The head of the committee that helps elect Democratic candidates to Congress debated his Republican counterpart Thursday over whether politicians should be able to campaign for office using materials hacked or stolen from their political opponents.
Rep. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, argued over the use of hacked materials as both parties brace for the November midterm election and the opposition ads to be mounted in the months before then.
“There should be no stolen material or hacked material — and especially when it comes from foreign adversaries — in any of our campaigns,” Mr. Luján said during a breakfast event hosted by The Wall Street Journal and NBC News, CNN reported.
“Everyone needs to agree on this. They should not use it. It’s bad for America, it’s bad for our democracy,” Mr. Luján added, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Mr. Stivers, however, said he considered hacked material to be fair game for political campaigns as long as the information is already publicly available.
“I just think once something is in the public domain, it’s hard to suppress it. That’s all I’m saying,” Mr. Stivers said, according to CNN’s report. “And I’m not going to run down one of my candidates for using something that’s in the public domain if it’s out there.”
With just five months until the midterms, the debate over the use of stolen materials echoes concerns raised in 2016 when multiple targets within the Democratic Party — including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) — were compromised during a multi-pronged operation allegedly waged by the Russian government.
Separate from the widely-reported hacks suffered by the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman, the DCCC endured a similar breach that resulted in internal party data being leaked online and, in some cases, weaponized by Republican opponents vying for House positions.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat and House minority leader, responded to the hacks by urging House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan, Ohio Republican, to oppose campaigning with documents sourced by Russian cybercriminals.
“Russia’s cyberattack is an unprecedented assault on the sanctity of our democratic process. We must come together to say that defending our democracy from Russia’s meddling is more important than any advantage or disadvantage in this election,” Mrs. Pelosi wrote then.
The Russian government has denied meddling in the 2016 general election. Multiple U.S. federal law enforcement and intelligence officials have since warned that the 2018 midterms risk being compromised as well.
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