Sanders campaign staffers intimating they were set up in data breach incident
Bernie Sanders has assembled a campaign of true believers in the left, who take his rhetoric seriously. But the candidate himself, when offered the opportunity to go for the jugular against the establishment’s chosen instrument, Hillary Clinton, has repeatedly backed off, raising the possibility he is nothing but a sham opponent. It would make sense for the Hillary forces, aware of anti-establishment discontent, to secretly want someone to capture the support of the far left wing of the Democratic Party and then gracefully lose to her, uniting at the convention without ever raising deep questions about her integrity, as with those “damn emails.”
Is there a split developing between sham opponent Bernie Sanders and his true believer campaign staff?
Hunter Walker, of left-leaning Yahoo News, has been talking, on and off the record, with key members of the Sanders campaign and discovers some very dark thoughts among them.
In a conversation with Yahoo News, a top Sanders campaign adviser made a series of explosive allegations about how the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and a political technology company that works with the party handled the incident. According to the Sanders adviser, the DNC and NGP VAN, a firm that has a contract with the party organization to operate a voter file, have responded to the data breach by “leaking information” and “stonewalling an investigation” into the matter.
“We have demanded a full investigation from top to bottom,” the Sanders adviser said.
There are hints that the Sanders campaign was set up in the data breach:
Because of the software issue, members of the Sanders campaign were able to access information that belonged to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. On Dec. 17, news of the incident broke and the Sanders campaign announced it had fired its national data director, Josh Uretsky, for taking advantage of the breach to access data belonging to Clinton. The top Sanders adviser told Yahoo News one of the remaining concerns is that Uretsky was recommended to the campaign by people with ties to the DNC and NGP VAN.
Send in Uretsky, have him leave digital footprints of the data breach set up by the firm NGP VAN, and Sanders abjectly apologizes. That’s the scenario played out, and it would indeed be a great way to take the wind out of the sails of an insurgent campaign from the left, leaving Hillary in her favorite posture of victim.
The Sanders adviser described the fact Uretsky was recommended to the campaign by people with links to the DNC as astonishing in light of what happened. Specifically, the adviser pointed out that the campaign was slammed by Clinton’s team for the breach and punished by the DNC.
“I just think it’s utter hypocrisy on their part,” said the adviser. “I mean here we are being attacked for the behavior of an individual, which we ultimately fired. We agree he acted improperly, but it’s just amazing to me that this … individual that actually caused this trouble in our campaign was recommended by these guys.” (snip)
The adviser suggested the DNC and NGP VAN are “ignoring their own responsibility,” arguing that Uretsky’s references from people linked to the party and the company show both the DNC and NGP VAN “bear responsibility” for the incident. The world of progressive political consulting is a small one, and, as in other professions, it’s common for people to provide recommendations for those in their network. Still, given what happened with the breach, the adviser suggested Brown’s recommendation of Uretsky could be evidence of a conspiracy.
“I don’t know how you can more centrally connect this thing than those two entities,” the adviser explained. “Here we are being attacked by both of those entities when, in fact, they recommended this guy to the campaign.”
Of course, the danger to the Clinton campaign, should these suspicions grow, is that lefties will stay home next November. It is their enthusiasm that is necessary to power the turnout drives that get casual voters to the polls to cancel out the votes of well-informed citizens.
Stay tuned. One thing we know about lefties is that they cling to beliefs that enable them to sustain anger.