Bernie Sanders’ campaign held a strongly worded press conference early Friday afternoon to address the events leading to the Democratic National Committee suspending his campaign’s access to voter files after four staffers reportedly took advantage of a screw-up by vendor NGP VAN to access Hillary Clinton campaign voter data.
At the press conference, campaign manager Jeff Weaver went on the offensive, claiming that Sanders campaign data was taken by another campaign when the firewall between campaigns was dropped in October, and that the campaign had reported the issue at the time. He said that, this week, staffers had “irresponsibly accessed” data from another campaign, that one staffer was fired and others might be disciplined, and that the campaign had ensured that the improperly accessed data would not be used. But Weaver did not go into detail on the extent of the “irresponsibly accessed” data, which Bloomberg reports includes “lists of [the Clinton campaign’s] likeliest supporters in 10 early voting states, including Iowa and New Hampshire.”
According to Weaver, the DNC’s suspension of Sanders campaign voter data is “actively attempting to undermine our campaign.” He directly suggested that this was an effort by Clinton supporters to sabotage the Sanders campaign to aid Clinton. And the Sanders campaign is ready to take action, Weaver said: “If the DNC continues to hold our data hostage and continues to attack the heart and soul of our grassroots campaign, we will be in federal court this afternoon seeking immediate relief.” Weaver described a “pattern of conduct” of the DNC favoring Clinton, including a debate schedule heavy on Saturday night debates.
Weaver said the campaign did not “in an official capacity” have any Clinton data. In response to the staffers accessing that data, the Sanders campaign has frozen email accounts of staffers suspected of accessing Clinton data and is conducting an internal investigation, though Weaver complained that the campaign’s ability to investigate was hampered by its suspended voter file access. The suspended access, of course, also greatly interferes with the campaign’s efforts to reach out to supporters and other voters.