Bernie Sanders Doesn't Mention Data Breach on the Road
— -- Bernie Sanders did not mention the DNC data breach controversy during his first public stop on the campaign trail since the news broke last week that some of his staff inappropriately viewed some of Hillary Clinton's campaign data. The incident resulted in one member of his campaign staff being fired and two others suspended.
Sanders' campaign sued after it was temporarily cut off from the crucial database, though the campaign tells ABC News no new hearings have been scheduled. Access was reinstated Saturday after the Sanders camp agreed to provide information about the breach.
Sanders supporters in the crowd did not seem phased that the Vermont Senator left the topic out of his remarks.
Altman Studeny, a teacher and artist who drove two and a half hours to the event in Sioux City, Iowa, from Plankinton, South Dakota, said he thought the issue was addressed in the debate Saturday. “He acknowledged it and apologized for it,” Studeny said. “Now that it is out of the way, we can get to the real issues."
“People are fallible,” Studeny continued, talking about the fired staffers, “but that does not distract from real issue of flawed income inequality.”
Meanwhile, today, the Sanders campaign issued a new statement calling for a full audit of all of the DNC database vendors since "day one" of the campaign. His team continued to suggest that some of its data may have fallen into the wrong hands during earlier issues with system firewalls.
"We hope the Clinton campaign will join us in calling for a thorough, independent investigation starting from Day One in the campaign to review all possible data security failures that may have occurred at the DNC,” Michael Briggs, the Sanders campaign Communications Director said in a statement.
Speaking on MSNBC today, Hillary Clinton's press secretary, Brian Fallon, called for the Sanders campaign to dial back the rhetoric.
"Unequivocally, our campaign has never laid eyes on any data relating to the Sanders campaign," Fallon argued. "We've never done that to them, and they need to stop spreading this innuendo to try to make it seem like everybody's doing this. It was a severe breach. They shouldn't try to down play it. They should let the apology stand and cooperate with the audit to get to the bottom of this."
