Focus: Sanders and the Clinton Data Breach - Dec 19, 2015

According to news reports listed below, Sanders campaign staff conducted searches of data stored by Hillary Clinton's campaign and saved some of the files related to 10 early primary states, including Iowa and New Hampshire. "The staffers who secured access to the Clinton data included national data director Josh Uretsky, who was fired on Thursday, and his deputy, Russell Drapkin. The two other usernames that viewed Clinton information were “talani" and "csmith_bernie," created by Uretsky's account after the breach began. Though the Sanders campaign initially claimed that it had not saved Clinton data, the logs show that the Vermont senator’s team created at least 24 lists during the 40-minute breach, which started at 10:40 a.m., and saved those lists to their personal folders. The Sanders searches included New Hampshire lists related to likely voters, "HFA Turnout 60-100" and "HFA Support 50-100," that were conducted and saved by Uretsky. Drapkin's account searched for and saved lists including less likely Clinton voters, "HFA Support <30" in Iowa, and "HFA Turnout 30-70"' in New Hampshire.”

If this is true, Sen. Sanders owns an apology to the Democratic National Committee and to Hillary Clinton. Sen. Sanders should order a full investigation. All the staff involved should be removed from their jobs, fired or disciplined. It is possible that Sanders was unaware of the Clinton data breach and the staff members involved acted on their own without orders or knowledge from above. Sanders should abide by the DNC recommendations that, in order to regain access to the his voter file, he should provide "a full accounting of whether or not this information was used and the way in which it was disposed.”

Reports: 4 Sanders Staffers Searched Clinton Data And Saved Files - talkingpointsmemo.com

More on the Clinton Data Breach and Theft by the Sanders campaign staff - Democratic Underground

DNC's full statement on the voter data breach by the Sanders Camp - talkingpointsmemo.com

VIDEO: Debbie Wasserman Schultz Defends Suspending Sanders Access To DNC Data System - RealClearPolitics

Statement by IT company NGP VAN on DNC data security and privacy - blog.ngpvan.com

Sanders campaign manager Weaver threatens to sue DNC - TheHill

Statement by Jeff Weaver, Bernie Sanders 2016 Campaign Manager - Bernie Sanders

VIDEO: Bernie Sanders campaign manager Weaver threatens to DNC to court if data access not restored - YouTube

To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)