune into the debate or attend a watch party.

“We are going to try to make sure that we can get them access to their voter file as quickly as possible”, she said.

“This was not an inadvertent glimpse into our data”, Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, told reporters on a conference call.

Neil Sroka, spokesman for Democracy for America, which endorsed Sanders Thursday, said his organization is looking into ways it can help Sanders, including possibly buying access to a database from NGP VAN, which sells voter information to Democratic and progressive campaigns and selling it to the Sanders campaign.

He added, “It is our information, not the DNC’s”.

Clinton’s campaign is also calling for “a full, independent accounting” into the staffers’ actions.

“Staff on the Sanders campaign not only viewed the Clinton campaign’s proprietary data, but from what we’re being told, downloaded it, exported it and downloaded it”, she said on MSNBC.

“Two months ago, shortly after our digital vendor that conducts modelling for our campaign told us that there was a failure in the firewall that prevents campaigns from seeing one another’s data”. Those contributions paid for the data that the DNC has stolen.