Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday said the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is not treating him fairly in the race for the party’s presidential nomination.
{mosads}In response to a question about whether the DNC handled his campaign’s breach of Hillary Clinton’s voter data fairly, Sanders responded: “I think in this instance they did not.”
He said the breach occurred because of a glitch in the party’s database, and the campaign had reported a similar issue several months prior.
“On two occasions now, Chuck, in the last three months, breaches have occurred as a result of the incompetence of DNC venders, there’s two separate venders,” he added. “And then what happened is, you know, the first time, our staff said, ‘Hey, we got information from the Clinton campaign.’ ”
“Second time, some of our staff screwed up, and I apologized for that,” Sanders said.
The senator added that his campaign did not intentionally try to take voter information compiled by Clinton’s campaign.
“As a result of a breach caused by the DNC vender, not by us, information came into our campaign about the Clinton campaign,” he said. “We did not go out and take it.”
The DNC suspended the Sanders campaign from accessing its own voter information over the breach, but restored his access after the campaign sued the party.
Sanders said the party’s response to the incident was a “complete overreaction.”
“To shut off our access to our own information, to significantly hinder our campaign was a complete overreaction and that was absolutely wrong.”