Sen. Bernie Sanders delivered a superficial apology to Hillary Clinton at Saturday night's Democratic debate. He said his campaign was wrong for breaching her confidential voter records, but at the same time, he accused her campaign of breaching his.
"I apologize to Secretary Clinton," Sanders said.
"I look forward to working with Secretary Clinton for an independent investigation about all of the breaches that have occurred from day one in this campaign, because I am not convinced that information from our campaign may not have ended up in her campaign," Sanders said, an accusation that has not been backed up by public information.
Clinton, whose campaign called the incident "a very egregious breach," accepted Sanders' apology and said she now wanted to "move on" — a line that earned applause from the crowd.
"Obviously we were distressed when we learned of it," Clinton said. "We should move on because I don’t think the American people are all that interested in this."
A Sanders campaign staffer improperly accessed confidential and valuable voter information that Clinton's campaign had built.
According to the Democratic National Committee, after accessing Clinton's data, "These staffers then saved this information in their personal folders on the system, and ... generated reports and exported them from the system," Amy Dacey, CEO of the DNC, wrote in a blog post. "None of this is in dispute. It’s fully documented in the system logs. And these details reveal nothing less than a serious violation of the agreements governing the use of this data."
The DNC suspended Sanders' campaign from viewing the voter files — essential information for campaigns to mobilize voters — saying the breach violated Sanders' contract with the DNC. The suspension led to a federal lawsuit Friday, which was promptly resolved giving back the Sanders campaign access to the files.
Clinton's campaign accused Sanders' campaign of theft over the issue, while Sanders' campaign sought to turn a war against the DNC into a winning one for his. In fact, Sanders' campaign says it raised "seven figures" over the issue, according to POLITICO.
I'm told by a campaign aide that Bernie Sanders brought in "seven figures" yesterday while news was developing of his war with the DNC— Gabriel Debenedetti (@gdebenedetti) December 19, 2015
But Sanders did not back off his attacks on the DNC for the suspension at the debate.
"What I have a real problem with, and I recognize this is a problem, but what the DNC did arbitrarily without discussing it with us is shut off our access to information, crippling our campaign," Sanders said.
Badly lagging in the polls and seeking to gain traction, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley tried to turn the voter-file fight into a winning moment for his campaign. He chimed in, saying it was an example of the kind of Washington "bickering" that he is not part of.
But that one line isn't likely to change the trajectory of O'Malley's campaign, which is stuck in single digits in polls. And it made O'Malley the butt of the joke on Twitter.
O'Malley demands to be heard saying the same things that have gained him no support before.— David S. Bernstein (@dbernstein) December 20, 2015
Martin O'Malley has no list of supporters worth stealing, begs people to go to his website— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) December 20, 2015