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The Democratic National Committee (DNC) struck a deal with Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, reallowing his campaign access to their massive voter master list.
The DNC was singing a different tune from earlier this week, accusing Sanders of breaching confidential voter information from frontrunner Hilary Clinton’s campaign. But after speaking with Sanders, who sent over the information the DNC had been asking for since Wednesday, they gave access back to him and his staffers early Saturday morning.
The Sanders’ camp, which filed a lawsuit against the DNC, stood firm that the livelihood of their campaign would be seriously threatened if they did not have access to this critical list. With news that their access has been reinstated, they said in a statement, “We are extremely pleased that the DNC has reversed its outrageous decision to take Sen. Sanders’ data.”
But Sanders isn’t off the hook. The DNC has every intention of conducting a thorough investigation of the data breach to see the extent of how the information was used.
“The Sanders campaign has now complied with the DNC’s request to provide the information that we have requested of them. Based on this information, we are restoring the Sanders campaign’s access to the voter file, but will continue to investigate to ensure that the data that was inappropriately accessed has been deleted and is no longer in possession of the Sanders campaign,” the DNC said in a statement early Saturday, CNN reported.
According to ABC News, the Clinton campaign is also satisfied saying, “We are pleased that the Sanders campaign has agreed to submit to an independent audit… We believe this audit should proceed immediately, and, pending its findings, we expect further disciplinary action to be taken as appropriate.”
But how did this all happen?
The Sanders camp claims that this wasn’t an intentional hacking, but a direct result of a faulty firewall on Clinton’s database thanks to the software company NGP VAN, which manages both Sanders and Clinton’s files, said the Washington Post.
Josh Uretsky, Sanders’ former national data director (who was fired this week), told CNN that they downloaded emails to prove to the DNC that the data wasn’t being protected properly.
“We knew that what we were doing was being recorded…We didn’t try to be sneaky at all,” he admitted.
Regardless of whose side you are on, one thing is for sure: This cyber drama will definitely make for an interesting Democratic Debate tonight.
Will you be watching?
[SOURCES: CNN, The Washington Post, ABC]
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