Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver accused the Democratic National Committee of trying to “sabotage” the Vermont senator’s 2016 presidential bid.
Aides to the Sanders campaign had been accused of accessing proprietary information belonging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. One Sanders aide has already been fired by the campaign. The DNC has responded by suspending the Sanders campaign’s access to the party’s national database.
But the Sanders campaign fired back in a Friday press conference, saying the data was compromised by the incompetence of the DNC’s own vendors. Weaver argued that the DNC’s actions cut the Sanders campaign off from its own information, not just data belonging to Clinton or the DNC.
“The leadership of the Democratic National Committee is now actively attempting to undermine our campaign,” Weaver said outside the campaign headquarters. “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.”
Weaver insisted that Sanders was running a “clean” campaign and that that campaign does not possess or retain nay of the data. Furthermore, they claimed that a similar breach occurred in October, and at that time the campaign “alerted the DNC immediately” f the problem, but nothing was done about it. While the DNC’s vendors were responsible for the current data breach, Weaver said that no one on the Sanders campaign should have looked at it. He also said that further “disciplinary action” could be coming and that staff would be told to avoid even the “appearance” of wrongdoing.
But he saved his strongest words for the DNC, saying they had “stolen” the Sanders campaign’s data and were “actively trying to undermine our campaign.”
“We are going to beat Secretary Clinton on the issues. We don’t need dirty tricks,” Weaver said before calling for an independent audit of the DNC’s software company. The Sanders campaign said they would take the DNC to federal court “this afternoon” if that matter was not quickly resolved.
“In this case, it looks like they are trying to help the Clinton campaign,” Weaver said of the DNC. “We’re taking on the establishment, and I’m sure there are people in the democratic establishment who are not happy about the overwhelming success that Sanders is having all over this country.”
The DNC denied such allegations, claiming that their suspension of the Sanders campaign’s access to data was routine for such an issue. Both Sanders and underdog candidate Martin O’Malley have accused the DNC leadership of being biased in favor of Clinton, helping her by limiting the number of debates and scheduling them for times when few people will watch.
DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz insisted that the Sanders campaign had “inappropriately and systematically accessed Clinton campaign data” and thus “violated” the agreement all primary campaigns signed with the committee. She said that once the investigation between the Sanders campaign and the DNC is complete, they “will make a determination on re-enabling the campaign’s access to the system.”
“We are working with the Sanders and Clinton campaigns and [vendor] NGP VAN to establish all of the facts and move forward as quickly as possible,” Wasserman Schultz said “Our primary goal at this moment is to ensure the integrity of the data so that the campaigns — and the entire Democratic Party can continue the important work we do of connecting with voters on the issues that matter most to them.”
