--- title: Democratic Debate: Sanders and Clinton Address Data Breach description: At the debate Bernie Sanders offered background on the issue, criticism of the DNC, an apology to Clinton and a hope to move forward. canonical: https://time.com/4156151/democratic-debate-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-data/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-20T01:56:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:46:47.676Z article:section: Politics og:title: Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton Address Data Breach og:description: It was the first question at the Democratic debate. og:url: https://time.com/4156151/democratic-debate-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-data/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfe7c2c07b9e3628b/69887638a988ca7bd26b5cea/sanders-clinton.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3500 og:image:height: 1969 og:image:alt: Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Senator Sanders addresses former Secretary of State Clinton about the campaign data breach scandal during the Democratic presidential candidates debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton Address Data Breach twitter:description: It was the first question at the Democratic debate. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfe7c2c07b9e3628b/69887638a988ca7bd26b5cea/sanders-clinton.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton Address Data Breach > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Dec 20, 2015 1:56 AM UTC  Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders addresses former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the campaign data breach scandal during the Democratic presidential candidates debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire Dec. 19, 2015. Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders addresses former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the campaign data breach scandal during the Democratic presidential candidates debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire Dec. 19, 2015. Brian Snyder—Reuters  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Dec 20, 2015 1:56 AM UTC The first question of Saturday night’s Democratic debate went straight to the recent controversy in the party, allowing Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to respond to the breach by his staff that allowed him to access Hillary Clinton’s voter data. Sanders first offered background on the breach, saying that two months ago his staff also found information on their computers from the Clinton campaign. Sanders said that at the time “Our staffers said, ‘Woah what’s going on here?’ They went to the DNC quietly.” That, he added, was “exactly the right thing.” He then talked about the new data breach. “In this case our staff did the wrong thing,” Sanders said. “They looked at that information. As soon as we learned they looked at that information, we fired that person.” Sanders pivoted to the Democratic National Committee, criticizing the group for its handling of the issue, calling it an “egregious act” when the DNC “arbitrarily, without discussing it with us… shut off our access to our own information, crippling our campaign.” Sanders [has filed a federal lawsuit](http://time.com/4155942/bernie-sanders-voter-data-breach-lawsuit/?xid=homepage) against the DNC. The party has since allowed Sanders access to the data again. After Sanders called on former Secretary of State Clinton to agree to a joint independent investigation into the matter, he said he was sorry. “I apologize. Not only do I apologize to Secretary Clinton… I want to apologize to my supporters. This is not the type of campaign that we run, and if I find anybody else involved in this, they will also be fired.” Clinton accepted his apology and said she hopes now they can “move on.” “I don’t think the American people are all that interested in this,” she said, to loud cheers from the New Hampshire crowd. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4156151/democratic-debate-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-data/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4156151/democratic-debate-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-data/"},"headline":"Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton Address Data Breach","datePublished":"2015-12-20T01:56:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:46:47.676Z","description":"A quick apology to the frontrunner","url":"https://time.com/4156151/democratic-debate-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-data/","keywords":["Bernie Sanders","Hillary Clinton","democrats","2016 Election","Democratic debate"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfe7c2c07b9e3628b/69887638a988ca7bd26b5cea/sanders-clinton.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfe7c2c07b9e3628b/69887638a988ca7bd26b5cea/sanders-clinton.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Senator Sanders addresses former Secretary of State Clinton about the campaign data breach scandal during the Democratic presidential candidates debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester","caption":"Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Senator Sanders addresses former Secretary of State Clinton about the campaign data breach scandal during the Democratic presidential candidates debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester","creditText":"Brian Snyder—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/bernie-sanders/","name":"Bernie Sanders"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4156151/democratic-debate-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-data/","name":"Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton Address Data Breach"}}]}] ```